Trapped Like Mice: Palestinians under the New Israeli "Disengagement Plan"

[Violet_Crumble]

Palestine has been in the headlines of the Western mainstream media again. The preparations leading up to the elections on January 9 have given everyone enough news to cover — or rather: they have given the media enough news to cover up what is actually developing on the ground. But it is this current situation on the ground that will, if it is not stopped in time, more effectively shape the future for the Palestinian people than any electoral process ever could.

Away from international attention, the destiny being prepared for the Palestinian people is showing its true face more clearly than ever before in the new Israeli plans presented to the public in the past few months. The Apartheid Wall, with its horrendous effects on Palestinian life and land, does not stand alone, but is today merging with the longstanding Israeli settlement policy and the creation of Jewish-only infrastructure into a comprehensive scheme for colonial domination and conquest.

An appalling plan for Palestine is shaping up behind Israeli slogans of "disengagement"; behind the British initiative to revive "the Road Map"; and behind the U.S. drive to force through the completion of Israeli plans that finalize the Bantustanization of the Palestinian people. All three are combining to push for an end to all Palestinian resistance, which is seen as a pre-condition for controlling the Middle East from Jerusalem to Baghdad. The U.S. administration in particular is highly aware that any possible chance of success for the occupation of Iraq, and for U.S.-Israeli plans to shape the future of the Greater Middle East, depend on their ability to create "stability" for the Israeli colonial project of annexation, expulsion, and occupation in Palestine.

Among the recent plans announced by Israel, some were mere masquerades for the international media, while others revealed concrete Israeli projects. The latest modification to the path of the Apartheid Wall was a plan of the first kind. These supposed modifications were nothing more than the result of U.S. and international pressure demanding maps that would enable them to defend the Wall in front of their constituencies and public opinion. The "new map" of the Wall represents a contorted game of numbers and definitions that has "lowered" the percentage of West Bank land stolen and destroyed by the Apartheid Wall to 6.1 percent.

But of course, as the media and political leaders praising the "new" plan inevitably fail to point out, this 6.1 percent needs to be added to the 11.8 percent annexed by the settlements and the 29.1 percent isolated in the Jordan Valley. Without even taking into account the additional land that has also been stolen from the Palestinian people for the construction of the settlers-only roads, this makes a total of 47 percent of the West Bank, and reveals itself as absolutely no different from the 47 percent that Israel intended to annex before the supposed modifications.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3523.shtml

[madrchsod]

1. the palestinian people got screwed over again by

those who are in charge. israel had no intention of ever going along with a real election and the palestinian election was a sham. oh well the war goes on...

[On the Road]

2. Amazingly Enough, The Palestinians Elect a Conciliator

and Israel's first act is to cut off relations because he talks with all Palestinian political parties? Bait and switch. Utter hypocrisy. Israel's doing to the Palestinians what the US did to the Cherokees, and the US is behind them 100% of the way.

[ashiebr]

3. And are we surprised? N/T