Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Welcome to Israel's Version of Apartheid
________________________________________
Welcome to Israel's Version of Apartheid
By Jonathan Cook [1] / AlterNet [2]
January 15, 2016
Nazareth
A small scene from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unfolded last week on a
Greek airport runway.
Moments before an Aegean Airlines flight was due to take off, three Israeli
passengers took security into their own hands and demanded that two fellow
passengers, from Israel's Palestinian minority, be removed from the plane.
By the end of a 90-minute stand-off, dozens more Israeli Jews had joined the
protest, refusing to take their seats.
Like a parable illustrating Europe's bottomless indulgence of Israel, Aegean
staff caved in to the pressure and persuaded the two Palestinian men to
disembark.
The lack of outcry from Israeli officials should be no surprise. Shortly
before the Athens incident, Israel banned a Hebrew novel, Borderlife, from
the schools curriculum because it features a romance between an Israeli Jew
and a Palestinian.
The education ministry said it feared the book would undermine Jewish
pupils' "national-ethnic identity" and encourage "miscegenation".
As an Israeli columnist observed: "Discouraging 'assimilation' is an
inseparable part of the Jewish state". Strict separation operates in the key
areas of life, from residence to schooling. As a result, marriages between
Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population, are rare
indeed.
It was therefore difficult not to see the paradox in Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's comments following a shooting by Nashat Melhem that
killed three Israelis in Tel Aviv on New Year's Day.
Attacks of this kind by a Palestinian citizen on Israeli Jews are uncommon
and it elicited instant condemnation from the Palestinian leadership.
Nonetheless, Netanyahu seized the chance to label as "criminals" the
country's 1.6 million Palestinians.
In a sequel to his notorious election eve statement last year, when he
warned that Palestinian voters threatened the result by "coming to the polls
in droves", Netanyahu pledged extra police funds to crack down on the
"lawless" minority.
"I will not accept two states within Israel. Whoever wants to be Israeli
must be Israeli all the way," he said.
But in reality there have always been two classes of Israeli, by design.
The search for Melhem ended on Friday with police shooting him dead. In the
meantime, his immediate family had been either arrested as accomplices or
interrogated at length.
Presumably in an effort to pressure Melhem, the police told his mother they
would demolish the family home unless he turned himself in - only
Palestinians, not Jews, face house demolitions.
Earlier, when police suspected Melhem was hiding in Tel Aviv, the lodgings
of dozens of Palestinian students were raided by officers with weapons
drawn, though no search warrants.
At the weekend, Netanyahu conditioned a promised rise in the paltry budgets
received by the Palestinian minority on an end to the "lawlessness" in their
communities, as though the lack of effective policing of those communities
was the responsibility of Palestinian citizens, not the government.
The week-long hysteria contrasted with the handling of another terrible
crime, this one committed by Israeli Jews.
In late July, a gang of extremist settlers torched a Palestinian home in the
West Bank village of Duma. Three members of the Dawabsheh family, including
an 18-month-old baby, burnt to death.
For weeks, in a familiar pattern following settler violence, the
investigation made no progress. Then in September, defence minister Moshe
Yaalon conceded that the culprits had been identified but the police would
make no arrests to avoid exposing their informers.
Only after an international outcry, and Arab legislators threatened to
petition the supreme court, did the wheels of law enforcement start to
grind.
The attorney general approved the first-ever use of torture - a staple
interrogation technique for Palestinians in Israel and the occupied
territories - on the Jewish suspects.
Prominent Israeli commentators and government ministers have agonised ever
since about the abuses faced by these Jewish detainees.
Bezalel Smotrich, an MP, publicly rejected treating the Dawabshehs' killers
as terrorists. Asked in parliament to repudiate Smotrich's remarks,
Netanyahu stepped down from the podium in silence.
No one, of course, has suggested arresting the Jewish suspects' parents - in
one case a settlement rabbi - or demolishing their homes. Settlement
seminaries have not been raided, or their students questioned at gun point.
Budgets for the settlements have been rising, with settlers receiving far
more government money than Israelis inside Israel's recognised borders.
Their long record of violence and "lawlessness" has made no difference to
their funding.
Legal experts now warn that the courts will likely free the main suspects in
the Duma killings because their confessions were forced.
Meanwhile, the settler communities from which the men came are unrepentant.
A recent wedding video showed guests celebrating the Dawabshehs' deaths,
including a reveller who repeatedly stabbed a photo of the toddler.
Although both settlers and Palestinian citizens face inadequate policing,
they do so for very different reasons.
Depriving Palestinian citizens of law enforcement - except when repressing
dissent - has left their communities weak and oppressed by crime and guns.
For years Netanyahu has ignored pleas from Palestinian leaders for increased
gun control - until now, when one of those weapons targeted Jews.
Settlers have also been policed lightly, so long as their violence was
directed at Palestinians, whether in the occupied territories or Israel.
More than a decade of settler violence - labelled "price-tag" attacks - has
gone largely uninvestigated.
The truth is that most Israeli Jews have long supported two Israels: one for
them and another for the Palestinian minority, with further, even more
deprived ghettos for Palestinians under occupation.
The inhabitants of one Israel remain hostile towards, and abusive of, those
in the other, who refuse to accept Jewish privilege as the natural order -
just like the mob that insisted that their fellow citizens had no right to
share a plane.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His
latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the
Plan to Remake the Middle East" [3] (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair [4]" (Zed Books). His
website is www.jkcook.net [5].
Share on Facebook Share
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [6]
[7]
________________________________________
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/welcome-israels-version-apartheid
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jonathan-cook-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/counterpunchmaga
[4] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1848130317/counterpunchmaga
[5] http://www.jkcook.net/
[6] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Welcome to Israel's
Version of Apartheid
[7] http://www.alternet.org/
[8] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Welcome to Israel's Version of Apartheid
Welcome to Israel's Version of Apartheid
By Jonathan Cook [1] / AlterNet [2]
January 15, 2016
Nazareth
A small scene from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unfolded last week on a
Greek airport runway.
