{"id":180369,"date":"2021-03-08T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=180369"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:40","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:40","slug":"picnic-video-exposes-both-faces-of-israeli-apartheid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/03\/picnic-video-exposes-both-faces-of-israeli-apartheid\/","title":{"rendered":"Picnic Video Exposes Both Faces of Israeli Apartheid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Israel upholds a system of Jewish supremacy over the land, and it doesn’t matter whether those challenging its apartheid rule are Palestinian subjects without rights or \u201cArab\u201d citizens supposedly with full rights.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aJslBKG4Rcc&feature=emb_imp_woyt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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17 Feb 2021 – <\/em>A short video taken by a family as they picnicked in the West Bank this month may be the best field guide yet to Israel\u2019s complex apartheid system of state-sponsored Jewish supremacy.<\/p>\n

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In the clip posted to Facebook, armed Jewish settlers arrive unexpectedly to break up the picnic of a Palestinian family<\/a> \u2013 including grandparents and two babies \u2013 at a scenic public space on a hillside north of Ramallah.<\/p>\n

In the occupied West Bank, the settlers are the lords of the land and used to getting their own way. They assume that this is just another group of Palestinians to be terrorized away so that the illegal Jewish settlement they live in, one of many dozens, can further expand its jurisdiction on to Palestinian land.<\/p>\n

For the settlers, this is all in day\u2019s improvised ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

Not as it appears<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But they are in for a surprise. The scene is not exactly as it appears and things don\u2019t go to plan.<\/p>\n

Some distance from their homes, Palestinians would usually pack up in a hurry at the first sight of menacing armed settlers. But these Palestinians stand their ground and argue back in fluent Hebrew.<\/p>\n

When the settlers cite the Bible as their title deeds to the land, and start grabbing the family\u2019s things to evict the group, the grandmother shouts indignantly: \u201cWe are Israelis just like you and we\u2019re allowed to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is partly right. They are indeed Israelis. The family are from Nazareth, the largest and most privileged Palestinian community inside <\/em>Israel. They belong to a minority formally known as \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d. But the grandmother\u2019s claim that her family is \u201cjust like you\u201d is an error \u2013 or more likely a bluff.<\/p>\n

A settler corrects her: \u201cYou\u2019re not Israelis, you\u2019re Arabs, we did you a favor when we let you stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historical anomaly<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In Israeli public discourse, \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d \u2013 or \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d as the term is usually transcribed into English to make it seem less offensive \u2013 have been stripped of their real identity to sever their connection to the larger Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, they are descended from exactly the same Palestinian population that today lives either under occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, or as refugees exiled from their homeland by Israel\u2019s mass ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948, known by Palestinians as the Nakba, or Catastrophe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d are marked out from other Palestinians only by an historical anomaly: a small number managed to avoid the ethnic cleansing operations of 1948 and remained on their land in what was about to become Israel.<\/p>\n

Eventually, and very reluctantly under international pressure, Israel conferred a very degraded citizenship<\/a> on these \u201cArabs\u201d. Today, after decades of higher birth rates than Israeli Jews, \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d are a fifth of the population.<\/p>\n

Ugly truth<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Israel proudly tells the world that its \u201cArab\u201d citizens enjoy entirely equal rights with Jewish citizens. The truth is far uglier, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu inadvertently conceded<\/a> when he used Instagram to correct an Israeli TV host who had suggested that Israel was a western-style democracy. \u201cIsrael is not a state of all its citizens. According to the nation-state law we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people \u2014 and not anyone else,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Some 70 laws<\/a> explicitly offer differentiated rights depending on whether an Israeli citizen is Jewish or \u201cArab\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d are almost entirely segregated from Israeli Jews<\/a> in where they can live, where they go to school, and in many cases where they are allowed to work. The citizenship status of Jews and \u201cArabs\u201d derives from separate laws. These \u201cArabs\u201d are barred from living in most of Israel\u2019s territory, and planning rules have been systematically skewed to their disadvantage.<\/p>\n

In short, most \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d live in segregated, poor, land-hungry, overcrowded and under-resourced communities.<\/p>\n

But by historical accident they have an Israeli citizenship that confers on them \u2013 unlike Palestinians under occupation \u2013 the right to vote in Israeli elections and basic legal rights protected by Israel\u2019s civilian courts, not its military courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d are also typically dealt with either by the ordinary Israeli police or by a paramilitary force known as the Border Police that operates in both Israel and the occupied territories. The border being policed is the segregated one between Jews and non-Jews.<\/p>\n

