10) ATROCITIES AND GENOCIDE CONTINUE IN PALESTINE

(The following article is from the August 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Stephen Von Sychowski

In 2002 construction began in Palestine on what will go down in history as one of the most striking symbols of oppression produced by the capitalist system in modern times; the Apartheid Wall. Apologists claim the wall is necessary as a measure to ensure security for Israelis. But the reality caused by the construction of the wall can be considered no less than a drastic new stage in Israel's decades-old genocidal policy towards the Palestinian people which has in turn generated the violence cited as reasons for the Wall.

     Construction of the Wall, which has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice and United Nations, has been marked by theft of land, destruction of property, violence and even murder. The Wall is being constructed not on what would be considered "Israeli territory" by international law, but rather within Palestinian land. This has led to over 2% of Palestinian territory, including several illegal Israeli colonies, being swallowed up into the borders of the Israeli Apartheid state. In its wake, the wall has led to the demolition, without reparation, of Palestinian homes, stores and infrastructure. It has cut off Palestinian families from their water supplies, fields and other necessary means of sustenance.

     Not surprisingly, this has fueled anger, protest and resistance in Palestine and has led to the growth of an international anti-Israeli Apartheid movement. But protest against the Wall has been met with further bloodshed and atrocities committed by Israeli occupation forces.

     On July 21, the BBC reported that Palestinian human rights group B'Tselem had released footage of a Palestinian protestor, blindfolded and being held by an Israeli soldier, being shot with a rubber bullet in the West Bank village of Ni'lin. The terrifying footage was available for viewing and remains in circulation on the internet. While the Israeli defense minister condemned the act as "a grave and wrong one," the only difference between this and any other day along the Apartheid Wall construction zone was that a heroic 14 year old Palestinian girl had captured it on film. The soldier who fired on the Palestinian man was detained for one day, and then returned to active duty.

     The protest had begun the day before in Ni'lin, one more in a long string of acts of resistance to the wall, spanning the six years since construction began. When hundreds of Palestinians marched to protect their land from construction they were met with sound and gas bombs, physical attacks and threats from Israeli military forces, but they had halted the bulldozers... for now.

     The attacks against Palestinians have not only been by military forces. Illegal Israeli settlers have frequently carried out violent attacks, sometimes with the help of military forces. In May, fields belonging to Palestinians in the village of Asira al-Qibliya were torched by Israeli settlers. When Palestinians attempted to put out the flames they were blocked by Israeli soldiers. At least one Palestinian was handcuffed and beaten. In June, B'Tselem released footage showing masked, stick wielding Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian farmers in the West Bank.

     Yet in May 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a speech for Israel's 60th Anniversary in which he referred to the Israeli state as "a symbol of the triumph of hope and faith" and an "inspiration" with a "commitment to the universal values of all civilized peoples: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law". He aimed to tar those who oppose and resist Israel's racist Apartheid system as anti-Semites who "hate the Jewish people"; a common tactic of switching victim for oppressor. And he concluded by stating that he "can foresee no dark force, no matter how strong, that could succeed in dimming the light of freedom and democracy that shines from within Israel."

     But that light of freedom and democracy couldn't be much dimmer if you're a Palestinian facing Israeli occupation and oppression on their own, stolen, land. For that matter, it hasn't been this dim in Canada for quite some time either until now, under the Harper regime. So just as Harper has declared himself Olmert's partner in genocide, lets declare ourselves, Canadian workers, youth and students, as partners of the Palestinian people in liberation. Let's support campaigns against Apartheid and for boycott and divestment of Israel, and continue to fight for the removal of the ultra-reactionary, pro-Apartheid Harper government from power.

     For more information: Canada-Palestine Support Network (http://www.canpalnet.ca) and Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign http://www.stopthewall.org.