Al Nakba, 1948
Like the loss of a child, I cannot fathom the emotions and turmoil that Palestinians share while being ruled by military order. In “Is Israel An Apartheid State?,” a summary legal study funded and coordinated by the Government of South Africa, apartheid regimes rely on three pillars to maintain domination.
- The state codifies into law a preferred identity. It then establishes laws that grant preferential legal status and material advantages against the non-preferred group.
- The state segregates the population into geographical areas based on identity. Thus, the favored identity receives preferential access to land, water, and other resources.
- The state establishes security laws and policies designed to suppress any opposition to the regime.
My attention to Palestine and Palestinian Christians arose when North Park University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, directed by (Reverend/Doctor) Professor Don Wagner, organized a symposium that I attended. One session featured University of San Francisco Professor Stephen Zunes https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/stephen-zunes, a prolific writer. He is regarded as a leading scholar of U.S. Middle East policy and strategic nonviolent action. Zunes and a Jewish, curmudgeon history professor from the University of Illinois – Chicago debated Israel’s practices. “Debate” is not really appropriate as the latter barely spoke while the former persuasively wiped the floor with the grumbler.
Journalist Robert Fisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk delivered a lecture. Mr. Fisk has also written extensively on the 1915 Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, these days.) President Biden recently recognized the genocide, which milquetoast President Obama failed to do. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/24/joe-biden-armenian-genocide-recognition
I purchased Professor Wagner’s book during the symposium. https://hcef.org/337-book-review-don-wagners-dying-in-the-land-of-promise-palestine-and-palestinian-christianity-from/
Around this time I attended a church and befriended a man whose daughters participated in youth group with my sons. My friend’s parents were forcibly removed from their farms where they grew oranges, lemons, and limes during Al Nakba in 1948. They were forced to walk for three days, prompted by Jewish soldiers brandishing flame throwers, to a refugee camp in Jordan. Their farms made way for the creation of Ben Gurion Airport.
According to the summarized legal study, there are at least 2,500 military orders governing Palestinians. For example, Military Order #847 declares only Israeli notaries can authenticate signatures. MO#998 requires Palestinians to get Israeli military permission to make a withdrawal from a bank account. An amendment to MO#1147 requires Palestinians to get permission from the Israeli military to grow onions.
Did you know that Israel diverts all of Palestinian Jordan River water and 87% of Palestinian groundwater to the state of Israel and to the illegal Jewish settlers? Did you know that Palestinians pay extensively more – up to 20x more – than Israelis for water? Did you know that Israel restricts Palestinians’ water consumption to 40% less per day than the minimum health standard set by the World Health Organization?
After Son #2 attended a Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) rally with his gf as an undergraduate student, a Jewish friend asked if my kid was Anti-Semitic. This post, like my son’s participation, relates to policy and human rights, not ethnicity. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/world/middleeast/bds-israel-boycott-antisemitic.html I have donated money for years to Christian Peacekeepers https://www.cpt.org/programs/palestine
In conclusion, the legal study finds Israel’s practices in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip “constitute both colonialism and apartheid.”
Did you know that, in addition to significant economic assistance, the United States provided Israel with $3.8 Billion in military aid in 2019? Not in my name. BDS, baby!