But dealing with the Border Police is often preferable to being policed by the Israeli army, as is usually the case for Palestinians in the occupied territories.<\/p>\n

No price to pay<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As the settlers who disrupt the woodland picnic fail to get their way, they look confused and unsure. One says to the family: \u201cYou are not Israeli, you are Arabs. We did you a favor by letting you remain [in Israel]. Go back to Nazareth.\u201d But what exactly are their rights in a situation like this?<\/p>\n

If these were straightforward \u201cPalestinians\u201d, the settlers could throw rocks at them or shoot over their heads<\/a>. Should the Palestinians refuse to flee, they could be beaten or the settlers could even consider shooting one in the leg \u2013 or worse<\/a> \u2013 to make sure the rest got the message: \u201cWe are kings and you are unwelcome serfs\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are unlikely to pay a price to harming Palestinians under occupation, apart from maybe a story in Haaretz from Amira Hass, the only Israeli reporter living in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

But the settlers can always say they had been attacked by Palestinians and were defending themselves. No real questions would be asked. If a video surfaced on YouTube showing otherwise, Israeli officials would act as press officers, claiming the footage was edited to mislead viewers \u2013 just another example of Pallywood<\/a>. And anyone sharing the video could be discounted as an antisemite.<\/p>\n

Familiar rules<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This is a game whose rules the settlers \u2013 and the Israeli army and government behind them \u2013 know only too well, rules designed to work exclusively for their benefit.<\/p>\n

But in the case of \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d picnicking in the West Bank, the rules have not been properly defined. Can settlers beat with impunity these uppity natives with Israeli citizenship? Can they point their guns at them? If they do, what happens? Might there be an investigation? And if so, who will lead it \u2013 the army or the police?<\/p>\n

Might these \u201cArabs\u201d have relatives back in privileged Nazareth who are lawyers versed in the intricacies of the Israeli legal system? There are even some \u201cArab\u201d judges in the court system<\/a>. How might such a judge rule in a case like this?<\/p>\n

The settlers\u2019 uncertainty is justified. Which apartheid rules apply in the occupied territories when dealing with \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d: the occupation version of apartheid or the Israeli democracy version of apartheid? It is a grey area.<\/p>\n

Unsure of powers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

No longer confident that their powers are limitless, at least in a situation like this one, the settlers decide to delegate. They call the army. After all, soldiers of the Jewish state are there to protect other Jews, even when those Jews are armed, they are living illegally on Palestinian land and they are attacking defenseless Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The army will know what to do.<\/p>\n

The soldiers are soon there, but they look a little unsure too. They are more used to standing \u201cguard\u201d as settlers attack and terrorize Palestinians, only interfering if it looks like the settlers might be in need of help.<\/p>\n

These picnickers aren\u2019t Jewish, so the soldiers are under no duty to protect them. But at the same they are Israeli citizens so the soldiers cannot afford to be filmed pointing their guns at them or watching impassively as the settlers beat them up.<\/p>\n

Gentle ethnic cleansing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There is no rule book for this situation, so the soldiers improvise. With the wisdom of Solomon, they cut the baby in half. A soldier concedes that they are indeed in a public space but warns the \u201cArabs\u201d that, unlike the settlers, they are \u201cnot allowed here\u201d. He adds: \u201cI don\u2019t want to use too much force.\u201d<\/p>\n

The soldiers prefer that the threat remains implicit. The family will have to leave immediately and cede this land to the masters, the Jews. The \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d are evicted in an orderly fashion.<\/p>\n

What we see, caught on the camera of Lubna Abed el-Hadi, is what might be termed gentle ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

This short video confirms the lie of the oft-repeated claim of Israeli leaders that \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d have equal rights with Israeli Jews. In truth, Jews always have superior rights, whether it is inside \u201cdemocratic\u201d Israel or in the occupied territories.<\/p>\n

Layers of apartheid<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The original apartheid state \u2013 the one in South Africa \u2013 offers a template that can help us to decode this video. As with Israel, there were layers to South African apartheid, although those layers were much less effective than Israel\u2019s at veiling the segregation system.<\/p>\n

South Africa had its \u201cWhites\u201d \u2013 the masters \u2013 and its \u201cBlacks\u201d \u2013 the serfs. But it also had a group trapped between them, one that was harder to classify, called the \u201cColoreds\u201d. In a system that craved clear racial categorizations, the Coloreds were a nuisance \u2013 a reminder of times before apartheid when segregation was not so strict and inter-racial relationships possible.<\/p>\n

