Israeli apartheid

Nodin wrote: »

The first appeal for an independent Palestine dates back to the 1920's.

Sorry if I appear to be picking on the posts of just one contributor . It is for convenience .
So, instead of living in the bloody and increasingly irrelevant past, can you people focus on the today and the here and now, as it affects Palestinians and Israelis?
Can you look at this article from today's Jerusalem Post and perhaps try to understand what a poor palestinian really feels and wants, eking out a subsistence living in the camps, on aid, not earnings, with a large family and teenagers who are daily risking their lives in pointless, angry street violence??
http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=173761
"Arab World: A tale of two Palestinian authorities
By JONATHAN SPYER
23/04/2010 06:13

Is Palestinian reconciliation really in the cards, or must we reconcile ourselves to a Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip?
Talkbacks (4)

Four years after the Hamas victory in elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, and three years since the movement’s successful coup in Gaza, the split in the Palestinian national movement has an increasing look of permanence about it. This has major implications for the currently frozen diplomatic process.

This week, Dr. Salah al-Bardawil, a leading Hamas official, said that efforts toward Palestinian reconciliation are “frozen.” In an interview with Al-Kuds, Bardawil stated that communication between Hamas authorities in Gaza and the government of Egypt on the issue of reconciliation had ceased. Talks were now restricted to “matters such as permission for patients to leave Gaza for treatment or the return of deceased Palestinians across the Rafah crossing.”

Bardawil’s message was confirmed on Monday by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in a speech in Damascus. Mashaal said Hamas had been urged by Arab officials to accept Quartet conditions, including recognition of Israel, in return for changes to an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement. He said that Hamas had reiterated its refusal. Addressing “the Americans, the Zionists, and everyone,” he asserted that Hamas would not “succumb to your terms. We won’t pay a political price no matter how long the blockade lasts. God is with us and he will grant us victory.”

These statements indicate that there is now no process under way toward ending the Palestinian political divide. On the ground, meanwhile, the rival Ramallah and Gaza Palestinian authorities are entrenching themselves.

PARALLEL TO the rise of Hamas in Gaza, and its ongoing popularity in the West Bank, Fatah is currently in a process of severe decline. The movement failed to embark on a major project of reform following its election defeat in 2006. As a result, it remains riven by factionalism and corruption. It is also, increasingly, irrelevant.

The key Palestinian leader in the West Bank today is Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is not a Fatah member, and his government holds power not as a result of that movement’s authority. Rather, Fayyad is in effect an appointee of the West. The security forces led by Gen. Keith Dayton, which keep him in place, are Western organized and financed, and not beholden to any political faction. His gradualist approach is quite alien to Palestinian political culture, and despite the undoubted improvements this approach has brought to daily life in the West Bank, the level of his support is uncertain.

It remains widely believed that without the presence of the “Dayton” forces and more importantly without the continued activities of the IDF in the West Bank, the area would fall to Hamas in a similar process to that which took place in Gaza.

Veteran Palestinian political analyst Yezid Sayigh recently noted that both the Gaza and Ramallah governments are dependent for their economic survival on foreign assistance. The Fayyad government has an annual $2.8 billion budget, of which one half consists of direct foreign aid. The Hamas authorities, meanwhile, announced a budget of $540 million, of which $480 million is to come from outside (Iran). The dependence on foreign capital reflects perhaps the salient element shared by both Palestinian governments – they are both able to continue to exist because of the interests of rival outside powers that they do so.

The split in the Palestinian national movement is ultimately a function of the broader strategic situation of regional cold war. It is thus likely to continue for as long as this regional reality pertains.

The Middle East is currently divided between a loose alliance of states aligned with the US and the West, and an Iran-led “resistance bloc” of states and movements. Hamas is able to maintain its sovereign enclave in Gaza as a result of the willingness of Iran to arm and finance it. The Gaza enclave serves Iran’s purposes well. It gives Teheran an effective veto over any attempt to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It also gives non-Arab Iran a direct point of entry into the single most important regional conflict in the eyes of the masses of the Arab world.

The West, which also attaches massive importance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has itself in turn been prepared to create, finance and underwrite a version of Palestinian politics and governance – that of Fayyad – which is to its liking, once it became clear that the Palestinians themselves were not going to do this.



The result is that Palestinian politics has been thoroughly penetrated by the larger regional standoff. Each of the regional blocs has its own Palestinian authority, which acts as a laboratory and advertisement for its preferred methods. The Gaza version favors strict Islamic governance and armed struggle to the end against Israel. The Ramallah government – according to Sayigh the less representative of the two – stands for alignment with the West and proclaimed acceptance of a negotiated solution.

The proudest achievement of PLO and Fatah leader Yasser Arafat was the establishment of a single, authoritative Palestinian national movement not beholden to or dependent on any outside power. Such a movement no longer exists. The split represents a profound change in Palestinian politics, which calls into question many of the basic assumptions regarding the conflict which have become received wisdom in Israel and the West over the last couple of decades.

The writer is a senior researcher at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, IDC, Herzliya."

But, of course, reading and commenting critically takes a lot more effort and mental engagement than visceral, glandularly instigated angry, one-way assertions, if I may be so bold as to say?

Nodin wrote: »

I mean that the first calls for an independent Palestine date back to the 1920's.



I didn't raise the subject, the post you thanked did. I tend to focus on the here and now of the settlements and the occupation.

Good,
So can we now move on to the "how" of doing something useful and pro-active, in the here and now demonstrated by what people are saying and listening toi and reading in the real world, outside blog pages, rather than the same old slogan bashing that gets no-one anywhere, especially the people in the camps?
So, what about all of us channelling our energies and angst positively, trying to support and be supportively critical of the various peace movements starting up or already active but fragmented in Israel and in Arab countries and in the West Bank and Gaza?
This requires strategic thinking and wisdom and generosity of spirit and, above all, hope instead of hate.
I am not a flag waver and I do not shove my experience in anyone's face, but, friends, I have, for good or ill, spent more than a few years in post-war re-construction and peace-keeping all over the shop and I have had my fill of teenagers getting killed and maimed, blindly fighting the sick battles of bitter old men.
So, lets take the daily papers from the zone as a start point and see where, for instance, there are serious peace movements that have some chance of successfully harnessing cross-conflict support. Not all of them are serious, un-biased or even real peace movements. But some are and are more worthy of our time than old histories that have merit as such but not as guides for today's actions, in today's exact situations.

Oh, yes, I agree that I am heading off specific topic, but I am presuming that the intent of the topic was to work against apartheid and thus towards peace and justice for all in a two states solution. Am I right, or am I right?

Nodin wrote: »

...when were America or Kenya independent states?



More evasion, and getting rather more indicative of your intention to disrupt as it goes on.

In reaction to your statement


You were asked to provide "examples of the adjacent countries building civillian settlements outside their own borders, and enforcing a two-tier system in those areas. "

We should compare like with like - What adjacent state has two legal systems (one with rights and privilges, one thats a version of martial law) for two populations living in the same area, outside its borders, that its colonising?

(By the way, when was this Palestinian state created? It's just I've been arguing for one for years and don't seem to have noticed it's announcement.)

that's it people.
You have "won".
I deselect myself from this pointless argy-bargy and leave.
You are too far from any ideas of seeking a sustainable and just solution for all,
far too from the real issues for poor palestinians abused by IDF, PA, Hamas,
USA and fiery ideologues on boards !
Good bye all.