A wonderful photograph is just beginning to make its rounds. Captured at one of the exits for Chicago’s ‘Chicago’ Blue Line train stop, the tag reads “End Israeli Apartheid”.
Over 100 cities around the world took part in this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week to highlight Israel’s policies of segregation and discrimination against Palestinians.
Guest contribution by Wedad Yassin
On July 3, 2012, I was detained by Israeli police and soldiers in Al-Khalil (Hebron) simply for being Palestinian and walking on the wrong road.
My friends and I were walking in the Old City and found ourselves on Shuhada Street. We were almost at the end of the street when we were stopped and told that we were not allowed. Why?
“Because,” the soldier said, “this road is for Jews and tourists only.”
Reflexively, I pulled out my American passport and flashed my visa and said, “according to your law I am a tourist. Here is my visa.”
The soldier looked back at me with confused eyes. I did not at all fit the description of a “tourist” the way it’s described in the Israeli school system, for example. I am Arab, I am Muslim, and I wear the hijab. Tourist? No. I’m the perfect example of a “threat.”
After seven hours of interrogation, my friends and I were released from the station at midnight, all thanks to the lawyer who helped us and found absolutely no legal basis to preventing Palestinian pedestrians from walking on this road. The only things prohibited—and for no legitimate reason—are Palestinian-owned vehicles.
Again, this experience happened in July, two months ago.
Today I’m sitting in Amman in Jordan, writing this piece far from home because on August 31st, I was denied re-entry into my homeland. [Read more...]
Guest contribution by Maryam I.
Last week the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted on whether they would divest from three war-profiting companies helping sustain Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine. The result of the vote was 333 against divestment and 331 for divestment.
Though we BDS activists can pat ourselves on the back and claim this as a victory, in the end, the fact is that the church assembly chose not to divest from an occupation, siege, and system of apartheid that deprives an entire people of their freedom, human dignity, right to an adequate standard of living, and national identity. The fact that the margin was close is encouraging in that it shows the assembly has a substantial amount of people with consciences, but the fact that the majority of them see no problem in aiding, financing, and profiting from the suffering of a civilian population that the United Nations and human rights organizations worldwide have condemned is no feat to be celebrated.
If we are to evaluate the recent position Christian religious institutions have taken with regard to the colonial state of Israel and it’s 64-year occupation, we must also look a few weeks back when the Vatican signed an agreement with the state of Israel. This 32-page agreement covered a number of complex (and boring) issues, and one of my superiors requested that I read the agreement, make notes on important issues covered, and report back to him so he can give an interview on it later that day.
This agreement both shocked and disgusted me as it showed the strange manner in which institutions and individuals worldwide react to Israeli aggression and domination. [Read more...]
I woke up to this smiling face today though it’s not as bad as what Edmond Levy and his panel of dreamers just released to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office.
Israel’s judicial underbelly is a mess. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was acquitted in two major cases of corruption and found guilty in another case for breaching trust, Haaretz reports. He has yet to be tried for his documented crimes against Lebanese and Gazan civilian populations during the various invasions he helped mastermind.
Even more wild is the Levy Committee’s “findings” on Israel’s status in the West Bank. The panel, appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and steered by former Supreme Court justice Edmond Levy, “rejects the claim that Israel’s presence in the territory is that of an occupying force and asserts that its settlements and settlement outposts there are legal.” The committee’s claims are based on its reasoning that any structure built with government encouragement (which, let’s be real here, means every Jewish settlement) holds an “administrative assurance” that confers permission to settlers to continue colonizing Palestinian land. [Read more...]
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago erected a mock wall on campus early Thursday morning. Chicago Friends of Israel (CFI) immediately protested the wall on the grounds that it is entirely in accordance with international law.
SJP’s wall is modeled after Israel’s barrier wall cutting through the West Bank. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) condemned the wall, declaring it “contrary to international law” mostly because over 80% of it snakes into the West Bank and illegally annexes Palestinian territory. Israelis are free to travel through the wall but most of the wall’s gates are closed to Palestinians for “security concerns”.
Currently, over 12% of the West Bank lies on the other side of the wall. According to one CFI member, this de facto annexation of Palestinian land is not illegal because Israel is allegedly not occupying any Palestinian territory. He also claimed that annexation is strictly a legal term and because there have been no legal opinions condemning the wall, Israel has the privilege of constructing the wall along whichever route it pleases. I curtly reminded him of the ICJ ruling.
The CFI member then argued that Palestine never existed and couldn’t have ever existed “because the letter ‘P’ is not part of the Arabic language”. Two other CFI protesters quickly urged him to stop speaking. [Read more...]
Guest contribution by Yarah Kudaimi
In light of Israeli Apartheid Week, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign constructed a ninety-foot wide, seventeen-foot tall wall mirroring the barrier wall built by Israel enclosing the West Bank. Construction of the original wall in the West Bank began in 2002 under the guise of Israeli security. In actuality though, it is yet another expression of illegal colonial expansionism.
