Bad
walls make bad neighbours
Op/Ed by tOM Trottier
Israel is now providing more services to more illegal West Bank settlements and carving its massive wall through the West Bank. The wall would be lawful and moral, as moral as the Berlin Wall, if the wall were along Israel's border, the "Green Line," but it is not. It bisects Arab properties, surrounds Arab villages, divides Arabs from the fields that they work, to keep the suicide bombers away from Israel and Israeli settlements.
Israeli West Bank settlements are hilltop garrisons in a hostile land, Masadas in waiting. Israeli West Bank settlers vote for their government, but West Bank Arabs have no vote. Israeli settlers travel freely, Arabs must queue endlessly. Arabs have no state safety net, poor jobs, no rights. Israelis have welfare, good jobs, rights. Israel the democracy becomes Israel the theocracy.
Do Israelis expect the Palestinians to disappear, as Israelis occupy more and more land? Unless the Israelis start their own pogroms of the Arabs, or start to taint Palestinian water with birth control hormones, the Palestinians will remain and multiply, and in a few years there will be more Arabs than Jews living under Israeli rule, destroying the theory of "Israeli democracy."
The Arabs must grant Israel the right for the Jewish state to exist, but so too must Israel grant Palestinians their right to be governed by a government they elect.
The wall must move to Israel's borders. Israelis must leave the West Bank. The US must tell Israel these grim truths, or the Intifada will go on and on, with all its costs, monetary and human, for both Israelis and Palestinians, for years and years and years to come.
Without US support, money transfers, weapons, and technology, Israel would still survive, but if these were denied to Israel, perhaps its ears would open. Israel does not listen to the UN General Assembly, but maybe, just maybe, they might listen to George Bush, if he would act instead of blathering.
The time has come for the US to tell Israel, "Enough!" and embargo Israel as it did Iraq, that other middle east occupying power.
tOM
Trottier
Ottawa, Ontario
tOM@Abacurial.com
"They that
can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety."
~ Benjamin Franklin
tOM Trottier
is a computer
consultant in Ottawa who enjoys bridge and photography. He sometimes gets
mad at the injustices of the world and wishes people could compromise
for the sake of peace.
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Page created October
28, 2003
updated November 23, 2003