Israel: Technologically modern but politically medieval state
By Charley Reese
Published in The Orlando Sentinel, September 24, 1998
Israel isn't Switzerland. Dr. Azmi Bashara, a member of the Israeli Knesset, asked
Israeli officials for an accounting of the property, the money in the banks and the funds
in the Muslim and Christian endowments, all taken over by the Israeli government.
Their answer? ``We don't know. We don't have those figures.''
Switzerland has gone to a lot of trouble to find dormant bank accounts of Holocaust
victims and has acted honorably throughout. So, perhaps someone should file a class-action
lawsuit against Israel on behalf of Palestinian refugees for an accounting and return of
the money and land confiscated by the Israeli government.
In a long conversation I had with the Palestinian legislator, Bashara made three key
points. But before we get into them, by way of background, understand that there are three
sets of Palestinians. They are the same nation, but they are in three different
circumstances.
One set are Palestinian refugees who are scattered around the world. These are people
and their descendants driven out of Palestine by the Israelis in 1948 and 1967.
Another set of Palestinians are those who came under Israeli military occupation in the
West Bank and Gaza in Israel's 1967 war.
The third set are those Palestinians and their descendants who remained in Palestine
during the 1948 war and are now Israeli citizens. Bashara is one of them and is a resident
of Nazareth. The Israeli government, Bashara said, took 85 percent of the property
belonging to those people after they were allegedly citizens. They are still subject to
racial and ethnic discrimination. The Israeli government spends exactly half as much money
educating its Arab citizens as it does its Jewish citizens. But even Arab citizens who get
college degrees cannot find jobs. He said the Israeli electrical company employs 25,000
people but that only six are Arabs.
So the first key point Bashara made is that Israel is not a true democracy. ``It is a
state of the Jews, not a state of its citizens, '' he said. ``Technologically it is a
modern state, but in its political culture, it is a medieval state.'' Bashara said the
current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, even ran on a racist slogan: ``Netanyahu is
good for the Jews.'' Twenty percent of Israel's population is non-Jewish.
Key point No. 2 is that Israel, rather than seeking true peace, is maintaining an
apartheid state. Israelis are free to travel anywhere. Palestinians are not. Even those
Palestinians under Arafat are in isolated pockets surrounded by Israeli-controlled
territory. They must get Israeli permission to cross from one place to another. Bashara
said that can take three to four days sometimes.
``They are creating Bantustans,'' he said, referring to the apartheid South African
government's policy of creating isolated and economically unviable ``homelands'' for the
black Africans.
Both Bishop Desmond Tutu and South African President Nelson Mandela have verified
Bashara's description and condemned the Israelis for it.
His final key point is that both major Israeli groups, Labor and Likud, are in
agreement on the final outcome: no sovereign state for the Palestinians, no sharing the
sovereignty of Jerusalem, no dismantling of the Jewish settlements, no Palestinian control
over the water and no return or compensation for the Palestinian refugees around the
worldz.
Bashara said the Israeli government has continued to confiscate Palestinian lands and
to expand Jewish settlements all through the Oslo process. In the long run, he said, the
world will not tolerate an apartheid state in the 21st century.
Source:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/0924rees.htm
