Israel leaves us no choice but to boycott

Palestinians have already given up so much since 1948.

It's up to Israel to end its campaign of ethnic cleansing for
the peace process to move forward.

December 17, 2010|

By Ali Abunimah

Israel's deputy minister of foreign affairs, Danny Ayalon, paints a picture of an innocent Israel
yearning for peace, virtually begging the intransigent Palestinians to come negotiate so there
can be a "two-states-for-two-peoples solution" ("Who's stopping the peace process?" Dec.
14). But it's one that bears no resemblance to the realities Palestinians experience and much of
the world sees every day.

Ayalon claims that the settlements Israel refuses to stop building on occupied land are a "red
herring" and present no obstacles to peace because in the "43 years since Israel gained control
of the West Bank, the built-up areas of the settlements constitute less than 1.7% of the total
area."

But let us remind ourselves of a few facts that are not in dispute. Since the Palestine
Liberation Organization and Israel signed the Oslo peace agreement in 1993, the number of
Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has tripled to more than
half a million. Ayalon's deceptive focus on the "built-up areas" ignores the reality that the
settlements now control 42% of the West Bank, according to a report last July from the Israeli
human rights group B'Tselem.

B'Tselem points out that there are now more than 200 Israeli settlements "that are connected
to one another, and to Israel, by an elaborate network of roads." These roads, along with
various "security zones" from which Palestinians are excluded, cut across Palestinian land and
isolate Palestinians in miserable and often walled, ghetto-like enclaves.

Despite a 10-month settlement "moratorium" that ended in September, Israel never stopped
building settlements for a single day. Construction went on virtually uninterrupted, according
to Israel's Peace Now, and within weeks of the official end of the "moratorium," settlers had
more than made up for the slight dip in new housing starts in the previous months. In East
Jerusalem, where Israel never even pretended to have a moratorium, government-backed
Israeli settlers continue to evict Palestinians from numerous neighborhoods.
While Israel's violent actions in occupied East Jerusalem have gotten a little bit of attention,
its silent ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley has attracted almost none. Israel has reduced
the Jordan Valley's population of 200,000 indigenous Palestinians to just 60,000 by
demolishing their villages and declaring vast areas of this vital region off-limits to them.

Israel's settlement project has one goal: to make Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and a
two-state solution impossible. With no prospect of drawing a line between Israeli and
Palestinian populations, it's time to recognize that Israel has succeeded and what we have
today is an apartheid reality across Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Prominent Hebrew University demographer Sergio DellaPergola recently told the Jerusalem
Post that Jews already constitute just under 50% of the population in Israel, the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip combined. In effect, a Jewish minority rules over a majority population
that includes 1.4 million Palestinian (second-class) citizens of Israel, 2.5 million Palestinians
under occupation in the West Bank and another 1.5 million under siege in the open-air prison
known as the Gaza Strip. All credible projections show that Palestinians will be the decisive
majority within a few years.

This injustice is intolerable. Under Israel's policies and the refusal of the United States to
exert any real pressure, there will be no end to it, and the prospects for catastrophic bloodshed
increase.

Absent any real action by the United States or other governments to hold Israel accountable, it
is up to civil society to step in. When black South Africans saw the world doing nothing about
apartheid in the 1950s, they called on global civil society to impose a boycott, divest from the
country and pass sanctions. By the 1970s and '80s, such campaigns were mainstream in U.S.
churches, campuses and communities, and politicians who had been reluctant to support
sanctions on South Africa eventually came aboard.

Today we see a similar movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions, endorsed

overwhelmingly by Palestinian civil society and growing around the world. It has even gained
support from some Israelis. Its aims are to do what the U.S. government should be doing but
will not: pressure Israel to end discrimination against Palestinians in Israel, end its occupation
of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and respect the rights of Palestinian refugees whose
return home Israel refuses to accept just because they are not Jews.

This movement is not an end in itself but a vehicle to get us down the road to a just peace
built on equality for Israelis and Palestinians. Israel's policies, typified by the disingenuous
diversions of Ayalon, have left us with no other choice.

Ali Abunimah is the author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian
Impasse," and a co-founder of the Electronic Intifada.

Quelle:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-abunimah-israel-settlements-
20101217,0,3057091.story