The Coloreds were really Blacks in the sense that they had none of the privileges of the Whites. But they also enjoyed a few exemptions from the worse racist policies faced by the Blacks, such as the requirement to carry passes to move around.<\/p>\n

A New York Times article<\/a> in 1985, in South Africa\u2019s final apartheid years, concluded: \u201cDespite the law that seeks to lock them into a simple group definition, South Africa\u2019s mixed-race people defy such labeling and the ambiguity of their status is acute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Coloreds<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The comparison is not precise. \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d are not the descendants of mixed relationships between Jews and Palestinians. They are as native as other Palestinians, their histories indistinguishable until 1948. Like other Palestinians, \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d have a relatively unified language and culture that was not true of the Coloreds in South Africa.<\/p>\n

But their inferior legal status and ambiguous social position within the dominant apartheid system is similar to that of the Coloreds.<\/p>\n

After the fall of South Africa\u2019s apartheid, and in an era of 24-hour rolling news, Israel has eased the most blatant forms of discrimination faced by its \u201cArabs\u201d. It has been careful to avoid the worst excesses of South Africa\u2019s version of apartheid inside Israel. There are no separate entrances to rest rooms or shops for Israel\u2019s \u201cColoreds\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the core segregation continues. \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d are expected to live in their own 120 or so segregated neighborhoods, Israel\u2019s version of the notorious Group Areas Act. They are banned not only from accessing the Jewish-only settlements of the West Bank, but from living in all of the territory inside Israel bar the 3% reserved for non-Jews.<\/p>\n

\u2018Security\u2019 policy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Coloreds had \u201ctoken representation\u201d in South Africa, according to the Times. \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d too have the semblance of a vote, but one that makes no impact on the parliamentary system or the shape of the government<\/a>. Like the Colored counterparts, \u201cIsraeli Arab\u201d schools are massively underfunded and under-resourced, and the police force\u2019s policy towards them moves between neglect and open hostility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As happened in 1966 at District Six, a Colored community near Cape Town, \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d can be forced off their lands at the drop of the hat \u2013 as is currently happening at Umm al-Hiran in the Negev<\/a> \u2013 if the state deems that the land is needed more by the masters than the serfs.<\/p>\n

The New York Times article notes that apartheid South Africa\u2019s policy towards its Coloreds and Blacks was governed by a \u201csecurity\u201d approach that treated them as an enemy. Just such an official policy towards \u201cIsrael\u2019s Arabs\u201d was highlighted nearly 20 years ago by a state commission of inquiry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another observation by the Times will echo with \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d: \u201cMost black townships, for instance, have few entrances and are thus easily sealed.\u201d Similarly, \u201cArab\u201d communities in Israel typically have one or two ways in or out \u2013 a legacy of the military government that in Israel\u2019s first two decades tightly controlled all \u201cArab\u201d movement.<\/p>\n

In recent months those memories were revived in Nazareth, for example, when the police again blockaded the city\u2019s entrances during periods of lockdown.<\/p>\n

Desirable or undesirable<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Very belatedly it has finally dawned on Jewish human rights groups in Israel that the country\u2019s apartheid system can no more be separated between a \u201cdemocratic\u201d Israel and a non-democratic occupied territories than South Africa\u2019s could be between its white areas and the so-called black homelands, the Bantustans.<\/p>\n

One group, B\u2019Tselem, concluded last month that Israeli apartheid is indivisible, just as South Africa\u2019s was. Its executive director, Hagai El-Ad, observed<\/a>: \u201cThere is not a single square inch in the territory Israel controls where a Palestinian and a Jew are equal. The only first-class people here are Jewish citizens such as myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The division, El-Ad noted, was not primarily between Israelis \u2013 Jews and \u201cArabs\u201d \u2013 and Palestinians but between the segregated treatment of people under Israeli rule as either \u201cdesirable or undesirable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Those picnicking \u201cArabs\u201d are the undesirables just as much as are the Palestinians living close by in Ramallah. Which is why the settlers were determined to move them off the land, and why the soldiers were only too happy to assist.<\/p>\n

Israel upholds a system of Jewish supremacy over the land, and it matters not one jot whether those challenging its apartheid rule are Palestinian subjects without rights or \u201cArab\u201d citizens supposedly with full rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. He is the author of: <\/em>Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006); <\/em>Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008); and <\/em>Disappearing Palestine: Israel\u2019s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). In 2011 he was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize<\/a> for Journalism.<\/em> The same year, Project Censored<\/a> voted one of Jonathan\u2019s reports, \u201cIsrael brings Gaza entry restrictions to West Bank\u201d, the ninth most important story censored in 2009-10.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – mondoweiss.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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