"If there is any sort of just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict it will have to be more like a divorce settlement than a
marriage. With this kind of racist mentality, which is unfortunately
becoming the norm rather than the exception in Israel, Palestinians will
certainly welcome their own bus lines and light rails – not en route to
shabby Israeli jobs, but to locations in an independent Palestine." Joharah Baker for Miftah,
The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
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Israeli racism is getting out of hand
Date posted: March 04, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
The culture of hate and the demonization of the ‘other’ on which Israel
was established has taken on scary new levels recently. Back in 1948,
the only way Jewish, and later Israeli troops and gangs could have
committed massacres and driven hundreds of thousands of people from
their homes was if they deemed them less than human.
The trend has continued over the past 60-plus years and has,
frighteningly enough, become part of the Israeli mainstream, government
and public alike.
Yesterday, the Israel transportation authority introduced new bus routes
for Palestinians. The official line is that this new measure would ease
traffic and transportation pressures and ‘ease travel for Palestinian
passengers” in Israel, mostly West Bank workers. We know better though.
Settlers and other Israelis have long complained that they do not like
Palestinians traveling side by side with them on their buses. Mind you,
settlers travelling in the West Bank are illegal squatters, even
according to international law. There has been more than one instance in
which Palestinians are asked to get off the bus and countless instances
when they are harassed by Israeli passengers. Now, the government is
solving the settlers’ problem for them, kowtowing once again, to the
manic and racist extremism taking over Israeli society.
The transportation ministry insists that no Palestinian will be ‘asked’
to get off the bus, be we all know about persuasion and coercion. The
Israelis want total separation and that is what their government is
giving them. Israel’s government has learned a lot from colonialist and
racist experiences throughout history. Apartheid aside, is this not
reminiscent of a segregated United States when African-Americans had
separate buses (or at least had to sit in the back), separate
restaurants and separate bathrooms? At least white America called a
spade a spade at the time. Israel does not even have the gumption to do
that.
Still, the indoctrination of hatred is more than apparent in the
mentality of its younger generation. Last week, a Jewish Israeli
teenager physically assaulted a Palestinian woman at one of the
light-rail stations in Jerusalem. Apparently, the Israeli walked up to
the woman and asked her if she was ‘Arab’. When the woman, identified as
Hana, responded in the positive, saying ‘you can tell by my clothes”
[she was in traditional Muslim dress], the Israeli teen began punching,
slapping and spitting at her. When other girls joined in, they tore off
Hana’s headscarf, a Muslim woman’s symbol of modesty.
The policy of segregation and separation has become so ingrained among
Israelis, it sometimes seems difficult to envision any coexistence
between the two. East and west Jerusalem are two very different sides to
the same city but, barring Palestinians in west Jerusalem shopping
malls and Palestinian workers in Israeli shops and construction sites,
the two peoples hardly mix. There is a distinct line between them, both
literal and invisible. The seam line between east and west cuts, not
only through geographic, but racial and social lines, revealing a stark
difference between the residents of both sectors. When Palestinians and
Israelis do meet – at bus stops or light rail stations, the mood is
often tense, uncomfortable and foreign. And sometimes, the real feelings
of the increasingly right-wing society in Israel rears its ugly face.
Hate crimes against Palestinians are becoming all too common in
Jerusalem in particular, with the perpetrators receiving a slap on the
wrist, at best.
If there is any sort of just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict it will have to be more like a divorce settlement than a
marriage. With this kind of racist mentality, which is unfortunately
becoming the norm rather than the exception in Israel, Palestinians will
certainly welcome their own bus lines and light rails – not en route to
shabby Israeli jobs, but to locations in an independent Palestine.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information
Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global
Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and
inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..." https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
