{news} USGP-INT Independent/UK: Israeli Civil Rights Group calls occupation Apartheid

[Justine McCabe]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Justine McCabe 
To: USGP International Committee 
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 8:07 PM
Subject: USGP-INT Independent/UK: Israeli Civil Rights Group calls occupation Apartheid


Published on Monday, December 8, 2008

The Independent/UK

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/civil-rights-group-claim-israeli-occupation-is-reminiscent-of-apartheid-1056546.html

Civil Rights Group Claim Israeli Occupation is "Reminiscent of Apartheid"

by Ben Lynfield

Israel's leading civil rights organisation yesterday broke a taboo by
describing Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank as being
"reminiscent of apartheid" in South Africa. 

Alleging an intensification of human rights abuses against Palestinians,
the respected Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) made the
comparison in an annual report that described the existence of separate
legal, planning and transportation systems for Jewish settlers and
Palestinians in the West Bank. 

"Israel has built a modern arterial road system in the West Bank
intended in fact only for use by Israeli traffic, whereas the
Palestinians are forced to travel for the most part on twisting and
dangerous roads," the report said. While Israel facilitates the
expansion of Jewish settlements, it restricts the growth of Palestinian
towns, the report added. "This state of affairs in which all the
services, budgets and the access to natural resources are granted along
discriminatory and separatist lines according to ethnic-national
criteria is a blatant violation of the principle of equality and is in
many ways reminiscent of the Apartheid regime in South Africa." 
Thereport said.

 Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert, responded that "the whole comparison is inaccurate and
offensive."   "In the real world where there are real terrorist threats, the choice is
between roadblocks and protracted waiting [for Palestinians] or roads
for Palestinians." he said. 

ACRI wrote that while South Africa had been a case of a "racist
separation criterion" the one applied in the occupied terirories is
"ethnic-national." 

The group decided to drop its previous reluctance to use the South
Africa comparison, often invoked by those pressing for an international
boycott of Israel, because "things are getting worse rather than better"
according to spokeswoman Melanie Takefman. 

In particular, Ms. Takefman cited what ACRI views as the Israeli supreme
court's endorsement of the idea of separate road systems for Israelis
and Palestinians in the West Bank. Last March, the court ignored an ACRI
petition that it rule on the legality of the continued barring of
Palestinians from Highway 443, an alternate route between Jerusalem and
Tel Aviv that slices through expropriated Palestinian West Bank land. To
justify the expropriations, the state had said during the 1990's the
road would be for Palestinian benefit. But the road is now entirely an
Israeli commuter route, with Palestinian villagers who formerly used it
to access health, education and jobs in Ramallah barred since 2002 when
it was closed to them after attacks on Israeli motorists. Instead,
authorities are building a separate road for Palestinians. "The judges's
turning a blind eye and approving a separate road system was a very
depressing and ominous sign," Ms. Takefman said.

In 2006, former US President Jimmy Carter published Palestine: Peace not
Apartheid, in which he argued that apartheid is an appropriate term for
Israeli policies devoted to "the acquisition of land" in the West Bank.
His application of the term to the West Bank evoked heated responses
from supporters of Israel. 

Mr. Regev said the best way to address the separate legal systems in the
West Bank for settlers and Palestinians would be the creation of a
Palestinian state as an outgrowth of current negotiations. "Do people
really want us to annex the West Bank so that there will be one legal
system?" he asked. 



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