Democratic Palestine : 29 (ص 33)
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- Democratic Palestine : 29 (ص 33)
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the girl had died from a bullet shot by
the settler. However, to cover its own
misguided ‘justice’, the army added
that the guard had only shot wildly
after being hit on the head by a
Palestinian stone, even though he was
notorious for previous indiscriminate
violence.
The Beita affair is no exception in
terms of Israeli brutality - this has been
a constant fact of life for Palestinians
under occupation for forty years. What
is noteworthy is how the Zionists en-
tangled themseives in their own lies and
distortions. The current uprising and
the international attention it has elicited
leave little space for Zionist atrocities to
go unnoticed as they did in the past.
CHALLENGING THE
ZIONIST REALITY
The Beita incident elicited new
speculation in the international press
about the moral integrity of the Israeli
occupiers, escalating a tendency tr such
questioning which began with the
uprising. It was in such an atmosphere
that the Israelis celebrated their an-
niversary. In Cyprus, President George
Vassiliou boycotted the Israeli ‘In-
dependence Day’ reception, citing his
solidarity with the Palestinian uprising.
In Holland, where the establishment is
staunchly pro-Israeli, Premier Ruud
Lubbers did attend such a celebration,
but in an unprecedented move, he
publicly criticized ‘Israel’ for opposing
an international conference. The upris-
ing has turned the tide of years of un-
contested Zionist propaganda in the
West. This is not without implications
for the future of ‘Israel’ due to its high
degree of dependency on outside sup-
port. While imperialist states, especial-
ly the USA, can be counted on to con-
tinue support to the Zionist state, based
on strategic considerations, the public
support to ‘Israel’, based on myths of
Israeli democracy and providing a
refuge for persecuted Jews, has begun
to be eroded.
Important as international criticism
of ‘Israel’ is, the basic arena in which
the uprising is challenging the Zionist
project is on the ground in Palestine.
Each Zionist repressive measure has
elicited a new form of Palestinian
resistance. For example, after Rabin
authorized soldiers to shoot to kill
against firebombers, the United Na-
tional Leadership boldly declared a day
of firebombing. The Palestinians are
prepared to fight fire with fire to gain
their freedom, even though their fire is
stones and petrol bombs in the face of
Israeli automatic weapons and can-
nons. This determination is having its
effects on the Zionist army. Major
General Uri Saguy, Israeli ground
forces commander, has said that the
army’s deployment in the occupied
West Bank and Gaza Strip has
«seriously harmed the soldier’s basic
level of training... Only if the uprising
tapers off with the coming of summer
will we be able to stabilize the training
process for the regular army»
(Associated Press, May 13th).
As a result of all these factors, the
continuation of the uprising is bound to
raise questions in the minds of more
Israelis as to the viability of their col-
onial existence. In this sense, the upris-
ing is the spark not only for broader
Palestinian mobilization, but also for
the Israeli population’s possibility of
eventually breaking with Zionism. And
this is the threat for which the Zionist
establishment has no counterammuni-
tion at all.
Book Review
Israel: An Apartheid State
By Dr. Uri Davis; Zed Books Limited, 1987
The first half of Uri Davis’ latest
book is devoted to expounding its title,
Israel: An Apartheid State. Davis
asserts that: «Formally speaking, the
Israeli procedure of denationalization is
far more radical and far-reaching than
its South African equivalent... the ma-
jority of the inhabitants of the Republic
of South Africa, its black people, are
rendered aliens in their own homeland,
but they are not defined out of legal ex-
istence. In the case of Israel, Zionist
apartheid is applied under the category
of ‘Jew’ versus ‘non-Jew’. Of the
almost three million non-Jewish
Palestinian Arabs who are today en-
titled, under the constitutional stipula-
tion of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, to
Israeli citizenship, less than 25 per cent
(approximately 700,000 persons) are
Israeli citizens. Under the Absentee
Property Law (1950), the state of Israel
has similarly denationalized 75 per cent
of its non-Jewish Palestinian Arab in-
habitants (over two million persons
classified as ‘absentees’)» (p. 25-6).
Elaborating on this thesis, Davis
reviews the political and legal
mechanisms whereby ‘Israel’ confers
on its Jewish citizens automatic access
to national resources and _ services,
while excluding the Palestinian Arabs.
Thus, Davis focuses on the character of
the Israeli state and the part of
Palestine occupied in 1948. While there
are Other excellent books on this sub-
ject, Sabri Jiryis’ The Arabs in Israel
(1976) being the pioneering work,
Davis’ book distinguishes itself as being
extremely comprehensive, yet compact,
in its analysis of these mechanisms.
Providing extensive documentation,
including lengthy quotes from Israeli
laws concerning, citizenship and land
ownership, Davis leads the reader
through the intricacies of the Israeli
system of institutionalized discrimina-
tion. He pinpoints the lynchpin which
both institutionalizes and masks Zionist
apartheid, namely, the «legislation
ceding state sovereignty to organiza-
tions such as the World Zionist
Organization-Jewish Agency which are
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