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What is reported and what is real? By: Media coverage for the current crisis in Israel-Palestine creates the image of a mini-war in process. Reports are focused around clashes, exchange of fire, and military actions initiated by both sides. The recipients of such reports are very confused in searching for the missing links. Why is this happening?, who is the initiator?, who attacks first?, where is all of this heading?, what are the things that are going on but never reported? And how significant are they? The first deficiency of all reports that you all receive is the focus on clashes and exchange of fire. From the Palestinian side assuming that 20 clashes and 10 incidents of exchange of fire occur daily then no more than 25 hundred people out of 3 million are directly involved. Form the Israeli side dozens of soldiers and hundreds of Israeli settlers are as well directly involved. So is this the size of the problem?. What you all do not receive reports on is the ongoing process of establishing the Palestinian reservations and the emerging apartheid on a scale that matches the ex-south African one. This process did not start with the current events; on the contrary the current Palestinian Intifada was a direct result of this ongoing Israeli policy. Unfortunately, Oslo, which was supposed to be a major peace process, was a major corner stone in the implementation of this apartheid system. Isolating and caging Palestinian highly populating areas and masking the Israeli occupation, while still in effect, are direct outcomes of the Oslo accords. While all talked about it as being interim arrangements, Palestinians feared both it becoming permanent and the future options that it might create. This crisis has proven those fears as right. The major characters of the Israeli policy regarding the recent crisis are a direct consequence of the implementation of the Oslo accords. The first manifestation is the usage of full capacity military power against Palestinian civilian targets. This was not even an option during the 1987 Intifada. This act was a direct consequence of masking the occupation, while still in effect, and pretending that in between Palestinian reservations and Israel a state of war exists. Let us not forget two important facts. One, through the whole period of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza small militant groups active against the occupation were in action yet collective punishment against civilians never reached this level. Two, the little arms that Palestinians have were handed to them by Israel through the implementation of Oslo accords. Obviously, Israelis did think about the possibility of those arms being used when Palestinian protesters are under massive fire and are daily killed in dozens. Reports about intensive Israeli army training to encounter this possibility dates back to more than three years. It is likely that Israeli generals realized earlier than anyone else that such an act will provide them with an acceptable excuse to mobilize their military might and create a suitable environment either to force permanently the apartheid segregation or forced massive transfer as a solution to the Palestinian demographic problem. Nowadays, the manifestation of the future permanent apartheid segregation is in effect on ground. Each Palestinian city or town is totally under siege. Mobility of people is limited within the reservation they live in. certain roads, especially the newly created by-pass ones are marked, without signs but by policy, for Jews only. What ever stands in the way of settlers and army free mobility and interests is demolished or uprooted. Palestinian highly crowded areas are regularly subject to revenge attacks that resemble the Wild West era. People in the reservations has no work, no future, has nothing to lose therefore naturally will continue fighting and provide more excuses for intensifying and implementing more of the apartheid segregation procedures. What was evident especially lately, that the so-called peace government in Israel and all who rallied behind are totally defeated. Any expected government that will emerge out of the coming elections will reflect more the desire of the right wing movement in Israel. While all governments in Israel commonly used the same procedures against Palestinians, the aims are different this time. There is an urgent need to keep an eye focused on the gradual implementation of what is described by Israeli officials as security measures. In effect, there are many serious indicators that those are permanent strategic and political procedures. Let us not forget that most of the Israeli settlement built in the occupied territories were introduced as a security need and East Jerusalem was under siege and Palestinians were denied free access because of the security arrangements during the Gulf war 1991, the war ended years ago but East Jerusalem continued to be under siege. Within Israel, people who are committed to peace and justice are called to be crystal clear in differentiating between racial segregation and peace making. Barak, and for more than 18 months represented a convenient symbol of an artificial marriage of both. Many rallied behind him thinking that this is the march towards peace. Now it is clearer that rallying behind Barak is a manifestation of a blind support for racial segregation. Within Palestine, while Palestinians have the right to use all means of resistance against the Israeli occupation, serious attempts should start to revert to peaceful non-violent means of resistance against occupation. Massive peaceful rally's can be efficient in cracking down the symbols of apartheid, namely military checkpoints and can serve in disabling the Israeli army from using its military arsenal against Palestinian. This is the only way to establish a healthy coalition for peace and justice in the Middle East. If it is to start it should now. | ||||||||||||||||
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