Under Fire

I honestly don’t know where I should start from in regard to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, especially due to the many developments and issues that have been occurring recently. We now have the issue of using the term “Israeli Apartheid” right here on campus. Gaza has been under siege and attacks for more than a month and the Israeli settlements have been targeted with rockets launched from Gaza. Israel deputy defence minister has threatened the people in Gaza with genocide. These are just a few things that have been happening lately in the area that I believe need to be regarded with some serious thought.

To begin, I want to send a very clear message to any university or any student union that stopping any group from using specific terms against the actions of the any government won’t help in hiding the truth. Students at a university level are smarter than that, and they are willing to go out and seek the truth by themselves. After the whole fuss that we faced here at McMaster I believe that many students have personally researched to find out if the term “apartheid” is being used properly or not. I am sure that after researching this topic for themselves many students may agree that the government of Israel could indeed be considered an “apartheid” government. I would even think that more students would believe that a stronger term against the action of the Israeli government should be used. I am glad to see that our student union is working hard to solve the issue on our campus by explaining exactly what has happened and what decision they are taking regarding this topic.

The term “apartheid” was used against the actions of the Israeli government and not against the Israeli people. It was not used against them based on their religion or race. So the term was not targeted against any person specifically but targeted instead at the actions of the Israeli government. Jimmy Carter’s famous book that was published two years ago, called “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” claims that the actions of the Israeli government do indeed make it an apartheid state. The famous South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself has accused Israel of practicing apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians. He stated after a visit to the Holy Land that he was "very deeply distressed, it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa". If you want to read more you check it about his visit on the BBC’s website.

The “holocaust” is engaged with very tragic feelings towards the Jewish community, and to any human being who treasures the lives of others and does not believe in the death of any other human being. On Thursday February the 28^th the BBC website stated that the Israeli deputy defence minister, Matan Vilani, has threatened the people in Gaza with a “shoah”, the Hebrew word for the Nazi holocaust. Seriously, what do you want me to say about an official government that is declaring to the world and the Palestinians in Gaza a very public genocide? Is that an acceptable reply for the home made rockets fired from Gaza that in essence are replying to the siege the city has been under for more than a month? I was disappointed at not seeing the international community more infuriated and opposing to the Israeli official’s use of the term “holocaust” against the Palestinians.

Because of the siege that the Israeli occupying forces have placed on Gaza since mid January, not allowing food, medicine, electricity and many other basic life necessities from getting to Gaza, many Palestinians have died. More than 90 people died in February because of the Israeli attacks, and that is so much more than the Israelis that died because of the rockets launched at the settlements. Since Wednesday February 27^th, 123 Palestinians died in Gaza, plus 350 injured, because of the continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza. At the same time there are Israeli soldiers and settlers that are dieing because of the rockets launched from Gaza. The international community needs to take quick action in severly recommending that both sides have a truce because the numbers will have increased already by the time you are reading this article.

Unfortunately we don’t have many free people or free governments in this world anymore because when a Palestinian committed a suicide attack killing one Israeli settler earlier in February I found out that so many countries including Canada condemned it. I personally condemned it also as this action will not move the peace process forward. But what I find ridiculous is that this attack happened weeks after the siege that has been placed on the Gaza region, and the many attacks committed against the Palestinian civilians did not receive the sympathy of the same number of governments condemning the actions of the Israeli government and it’s military.

I want to conclude by showing my deep sympathy to all of the people in the Gaza and Israel regions that have been and continue to be affected by this situation. The Israeli government and army need to alleviate the siege on Gaza, while the Palestinian resistant movements need to stop their rocket attacks against the Israeli settlements. Until we see both sides working to improve this situation, the peace process will not move along in the direction of true resolution that it should be moving towards.

* Finally my articles are being published again in The Silhouette. This article was published in V.78, No.21 for Thursday March 6, 2008 *

New developments from Palestine

Few developments had been happening lately in regards to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The biggest difference is that the United States decided finally to try to give a chance to supporting new peace negotiations. Since been elected, George W. Bush didn't pay attention to this conflict, but rather decided to take one side against the other.

