Chutzpah: West Bank Settlers Complain That Checkpoints Make Them Late For Work
Thank you, Mitch Plitnick, who represents B'tselem, the Israeli human right organization in Washington for bringing this insanity to my attention.
A group of Israeli settlers have filed a suit against Israeli authorities because the so-called security checkpoints -- designed to prevent terrorists from getting into Jerusalem -- are making them late for work, school, the gym, whatever.
There are some 600 checkpoints; more are added all the time. A tiny minority of that number are on the border between Israeli and Palestine (a few dozen or so). These are designed to protect Israel against terrorists who might cross into Israel. The rest are internal checkpoints designed to impede Palestinian movement from one Palestinian town to another. The checkpoints -- along with the "settlers only" superhighways -- divide and dice the West Bank into small pieces, giving the settlers a viable homeland while preventing the Palestinians from reclaiming the economic and social viability that they had before the occupation.
How ironic is it that the settlers, for whom Israel has constructed an entire system of internal barriers to Palestinian movement, now are filing suit because sometimes the border checkpoints (designed to deter terrorism) inconvenience them!
Palestinians are not just inconvenienced by the checkpoints. The checkpoints have caused thousands to lose their jobs (they can't get to them). They prevent kids getting to school. And they have caused innocent people (including women in labor and babies) to die because they were prevented from getting to the hospital. See this from Israel's Yedioth Achronoth. Or this list of victims (and their testimonies from Btselem).
On the other hand, think of those settlers who were so late to work that they lost a good parking space..
"GAZA CITY, Oct 21 (IPS) - The letter of acceptance that 28-year-old Hazem Hussain got for a business graduate programme in a Californian university once brought joy. Now he does not know what to do with it.
He has admission, and a visa to the U.S., but the Israelis will not let him leave.
"I have tried to get out through every means possible for a year now," he says. "But I am not able to go." The semester started some weeks ago.
Twenty-two-year old Saed Badawi got admission to a German university, but he too is stuck. "I am devastated by this -- getting my visa renewed will take a long time, with all the new procedures and requirements."
Eighteen-year-old Juliet Al-Tork, accepted in Jordan's Al-Yarmouk University for a translations course, is among the hundreds not being allowed by Israel to leave. "All young people are given the chance to study, and I am not."
...The official Israeli explanation is summed up in a Jul. 7, 2008 letter from then Knesset member and Israeli minister for foreign affairs, Tsippi Livni: "The policy of not permitting exit abroad for students from Gaza is part of the Security Cabinet decision from 19.09.07 which defined Gaza as a hostile entity and placed restrictions on the borders for passage of goods and movement of people from the Strip and to it except for humanitarian cases."
Israel declared Gaza a "hostile entity" after failing to overthrow the elected government in an attempted coup with the help of U.S.-trained Fatah fighters during the summer of 2007. "
October 21, 2008 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Punishing every Gazan for the acts of Hamas. Hmm....I wonder if every Israeli is personally responsible for the acts of Likud? Can you imagine the outcry if Israeli students were turned away from European Universities because of actions of the Israeli government? Remember the outrage when the British academics voted to boycott Israeli academics? Amazing how it is acceptable to subject only Arabs to collective punishment.
October 22, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ (and Seth too) these are courageous words. I wish you luck.
October 21, 2008 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I second your motion.
October 22, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
After the inauguration, let's put Jimmy Carter on this. And give him control of foreign aid to our neediest client. And maybe appoint some old Navy brass to help, ones who care about liberty.
October 22, 2008 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
That will never happen in a Obama Administration. deal with it, jerk.
October 22, 2008 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
So what do you prefer, Apartheid or Democracy?
Unless Israel figures this out, it will cease to exist as a Democracy or it will cease to exist.
Quite a conundrum, for all of us, unfortunately.
October 22, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
aIpacmember,
What's all this hating on Jimmy? Are residents of Israel better or worse off for the peace treaties he achieved? Does peaceful coexistence threaten you somehow? Do you prefer an occasional bomb so that the Likud Party can stay in power? The blood of innocents is on your hands.
October 22, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Carter doesn't hate Arabs. That really galls some peopple.
October 22, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I voted for, in fact campaigned for, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and was invited to the White House to watch him sign the Egypt--Israel treaty in 1979. That was a terrific achievement, but that treaty happened mainly because both sides wanted it equally as much, and because it wasn't imposed by fiat on either side by the U.S., and--most pertinent here-- because Carter didn't publicly lash out at Menachim Begin every time Begin and Safdat reached an impasse in the negotiations. Instead, Carter worked through the dfferences diplomatically.
I hate him now because he blames American Jews, in part, for his loss in 1980 and has decided to that the best way to sell books and earn speech fees is to accuse Israel of apartheid.
October 23, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is why our declared unswavering support for every move Israel makes is bad policy. Our allies can be wrong sometimes, and unfortunately, when Israel makes a mistake in dealing with Palestine it has a very adverse impact on innocent Palestinians (yes, there are innocent Palestinians).
I still don't understand why the West Bank settlers think they can just camp in someone else's back yard and call it their's. I mean, yeah, European settlers did it when they came to the New World, and American settlers did it when they moved west. Indeed, that was sort of the founding premise for the modern state of Israel. (To this day, I think carving off Bavaria and giving it to the Jews would have been a much better idea.) But just because we can't undo those missteps (is "atrocities" too strong?) doesn't mean we have to stand by the decision to repeat them.
Thanks for speaking out.
October 22, 2008 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is the problem when people claim God as authority for their actions. It makes people stupid. And vicious.
October 22, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
What would be perfect is if the israeli courts decide that the entire checkpoint system has to be dismantled as a result of this suit...
October 22, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink