"Our university is complicit too through its investments in arms companies that provide Israel its arsenal."

Monday, November 27, 2006

Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, 1948.
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"A flawed democracy"

By Shimaa Abdelfadeel

MICHIGAN DAILY (University of Michigan)
11/27/06

"Since late June, Israel has killed 400 Palestinians in Gaza. In the morning hours of November 8, 2006, in the village of Beit Hanoun,

"Israeli tanks repeatedly fired shells on a house, killing 18 members of the same extended family. Other attacks earlier in the month were launched against peaceful protesters in Gaza. In breaking the months-long cease-fire that Hamas had agreed to this summer, this invasion collectively punished innocent people in the name of Israeli security.

"Promoters of Zionism tout its democracy, which offers legal protection to all. There exists, however, a gap between theory and practice that has bred racial apartheid within Israeli society and between Israel and its occupied populations in Palestine. In a state that asserts the dominance of one religious persuasion, democracy cannot really flourish. By failing to protect a plurality of ethnic and religious groups, the Israeli government exposes non-Jewish populations to persecution in a variety of ways.

"Israeli political leaders like Avigdor Lieberman, who was recently promoted deputy prime minister, explicitly support the ethnic cleansing of Arab populations as a way of preserving the Jewish majority in Israel.

"Immigration law under the Israeli democracy is another site of exclusion. Israel's "Law of Return" offers citizenship to anyone of the Jewish faith from anywhere in the world, yet Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return to their homes and become citizens. These refugees are numbered in the millions and were displaced from their homes at various points during the last 60 years.

"In 1948, Israeli independence came in conjunction with the forced removal of 750,000 Palestinians from their land. Through the years, Israel has conquered and occupied more Palestinian land by war, a violation of the United Nations Charter. During these wars, millions more were displaced from their homes in Israel/Palestine. Despite UN Resolution 194, Israel refuses to grant refugees the right to return home because this would threaten the demographic majority in Israel. In its obsession with maintaining this majority, Israeli policy has led to the removal and marginalization of another people and culture, instead of upholding the values of inclusion and equality that democracies promise to foster.

"Arabs living in Israel as citizens compose the lowest socioeconomic classes. They cannot purchase land owned by the Jewish National Fund, an organization that administers a large proportion of Israel's land and only sells real estate to its Jewish citizens.

"In occupied Palestine, Israeli military rule does not even pretend to uphold democratic values. Nor does it adhere to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bars the settlement of Israelis on land that is under Israeli military occupation. Not only did Israel transplant 12,000 new settlers into the West Bank after its formal withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, but it also maintained a military siege on the strip, controlling the flow of people and goods in and out and violating Palestinian airspace and ports.

"In the name of security, Israel has laid waste to the Palestinian economy and turned Gaza into an open-air prison. To enforce an illegal settlement project in the territories, the Israeli military implements policies that degrade their democratic ideal further, as witnessed by the tragedy in Beit Hanoun weeks ago.

"Israelis and Palestinians are using peaceful resistance against Israeli policy. Hundreds of Palestinians assembled at a Gazan home, forcing the Israeli military to call off its planned air attack. In defiance of their government's occupation, Israeli activists seized control of tanks at a Gaza border crossing. This cross-national struggle desires a peace that only justice can nourish. The end of Israeli occupation and an overhaul of Israel's exclusionary state are prerequisites to a just solution.

"The UN General Assembly recently condemned the attacks in Gaza, but the United States vetoed a similar resolution in the Security Council, thus exerting American power to excuse its ally's atrocities. But massive American military aid also facilitates Israeli crimes.

"Our university is complicit too through its investments in arms companies that provide Israel its arsenal. Divesting from these companies would allow our campus to invest in just outcomes rooted in equality and lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians."

"-- Shimaa Abdelfadeel is an LSA senior and a co-chair of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality."

On the Web at:
http://www.michigandaily.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=2b7b6a66-0c4c-4627-b543-f21c5416ebc1
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# posted by Stop Crucifying Palestine @ 7:58 AM

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