Moments before an Aegean Airlines flight was due to take off, three Israeli
passengers took security into their own hands and demanded that two fellow
passengers, from Israel's Palestinian minority, be removed from the plane.
By the end of a 90-minute stand-off, dozens more Israeli Jews had joined the
protest, refusing to take their seats.
Like a parable illustrating Europe's bottomless indulgence of Israel, Aegean
staff caved in to the pressure and persuaded the two Palestinian men to
disembark.
The lack of outcry from Israeli officials should be no surprise. Shortly
before the Athens incident, Israel banned a Hebrew novel, Borderlife, from
the schools curriculum because it features a romance between an Israeli Jew
and a Palestinian.
The education ministry said it feared the book would undermine Jewish
pupils' "national-ethnic identity" and encourage "miscegenation".
As an Israeli columnist observed: "Discouraging 'assimilation' is an
inseparable part of the Jewish state". Strict separation operates in the key
areas of life, from residence to schooling. As a result, marriages between
Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population, are rare
indeed.
It was therefore difficult not to see the paradox in Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's comments following a shooting by Nashat Melhem that
killed three Israelis in Tel Aviv on New Year's Day.
Attacks of this kind by a Palestinian citizen on Israeli Jews are uncommon
and it elicited instant condemnation from the Palestinian leadership.
Nonetheless, Netanyahu seized the chance to label as "criminals" the
country's 1.6 million Palestinians.
In a sequel to his notorious election eve statement last year, when he
warned that Palestinian voters threatened the result by "coming to the polls
in droves", Netanyahu pledged extra police funds to crack down on the
"lawless" minority.
"I will not accept two states within Israel. Whoever wants to be Israeli
must be Israeli all the way," he said.
But in reality there have always been two classes of Israeli, by design.
The search for Melhem ended on Friday with police shooting him dead. In the
meantime, his immediate family had been either arrested as accomplices or
interrogated at length.
Presumably in an effort to pressure Melhem, the police told his mother they
would demolish the family home unless he turned himself in - only
Palestinians, not Jews, face house demolitions.
Earlier, when police suspected Melhem was hiding in Tel Aviv, the lodgings
of dozens of Palestinian students were raided by officers with weapons
drawn, though no search warrants.
At the weekend, Netanyahu conditioned a promised rise in the paltry budgets
received by the Palestinian minority on an end to the "lawlessness" in their
communities, as though the lack of effective policing of those communities
was the responsibility of Palestinian citizens, not the government.
The week-long hysteria contrasted with the handling of another terrible
crime, this one committed by Israeli Jews.
In late July, a gang of extremist settlers torched a Palestinian home in the
West Bank village of Duma. Three members of the Dawabsheh family, including
an 18-month-old baby, burnt to death.
For weeks, in a familiar pattern following settler violence, the
investigation made no progress. Then in September, defence minister Moshe
Yaalon conceded that the culprits had been identified but the police would
make no arrests to avoid exposing their informers.
Only after an international outcry, and Arab legislators threatened to
petition the supreme court, did the wheels of law enforcement start to
grind.
The attorney general approved the first-ever use of torture - a staple
interrogation technique for Palestinians in Israel and the occupied
territories - on the Jewish suspects.
Prominent Israeli commentators and government ministers have agonised ever
since about the abuses faced by these Jewish detainees.
Bezalel Smotrich, an MP, publicly rejected treating the Dawabshehs' killers
as terrorists. Asked in parliament to repudiate Smotrich's remarks,
Netanyahu stepped down from the podium in silence.
No one, of course, has suggested arresting the Jewish suspects' parents - in
one case a settlement rabbi - or demolishing their homes. Settlement
seminaries have not been raided, or their students questioned at gun point.
Budgets for the settlements have been rising, with settlers receiving far
more government money than Israelis inside Israel's recognised borders.
Their long record of violence and "lawlessness" has made no difference to
their funding.
Legal experts now warn that the courts will likely free the main suspects in
the Duma killings because their confessions were forced.
Meanwhile, the settler communities from which the men came are unrepentant.
A recent wedding video showed guests celebrating the Dawabshehs' deaths,
including a reveller who repeatedly stabbed a photo of the toddler.
Although both settlers and Palestinian citizens face inadequate policing,
they do so for very different reasons.
Depriving Palestinian citizens of law enforcement - except when repressing
dissent - has left their communities weak and oppressed by crime and guns.
For years Netanyahu has ignored pleas from Palestinian leaders for increased
gun control - until now, when one of those weapons targeted Jews.
Settlers have also been policed lightly, so long as their violence was
directed at Palestinians, whether in the occupied territories or Israel.
More than a decade of settler violence - labelled "price-tag" attacks - has
gone largely uninvestigated.
The truth is that most Israeli Jews have long supported two Israels: one for
them and another for the Palestinian minority, with further, even more
deprived ghettos for Palestinians under occupation.
The inhabitants of one Israel remain hostile towards, and abusive of, those
in the other, who refuse to accept Jewish privilege as the natural order -
just like the mob that insisted that their fellow citizens had no right to
share a plane.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His
latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the
Plan to Remake the Middle East" [3] (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair [4]" (Zed Books). His
website is www.jkcook.net [5].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [6]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[7]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/welcome-israels-version-apartheid ;
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jonathan-cook-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/counterpunchmaga
[4] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1848130317/counterpunchmaga
[5] http://www.jkcook.net/
[6] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Welcome to Israel's
Version of Apartheid
[7] http://www.alternet.org/
[8] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
