Reply #61: Definately not the example of "reminiscent" you used... [View All]

[Violet_Crumble]

Yr argument is that in South Africa it was a legal system, and in the Occupied Territories, it isn't. Considering Israeli civil law isn't applied to the Palestinians, who are subject to Israeli military law, I'd argue back that a bunch of laws work to ensure that the apartheid-style system stays in place...

What is done in the West Bank is done along racial/cultural/religious lines. The settlements are for Jews only. Palestinians are only there as lowly-paid workers, if at all. One of the most bizarre parts of Oslo was this arrangement about bypass roads. I can't see anything in it that was of any benefit at all to the Palestinians...

There's no 'probably' about the settlements and the bypass roads being unjust. They shouldn't be there in the first place, as the West Bank is not part of Israel...

Desmond Tutu is someone who lived under apartheid in South Africa. He sees Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories for what they are...

Apartheid in the Holy Land

In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders.
What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.

On one of my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?

I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: "Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html


Violet...