I have posted in the past about the policy of ethnic separation around the Jewish houses in Hebron. Shuhada street – once the location of a central market – was first closed to Palestinian cars, and now even Palestinian pedestrians must walk along a tiny dirt road, while Jewish settlers and their guests get the rest of the street. The pretext might be security, but the policy (like in the rest of the West Bank) is ethnic segregation.
Watch this B’tzelem video to see what’s going on not far away, on the road near the Tomb of the Patriarchs:
For more context on this video and the area, see here.
Related:
IMAGE: Segregated street for Palestinians, Jews in Hebron
WATCH: Demonstration to open Shuhada Street in Hebron
PHOTOS: In Hebron, demonstrators demand reopening of Shuhada Street
The market square is empty in Hebron
PHOTO: Settlers dress as Arabs for Purim in apartheid Hebron
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Zephon
Oh if I had a dollar for every time I get to say ” Israel proves right yet again” I’d be a trillionaire before the month is out. All this happening just before pass over too – go figure.
Imbecilic chimps.
Zephon
Proves me right yet again*
Aaron Gross
“Pretext”? That’s making a very strong accusation, with zero evidence to back it up.
When sides in the war cleave along ethnic lines, of course there’s an ethnic dimension to every aspect of the war, including the occupation. The separation in the video is ethnically defined (by the border guards), because the two enemy sides are ethnically defined. That does not mean it’s ethnically motivated.
Greg Pollock
The problem is that ethnic segregation becomes a thing in itself. When security has been acheived (and, at the moment, it has), daily discrimination becomes dislodged from security, in the minds of those enduring it. So Israel sees itself morphing from security vigilant to apartheid, angry that others can only see the latter. Stable occupation alters social structure on the ground, dislodging the past from the present. One then builds upon discrimination with yet more (consider water allocation in the Bank), with security ever more tenuous connection. Ultimately, discrimination must be maintained because it engenders hatred, discrimination the only security against such. And outsiders come to shake their heads, wondering if you will ever stop.
Aaron Gross
You wrote, “daily discrimination becomes dislodged from security, in the minds of those enduring it.” Of course. That’s the natural reaction to all security profiling, formal or informal. But those enduring it have a moral obligation not to dislodge the issue of security from the profiling, whether that profiling is justified or not.
I don’t see any morphing into apartheid, if by that you mean a South Africa-style regime based on racism or ethnic superiority. I don’t know the legal definition of apartheid (which may apply), but historically, ethnic/racial separation is not necessarily apartheid, especially in Israel/Palestine where it’s done on the basis of nationality, not ethnicity (the soldiers’ description notwithstanding).
Finally, I strongly disagree about discrimination engendering the hatred. What engenders hatred is, first, Jewish rule over all or part of Palestine, and second, Jewish settlement of Palestine. The added effect of discrimination is negligible.
Anne O'Nimmus
@Gross
What “war” are you prattling about? Is it the demographic war against Palestinians – with their armies of babies and children? Cos their aint no army for your ‘brave’ boys to fight, is there?! What is it, you gotta make it safe for NY Jews to put down roots in stolen land?
Greg Pollock
I would use water disribution in the Bank as a paradigm case. The advantages accruing to the settlements far exceeds any supposed calculus of security. Race as marker for security becomes dislodged except in that all seperation of race is implicitly seen as having a security final rationale (or final solution). Apartheid is legally mandated disproportionate sharing of resources for livelihood and growth; the settlements show starkly apartheid exists.
Aaron Gross
Plundering resources is another common, and natural, practice of war. That’s why international conventions bothered to make it illegal. I don’t see race as being a cause here. (That’s beside the fact – important to accusations of apartheid – that Jews and Palestinians are not separate races, nor does Israel perceive them to be.)
Greg Pollock
The plundering of water is not related to security but expulsion. You are not at war. You’ve entered what if nearly a new category, not war because unable to complete, not peace. Apartheid is not geographical seperation but seperation in law; this you have both in the Bank and within Israel (water access is restricted there as well). Your case would be more plausible absent State support for settlers as applied. But with the settlers you are involved in a slow explusion of residents from both land and resources. It is racially defined via a security logic, both within and without Israel proper. What you advocate is about as plausible as those saying there is no occupation at all. War is just another front for secuirty; all you have to do is look at the Israeli press upon an event to know race is a fundamental category.
rsgengland
Water is not being plundered by the Israelis.
It is being used by the Palestinians for political purposes.
Every time the Israelis try to plan water issues, the Palestinians refuse to participate claiming that by working with Israelis they are ‘normalizing’ the situation.
Meanwhile the Palestinians are drilling illegal boreholes and draining the aquifers.
Palestinians are not metered or charged for the water they use, so there is no incentive to conserve water.
Israel tried to discuss supplying desalinated water to the West Bank from near Netanya but this offer was ignored.
The use of the water weapon is to good a propaganda tool for the Palestinians and their collaborators to forgo.
Greg Pollock
Provide usage statistics. Here is a biased place to start–but it is at least a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_Palestinian_territories
Arib
Complaining about one street and ignoring 97% of Hebron which is off limits to Israelis is pure demagoguery.
Haifawi
Complaining about people not being able to enter a place where the people lack political and civil rights is demogoguery.
And anyway, this Jewish Israeli has been to all of Hebron. Going to one side is against Israeli law and going to the other side is against International Law.