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Facts About Israeli Apartheid [index]
Israeli Apartheid in the Occupied Territories?
No matter what you call it: the nearly 40 years of occupation of the West Bank and Gaza are ILLEGAL, IMMORAL and UNJUST
Two Systems: Separate and Unequal
Palestinians are under Military Law and face the constant threat of arrest and detention without charge and can be held indefinitely. They have no right to representation or trial. Israelis living in illegal settlements on Palestinian land have all the privileges of Israeli Civil Law. As citizens of Israel, they can vote, seek redress in court, and have freedom of speech and assembly. 2
- Palestinian villages and towns face collective punishment in the form of bulldozing of family houses, extended 24 hour curfews, closures, military raids, violence and harassment. Israeli settlers face no such collective punishment. 3
- Palestinian land ownership (agricultural and residential) is subject to military and economic confiscation. The purpose is to establish Jewish only settlements, take water resources and confine the Palestinian population into smaller and smaller cantons. Israelis face no land confiscation. 4
- Over 17,000 Palestinian houses have been demolished, creating 100,000 of thousands homeless. Over a million Palestinian olive and fruit trees have been uprooted. A few Israeli outposts have been dismantled, but there has been no widespread destruction of Israeli homes and trees. 5
- Palestinians are prohibited from using the extensive network of settler only highways that connect the settlements to Israel. 8
- Palestinian workers employed in settlement industrial zones receive only the sweatshop-like minimum wage mandated by Jordanian law in 1967. In the settlements, Israeli workers receive all the rights and benefits of Israeli employment law including a much larger minimum wage. 9
- The Israeli military authority controls virtually all the water in the West Bank. 73% of West Bank water is piped back to Israel. Illegal Jewish settlers use 10% of West Bank water. Palestinians have access to only 17% of their own water and must buy it from Isrrael at 4 times the price Israelis pay. 10
- The wall fragments Palestinian communities; it separates families from their land, their livelihood, health care and schools. The wall also divides communities and families from each other. The wall does not fragment Israeli settlements; it is built in such a way to as to annex them to Israel proper. 11
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"The permit system for the Closed Zone is administered in an arbitrary and humiliating manner…This system, which subjects Palestinian freedom of movement to the whim of the Occupying Power, creates anger, anxiety and humiliation among the population." (UNHCHR) 12
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West Bank
Bantustans
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Palestinians are ghettoized in 12 percent of their original territory. 13
The West Bank is divided up into 70 isolated cantons with no physical movement without Israel permission. 13
There are over 500 military check points where Palestinians often wait hours, and must have ID cards and passes just to travel short distances. Israeli settlers can travel easily on Israeli-only roads. 14
This dispossession is reminiscent of apartheid which set aside 13% of the lands as “Bantustan” homelands for black South Africans.
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South Africa
Bantustans
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Sources
1. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/11.htm Ratifying vote.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/treaty8_asp.htm
2. B’Tselem 2007 Annual report: Human Rights in the Occupied Territories Page 33.
http://www.btselem.org/Download/200712_Annual_Report_eng.doc
3. B’Tselem 2007 Annual report: Human Rights in the Occupied Territories Page 13.
Human Rights Watch
2004 briefing to the o the 60th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/01/29/isrlpa7482.htm
4. UNOCHA The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Isreali settlements and other infastructure in the West Bank, July 2007. http://www.ochaopt.org/
5. Israeli committee against home demolitions: 2007. Article: Demolition Statistics Since 1967. http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=402
United Nations Commission on Human Rights 2004 Report: Question of the Violation of Human rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, Including, Palestine. http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255db800470aa485255d8b004e349a/ff0f43cfe0a4100985256e6e005518a7!OpenDocument
6. 2001 Memo on Palestine to Thomas Friedman.
http://progressiveaustin.org/mandelap.htm
7. As quoted in NY Times December 24, 1989.
8. B'Tselem, "Forbidden Roads: The Discriminatory West Bank Road Regime," August 2004.
http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/200408_Forbidden_Roads.asp
9. Cementing Israeli Apartheid: The Role of World Bank.
http://contradictme.wordpress.com/the-world-bank-funds-israel-palestine-wall/
10. B’Tselem Water Crisis 2007 report.
http://www.btselem.org/english/Water/Shared_Sources.asp
11. OCHA United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Maps the West Bank and fragmentation of land. http://www.ochaopt.org
12. UNHCR Commission on Human Rights, Sixtieth Session.
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/fd807e46661e3689852570d00069e918/2aa105942bee1a2e85256e67006e6d7b!OpenDocument
13. International development research center Canada.
http://idrinfo.idrc.ca/archive/corpdocs/119922/Word/3-119922-Chapter01.doc
14. OCHA United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Monitors Check Points in the West Bank. http://www.ochaopt.org
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