Palestine: Between Racism And Weakness

Maher Othman     Al-Hayat     2003/07/11

It seems that all the Roadmap will lead the Palestinians to is this high wall dubbed "the separation wall," which Israel is still building and using as a coercive means to confiscate tens of thousands of meters of Palestinian territory, isolating it from its villages and cities on its eastern flank.  

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon doesn't seem to be willing to submit to the Americans' demand following the request of Abbas' government, namely to cease the building of this wall or guaranteeing that it will not go beyond the Green Line separating the West Bank from Israel, also known as the line of June 4, 1967.

Strangely enough, no Palestinian minister or official has visited this terrible, racist wall, just to witness the horrible and catastrophic reality for the Palestinian people. It is even stranger that these ministers held meetings with Israeli ministers in occupied eastern Jerusalem, despite the fact that Israel has no legal right to hold any meetings there or exercise its sovereignty there because it is illegally occupied. By doing so, the Palestinian ministers broke one of the constants of the national Palestinian stance as well as an important point in international legality, which is supposed to be their reference.

A foreign force might not be able to prevent Israel from building the wall if the racist government wants to encourage the ideology of isolated "secure tower;" however, the international community, and especially the Palestinian people, have the right to expect the international Quartet to make sure that Israel is not violating the Roadmap, which stipulates the end to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories of June 1967, and also stresses the need to immediately stop stealing Palestinian territory in such a barbarian way.

This Israeli stubbornness, which reflects a clear will to obstruct the peace plan, sends off the impression that there is a large gap between the Palestinian people and its government, which is obviously unable to protect its territories, free its detainees, lift the siege, improve its economic situation and even less, liberate it from the occupation.

The Palestinian people and government should not expect any good will from the Israelis, for they never considered the Palestinians as an equal opponent. It is easy to observe that Israel treats the Palestinians as if they were rebels within its own geographic area, "Eretz Israel," and thus, it is imprisoning and arresting many of them with or without trial, and nit sets the conditions for releasing them, and not because they are citizens of another country that should have been established according to the resolution of dividing Palestine in 1948 like Israel.

The concept of "Eretz Israel," which has pushed successive Israeli governments to settle in the Palestinian territories, stealing them and denying the right of return for the refugees lies behind the arrogant racist attitude of Israelis toward Palestinians. Had it not been for this, the powers of the leader of the central military area would not have encompassed the West Bank and the powers of the leader of the southern area would not have encompassed the Gaza Strip!