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Imagine that one day, while you are sitting in your house, watching the television, armed men in military uniforms wearing masks burst into your home, breaking down a door or a wall, shouting at you and your children to lie on the floor. The soldiers take away your husband and oldest son for questioning and they are held for weeks without trial. You hear that one of your neighbor's sons has been killed in a shootout with the army and the homes of another four neighbors have been demolished, leaving entire families homeless. A number of people you know, including an old woman and her daughter, have been killed. You cannot go outside, since the city is under a curfew. In the evenings, aircraft fly overhead and you are awoken, cowering in fright, from a troubled sleep, as a bomb goes off nearby. The power is cut and you are left in the dark and cold. You cannot go down the road, to the shops to buy groceries, for fear of being shot in the conflict that is now raging. Your best friend lost her baby and nearly died, because she could not go to the hospital. Another neighbor can no longer support his family, since his farm has been demolished.
Eventually, the soldiers and their tanks pull back for the moment, leaving
a trail of dead and wounded, of demolished homes, businesses and vehicles. You
sit waiting for the soldiers to come again, or drop bombs from the sky, in the
next round of reprisals. You know that the soldiers can act with impunity, killing
and destroying without any accountability. There is no one to address your concerns
to, no one to help you. Your children have no future. You and they are deeply
traumatized by the events you have lived through. Sometimes you wake up screaming
in the night, a flashback caused by post-traumatic stress syndrome.
This is the daily life of fear and intimidation faced by millions of Palestinians
living in the occupied territories.
Since the beginning of the intifada more than 700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces. Most were unlawfully killed; they included at least 150 children and 60 Palestinians who were assassinated. Palestinian detainees frequently suffer torture or other ill treatment under interrogation. Collective punishments against Palestinians include closures of towns and villages, demolition of more than 550 Palestinian homes and prolonged curfews. Amnesty International.
A range of policies adopted by the Israeli government over the past thirty-five years, towards the Palestinians has raised serious legal and moral questions and concerns over human rights abuses. Israel often claims that its policies are a response to security threats, with no malicious attempt to denigrate, subdue or harm the civilian population. However, not only the activities carried out by the armed forces, but public statements in the Israeli media by top government officials, as well as the public attitude, reveal a clear and intended policy of punitive repression and subjugation of the Palestinian population.
Unfortunately, both the western media and western politicians ignore the seriousness of the situation, preferring to concentrate on a rather one-sided picture, that takes into account only Israel's security concerns, without considering the legitimate security concerns and human rights of the Palestinian population.
This article hopes to point out some of the fallacies and absurdities in the
approach currently adopted by the Israeli government and western politicians
to peace-making and the serious human rights abuses occurring daily in the occupied
territories.
Israel often claims to be the only democracy in the middle-east. This is only true in the very narrowest sense of the word, such as was applied by the Apartheid regime in South Africa, where only a certain segment of the population had full voting and civil rights. In Israel today, a vast number of original inhabitants, the Palestinian refugees, have not only been denied access to their voting rights, but they have also been denied the right of entry into their birth land. Furthermore, the constitution of the state of Israel is based on the rights of a single ethnic group, the Jewish population. The Right of Return, for example, in which any Jew can claim the right of entry into Israel, is fundamentally undemocratic, in that it provides preferences and additional rights to a selected group of the population, without providing equivalent rights to other groups.
Many minority groups in Israel, such the Druzim and Bedouin often claim to have received less than adequate distribution of resources, in education, housing and other issues, due to their ethnic origins. Arab politicians, elected to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, are treated with suspicion and are considered as security risks.
Forcible exile -- when a government forces individuals to leave their own country on account of their political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs or by reason of their ethnic origin, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, economic status, birth, or other status, and then prohibits their return. UN Charter.
Millions of Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied territories, unable to return to their homeland. These people are denied the most basic of human rights - the right to live in freedom in their own land and the right of citizenship. Many, who owned property in Israel proper, have lost their homes and received no reparation from the Israeli government. In addition, many are deprived of the most basic rights to work and employ their families. They live totally dependant on foreign aide.
''Palestinian Arab refugees are entitled to their property and to the income derived therefrom, in conformity with the principles of justice and equity''. UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/51/129, December 1996.
Land acquisition is the root cause of the violence in the middle-east. Few
politicians would deny this. The policy of construction in the settlements and
demolition of homes in East Jerusalem, for example, have contributed directly
to the suffering of the local Palestinian population. The local Israeli authority
acts with one-sided impunity, demolishing scores of homes each month, under
the justification that these are "illegal". In other areas of the
occupied territories, such as Hebron, an entire city of inhabitants is placed
under severe restrictions, to ensure the security of a small band of religious
settlers. All these activities incite and inflame the local population and were
amongst the activities that led to the second Palestinian uprising, or Intefada.
