I just returned from my latest trip to Palestine, or at least to the part of
Palestine I still have access to as a Palestinian Christian. You see, we
Palestinians from the Bethlehem area (the birthplace of Jesus) are now
denied entry to over 90% of Palestine and even to our capital and major
economic center, Jerusalem (which is merely 7 miles from my Bethlehem).
Israeli colonies dot the landscape from the Mediterranean to the River
Jordan on land stolen from the native people. Six of the ten million
Palestinians in the world are now refugees or displaced people and the
remaining Palestinians live in increasingly shrinking and impoverished
ghettos (ala South African Bantustans at the time of Apartheid). In all
areas we visited the trend is the same: maximizing geography (under Israeli
control) and minimizing demography (Palestinians on their land). Israeli
authorities have evolved ingenious ways of ethnic cleansing since the more
direct uprooting practiced in 1947-1949, when 850,000 Palestinians were
driven out. The details of how this is done differ from area to area. A few
examples may illustrate this.
The Gush Etzion block of colonies (Gilo, Har Gilo, Efrata etc) was
successful in destroying the Palestinian economy in the Southern West Bank
(from Jerusalem to Hebron). Jewish colonial settlers live in subsidized
housing built on stolen Palestinian land and drive to Western Jerusalem or
Tel Aviv without ever seeing the victims or noticing their plight. But
movement of Palestinians is impossible between Arab Jerusalem and its
suburbs like Bethlehem and Alkhader or areas further south. This killed the
Palestinian economy on both sides of the apartheid wall. Jerusalem's Arab
old city is a ghost town compared to what it was just 20 years ago. And the
unemployment rate in Bethlehem is twice what it was in the US during the
height of the great depression.
The old city of Hebron near the Ibrahimi Mosque (the mosque of Abraham) is
deserted. Tens of thousands of local Palestinians (and thousands of
foreigners) used to flock to this busy commercial district until the few
extremist Israeli settlers (with Israeli government support and protection)
literally just moved in uninvited. They took over whole buildings or in some
cases just the upper floors. They go on rampages, making life impossible for
the native Palestinians. From the upper story rooms they squat in, they
throw trash at the shops and pedestrians below. They routinely shoot at
Palestinian
civilians and destroy shops. Thus some 400-500 colonial racists (under the
protective eye of over 5,000 Israeli occupation soldiers, many of them from
the settlements) control the lives and destroy the livelihoods of tens of
thousands of native Palestinians. It is as if 400-500 KKK members where put
in the middle of Harlem and were given permission and protection (with 5,000
white soldiers) to do what they want with the black population.
In this season of fruits and vegetables, villagers still try to sell
products from their shrinking land holdings. But this brings much less money
than in the old days when they had more land and were free to move and sell
their products in large cities like Jerusalem or Jaffa or Nablus (or even to
other countries). The cancer of the settlements built on Palestinian lands
grows more destructive, while politicians stall with talk of a fictional
"two-state solution" and "Israeli [but not Palestinian] security". Israel's
plan was to do ethnic cleansing and colonization and then use any
Palestinian resistance as justification ("security") for further
colonization activities. But Israel's colonization continued even in times
of relative calm (e.g. the seven years between the first largely nonviolent
uprising and the more recent and more violent uprising).
All of this is done contrary to International law and with full US military,
diplomatic, and economic support. It is also not in the interest of a just
peace nor in our US national interests. While the US infrastructure is
decaying, the Israel lobby convinced President Bush to propose giving Israel
$30 billion more of our tax money over the next ten years. If Congress
succumbs, as it did in the past, the consequences for US interests can only
be dire among 300 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims (not only in
increased violence but the erosion of US economic power and interests around
the world). Palestinians and many Israelis are encouraged that civil society
in Europe and North America has now engaged in other forms of struggle for
peace with justice including the growing movement that involves boycotts,
divestments, and sanctions (BDS) along the same lines that helped transform
Apartheid South Africa. That effort must now be intensified for the sake of
all inhabitants not only of Western Asia but for our own sake in America.
Qumsiyeh is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the
Israeli/Palestinian Struggle". He served on the faculties of Duke and Yale
Universities.
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