The 470-mile wall cutting through parts of the West Bank has annexed Palestinian land and separated Palestinians from each other and from access to land, schools, and health care. In addition, it winds in such a way to annex the most fertile soils and gives Israel optimum use of the majority of Palestinian water resources. According to international law, building this wall on Palestinian territory is illegal.
SJP-UIUC intended to raise awareness about this barrier wall by erecting a mock version of the wall on the University’s main quadrangle, the heart of student life. The wall has been up since Monday, April 16 and will be taken down on Friday, April 20. During this time, it has attracted the attention of thousands of students, faculty, and campus staff. The wall blocked the view of the building directly behind it and towered over students, reflecting the confinement and intimidation Palestinian civilians regularly experience under the wall’s presence. Similar to the actual wall in the West Bank, SJP members used the wall as a canvas of expression. They painted the panels with pictures, quotations, and statistics. Information about refugees, Palestinian detention, and the historical context surrounding the occupation of Palestine was printed directly on the wall for the campus community to see. [Read more...]
After inviting former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to speak about leadership and peace just months after authorizing a brutal invasion of the Gaza Strip, it comes as no surprise that the administration at the University of Chicago welcomes Israeli ambassador Michael Oren with open hands.
At this university in particular, discourse concerning Israel’s occupation of Palestine is typically circumvented or distastefully kept under the radar. Instead, campus administrators feign objective neutrality and, for once afraid to challenge the status quo, make it a point to “show both sides” by presenting students with state-sponsored propaganda that virtually absolves Israel of any regional responsibility.
We saw this firsthand in October 2009 when the University invited Olmert to speak about moral leadership even though he faced indictments for criminal corruption charges. Asked about his idea of a lasting peace, he failed to mention that he had recently called for “disproportionate” assaults against the Palestinian people.
We saw this again earlier in the week when the University invited Oren to solicit American support in his campaign to whitewash Israel’s abuse of Palestinian rights.
Oren is currently on an extended tour of college campuses. His purpose at each campus is to draw parallel’s between U.S. democracy and Israel’s Jewish democracy and to stress the importance of the U.S. as a staunch ally and military financer. Organized by Israel’s Consulate General, his talks are blatant attempts to put Israel in a favorable light without ever considering its policies towards Palestinians under its occupation. [Read more...]
Valentine’s day is right around the corner and for many around the world, it’s a time to embrace the loved ones, the husbands and wives, the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, the new friends and the old. But under Israel’s apartheid regime, there can’t be any of that. It’s against the law. It’s a demographic threat.
To highlight just how Israel’s segregationist policies affect the lives of everyday Palestinians, a team of socially-conscious community leaders headed by our very own Tanya Keilani launched a new project called “Love Under Apartheid“. The website features stories of Palestinians at home and abroad whose love lives, be it with their families or friends, have been forced to circumnavigate Israeli watchtowers and race-based ID checks. Sirene, for example, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who fears she’ll be unable to visit her fiancé in Gaza.
Like most Palestinians, Israel’s policies have taken a negative toll on my ability to express my love, too. Rarely am I able to visit my family members in Gaza — to hug my aunts and uncles — since the borders are sealed to me. Finding a wife in the West Bank is virtually out of the picture seeing that, as a Gazan, Israeli authorities won’t let me through the checkpoints. “You have no reason to be here,” said a soldier to my family as we tried to visit the West Bank once in 2000. [Read more...]
Guest contribution by Dena Elian
On November 15, 2011, six Palestinian Freedom Riders boarded a settler-only bus traveling to occupied East Jerusalem to openly challenge Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians and its minority populations. The following is a visual chronology of the events.
Educational apartheid: Schoolteacher Nour Joudah denied the right to enrich Palestinian minds
Nour Joudah, 25, a Palestinian-American high school teacher at the Ramallah Friends School was denied entry into Israel last week. This marked the second time in two months Israel denied Joudah the right to enrich the minds of her students.
Joudah left Palestine for a short vacation at the end of the last semester but was refused entry into the West Bank when she returned. She held out in neighboring Jordan and attempted to fly into Ben Gurion Airport on February 25. She was denied entry again.
The following day, she emailed her ninety students a final goodbye.
This is educational apartheid, deliberate and subversive. The Palestinian school system has come under attack designed to chip away at the potential of the youth — the potential to overcome Israel’s occupation.
In Gaza just four years ago, Israel showed a propensity to bomb schools outright. Today, it is similarly becoming more outward in its sabotage of Palestine’s educational infrastructure. It now does what it can, whenever it can, to restrict Palestinian children’s accessibility to knowledge, skill, expertise, and guidance. [Read more...]