The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117493   Message #2554528
Posted By: CarolC
01-Feb-09 - 12:31 PM
Thread Name: BS: Israel Moves in.
Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
It's also not anti-Semitic to say that Israel practices apartheid. Ronnie Kasrils, a South African politician, says that in his opinion, what Israel is doing to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is worse than South African apartheid...

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2007-05-21-israel-2007-worse-than-apartheid

But it is apartheid. Palestinians in the West Bank are confined to tiny bantustans that are separated one from the other by Jewish-only settlements that are guarded by the IDF, and that are accessed by Jewish-only roads, and the majority of the Palestinians' water is confiscated by the government of Israel for the use of the settlers. People in the West Bank don't even have enough water to wash themselves, while the settlers use as much water as they want to water their lawns and fill their swimming pools. People in the West Bank have to go through innumerable checkpoints just to get from their homes to their places of work, or to school, or to the doctor or the store, and they are often kept waiting there for hours and even days. Sometimes they aren't allowed through at all, and for no particular reason. Just on the whim of the guards at the checkpoints. They are often humiliated and abused by the guards, and sometimes they even die or give birth at the checkpoints because the guards won't let them through. These checkpoints don't keep Palestinians out of Israel. They are located deep inside of the West Bank.

The settlers in the West Bank regularly abuse the Palestinians and they shoot at them without suffering any consequences. They also prevent the Palestinians from being able to access their olive groves to harvest the olives, preventing the Palestinians from having their livelihood.

I think if Noa Bursie genuinely values human life, as she says she does, she would come back with an entirely different perspective on the situation if she were to ever go and spend time in the West Bank or Gaza living among the Palestinians and seeing for herself what they are experiencing.