Green Line & Apartheid

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Well, dear All,

In effect, from the actuality on the ground, the ‘green line’ has been erased. Israeli
leaders, expansionist at the core from the beginning, since conquering the West Bank never
wanted a line delineating a border between the so-called Israel proper and the WB, because
conquest of the WB gave further room for expansion. That was the name of the game, and
continues to be.

The ‘Greater Israel’ now exists. The means to it has been and is a devastating Military
Occupation, which via all manner of excuses (the most popular one being “security”) stole land,
deprived Palestinian farmers of their fields, uprooted trees, demolished homes, killed and
imprisoned, and continues to do all these while ever expanding settlements. All that is needed
to complete the job is ethnic cleansing—not of the settlers, of course, but of the indigenous
peoples: the Palestinians. And this is well underway.

Will the ‘Greater Israel’ bring security to Israelis? Very unlikely. Will it make Israelis
moral? Very unlikely. Will it encourage immigrants to come? Very unlikely. Instead, more
wars and more violence will encourage emigration (there have been 10 wars during Israel’s 58
years!—quite a record).

Until a leader such as a Mandela or a Gandhi comes along, Israelis will continue to close their
eyes to the catastrophe that approaches. This is not to say that justice always wins out.
History has shown that it justice often loses. It is only to say that a puddle of 5 million Jews
surrounded by a sea of 350 million Muslims is unlikely to survive forever unless it furnishes a
strong reason for its survival, as, for instance, instead of constantly threatening its
neighbors it holds out stability by furnishing a promising and just future for all the
inhabitants of its own immediate area, namely historical Palestine.

Dorothy

Ha’aretz Friday, January 19, 2007