Bulldozing Hope
(YellowTimes.org) – I'm not sure exactly why it is, but nothing I have read recently about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians
touched me quite so deeply as the destruction of about 60 shops in the village of Nazlat Isa. The shootings of
civilians, the bulldozing of homes, the reports of torture, the scores of morally-filthy assassinations, the improper
arrests -- the whole vast, organized mechanism of apartheid cruelty is stomach-turning, but the deliberate bulldozing of
a thriving little street of shops just seems uncivilized and bleak beyond measure.
Shop owners in the little village were driven out by Israeli soldiers with gas grenades, and their stores and
possessions were smashed by bulldozers. Israel's excuse for this atrocious behavior is that the shop owners had not
obtained the necessary building permits from Israeli authorities.
It is well known that the Israeli authorities make it difficult for Palestinians to obtain permission to undertake the
most basic projects. Requests to make changes or improvements in sewers or streets or buildings remain unanswered for
years.
It all resembles what Soviet citizens used to experience when trying to get licenses or permissions from apparatchiks.
The effort, often ending in failure, could consume a good fraction of one's lifetime. It proved a remarkably effective
way to destroy human initiative, to say nothing of the human spirit.
There is an important difference in the two situations, though. The problem in the Soviet Union resulted from the sheer
size and complexity of its bureaucracy plus the inability and unwillingness of anyone at almost any level to take
responsibility for making a decision.
The problem in the West Bank reflects something more deliberate and ugly. It is Israel's refusal to treat Palestinians
as equal human beings. Their needs count for little or nothing. What in many places is a normal, everyday activity, the
issuing of building permits, becomes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank a quiet mechanism for denying people livelihoods,
dignity, and even health. It is slow motion ethnic cleansing carried out through bureaucracy.
Polls show an increasing number of Israelis supporting "removal," Israel's terrible euphemism for ethnic cleansing by
bayonet rather than bureaucracy. This growing support undoubtedly reflects the degrading influence on human values of
Sharon, Netanyahu, and Bush.
But as I've asked before, where do more than three million people go? What poor, crowded, and troubled country of the
Middle East could take them? The answer is obvious to all but the ideologically blind and morally obtuse -- no one in
the Middle East can take them.
America's my-protégé-right-or-wrong support for Israel's excesses is what has made the existing situation possible. If
America is not willing to see a proper Palestinian state established (and that does not mean a walled-in Bantustan), and
it is not willing to insist that Israel absorb Palestinians as citizens, then it has a moral obligation to do something
else.
America could grant all Palestinians the right of residence in the United States. This would go some way to redressing
the balance of many tens of billions of dollars spent subsidizing Israel. The United States has granted this right
before, in the case of Cuba, and it did so for decades. Any Cuban was entitled to an automatic visa, but this policy
reflected America's bitter, self-righteous hatred of Mr. Castro rather than any sense of obligation about justice or
compassion. It would be remarkable were the United States to make such an offer where it does indeed have a great moral
obligation, so I won't hold my breath.
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- John Chuckman encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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