At the end of last November George W. Bush invited the Palestinians, Israelis and many other countries to the Annapolis Peace Summit. The idea was to have one day meetings to decide on starting the peace negotiations that were to take place a few months after this conference. Earlier in January George W. Bush had a visit to the Middle East region, as he visited Palestine and some of the other countries in the region.

There are few obligations on both sides to be done so a real peace deal can be reached. The international community is demanding both sides agree to their obligations. The Israelis for this time being must retreat back behind the lines of the 1967 war, which means Israel has to respect the resolutions made by the United Nations (UN).

The Israeli settlements are an obstacle always in this peace negotiation. The International Court of Justice and many other countries regard all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, citing provisions in the Geneva Conventions which forbid the forced transfer of populations into lands seized in war. Even Bush said that those settlements are an obstacle for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The only hope in regards to this is that the office of Israeli Prime Minister had announced again that they will be removing some of the smaller and newer settlements. The problem is that every single Israeli Prime Minister promises this but they never actually go through with it.

The apartheid wall that is being built on the Palestinian region is one of the main problems in the meantime. This apartheid wall runs over 650 km (400 miles) inside the West Bank, which breaks up the Palestinian territory. The wall is 8 meters high, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. The wall is another violation of Human Rights restricting and hindering the Palestinian movement around their own territory. This wall is affecting the Palestinians in so many ways that in 2004 the International Court of Justice declared that the wall is illegal and ordered Israel to stop the construction of this wall but until this moment Israel has not complied. Palestinian villages and cities are divided because of this wall and more check points have been implemented. People are only allowed to pass by those check points for very short periods during the day.

Another thing both sides need to really find a solution to is the “Right of Return” of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled from Palestine either in 1948 or 1967 or their families that were born outside Palestine. When you want to talk about the right of return you get to talk about what kind of state solution they will agree on, will it be a two-state solution or one state solution. I remember last November I attended a lecture by an Israeli journalist on campus and he mentioned about how he believes Israel wants to have its own Jewish state structure. They allow any Jewish person who never lived in Palestine or Israel or had any relation to the area to move and live in Israel, but at same time Palestinians who are originally from the region are not allowed to go back yet. So a key to solve this conflict is actually to agree on something in regard to those Palestinian refugees.

As any conflict there must be initiative from both sides to settle down on an agreement. The Palestinians who are resisting against the occupation shouldn’t perform any kind of resistance actions behind the 1967 boarder line. For the last many months the Palestinians had stopped any kind of resistance attacks outside the region, so they should keep it that way and work on solving this conflict.

So through Annapolis what did both sides accomplish? First, they call for negotiations over “all core issues without exception”, that includes all the topics I mentioned earlier. Second, both parties accepted the US decision to serve as a monitor, a role that until now Israel had kept to itself. Third, both parties agreed on implementing the road’s map obligation for each party. But Annapolis failed to deal with some of the major remaining obstacles.

Palestinians are obliged to do everything to bring violence under control. As for Israel, what is expected are not concessions, but rather to meet the obligations imposed by UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements? I believe that Canada and the international community should be fair and monitor and help out to find a final resolution for this conflict.

But in the mean time Israel should stop its attack on Gaza strip. Gaza had been living in the dark since Sunday, January 20^th, when the power plan ran out of fuel and was shut down due to the tightened siege forced by the Israeli army. This will be having a catastrophic effect on 1.5 million residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic shortages of fuel, medicine and some basic food things. I’m not going to give you details about the situation over here now, but I encourage you to check it out for yourself and find out how bad it is. With acts like this done by the Israeli government how will peace negotiations be resumed? That’s a question left for everyone to think about.

22/1/2008

* This article was banned from being published in The Silhouette, increasing the number of articles banned for me this year to two. The McMaster Social Sciences Society published it in their newspaper, The Frontline. *