"The acceptance by Israel of unlawful killings and the Israeli government's failure to investigate each killing at the hands of the security services is leading to a culture of impunity among Israeli soldiers -- fuelling a cycle of violence and revenge in the region," Curt Goering, Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International USA.
The policy of targeted assassinations should worry not only international policy makers but also local lawmakers, since it is not only immoral, but illegal according to both international law and the Israeli legal system. Israel claims that this policy is a preventative measure, to ensure the safety of the civilian population. They also claim that they only target serious military targets.
The policy of assassination is flawed on many accounts:
Targeted assassination is not new. Pinoche conducted such policies, as did Milosovitch, and a score of other military dictators before them.
"The evidence we have gathered about serious human rights violations committed during Israel's incursion into these areas is deeply alarming. Dozens of individuals have been needlessly killed who presented no immediate threat to life or serious injury. At least six medical personnel, including two doctors, have been killed, including those who died as a result of direct attacks on ambulances. Further deaths and substantial unnecessary suffering occurred when scores of injured were prevented or obstructed by the IDF from receiving urgently-needed medical attention." Amnesty International.
Collateral damage is the euphemism which politicians hide behind, to mask the human tragedy, suffering, destruction, mayhem and death instigated by their military machines. The "collateral damage" caused by the Israeli army includes a long trail of demolished homes, farms, vehicles, and destroyed and maimed lives.
One should also not forget the intense psychological damage and emotional trauma being caused by the military incursions into the territories and the bombing by tanks, helicopters and attack craft, by soldiers bursting into houses and dragging away men at gunpoint, for interrogation in military tribunals.
Hundreds of civilians deaths and casualties have been inflicted on the Palestinian population as a direct result of Israeli military actions. To mothers and fathers who have lost their children, or children who have lost their parents, death remains death. There's no question of saying, "Oh they shot my son, but they didn't mean it and they're sorry." When soldiers and military commanders can act with impunity without any consequences for killing civilians, then this is the same as any murderer or so called "terrorist" who can kill and get away with it.
"Other concerns include the use of heavy weapons in crowded residential areas resulting in large-scale destruction or damage to houses and other objects, the demolition of homes as collective punishment, a pattern of arbitrary arrests of over two thousand Palestinians, some of whom were beaten. Scores are still held in various jails or prisons." Amnesty International.
Israel often claims moral supremacy over the Palestinians, by pointing to the brutality of the Palestinians attacks on not only Israeli civilians, but on some of their own people.
The truth is, that the acts of violence, the lynching and hanging up of bodies, the suicide attacks, the stone throwing and stabbing that we hear about and see on TV, all point to one thing - the Palestinians are a deeply traumatized and troubled society. The trauma has been caused by over thirty-five years of military, social and economic oppression. More tanks and soldiers will not heal this trauma.
Israel has created its own monster and must eventually take responsibility for its actions.
Unfortunately, historical as well as modern leaders have proven over and over again that political legitimacy and supremacy can be purchased through military and economic power. The side that has the strongest army can claim to hold the keys of justice. In contravention to UN security resolutions, Israel continues to hold onto the occupied territories, not through any moral right, but simply through the strength of its military and the backing of the US.
Part of the blame for over thirty five years of stalemate in the peace process has its roots in a fragmented society, made up of peoples from many different cultures and points of the globe. In this mixing pot of different cultures, from over 140 different countries, many of whom come from totalitarian regimes, small political parties have been able to hijack the interests of the broader nation. The extreme religious fanaticism and hard right-wing views of the current Sharon led government have led directly to some of the worst policies and ensuring violence in the last ten years.
The large immigrant and religious groups of society, many still fresh to the country or with deeply entrenched religious and zionistic beliefs, have little understanding or sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people. Living for the most part in relative prosperity and security (Israel has one of the highest standards of living in the middle-east), they have little comprehension of the desperation of their neighbors a few miles away - a desperation that leads directly to acts of violence.
In a local newspaper, the front page, split into two, contains a picture of a football victory on the left side and a terrorist attack on the right-hand side, illustrating the schizophrenic nature of Israeli society. On the one hand, claiming to want peace, on the other, still holding onto occupied land, after over thirty-five years. Israelis have always been highly suspicious and split into two over the Oslo accords and peace process. It was this split that led to violent, countrywide demonstrations during the 1990's and to the assassination of the Prime minister of Israel who started the peace process - Itzhak Rabin.
Over the past several years, there has been a hardening of attitudes and increasing
harsh views spoken about the Palestinians in the general population. The voices
of reason and compromise have been gradually silenced. The humanity of the Palestinians
is denied. They are called "barbarians" and "terrorists".
Increasingly, politicians speak the language of force: "teaching them a
lesson", "making them pay", "making them suffer", to
"enter into them hard, with tanks and bombs". The long-term effects
of this psychological hardening towards and demonizing of the Palestinian population
is leading to devastating consequences.