Israel-Palestine Follow-Up:"Apartheid" Deportation Orders; Settlements

Responding to Israel's new military order which can deport tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday:

These military orders belong in an apartheid state. Extensive in scope, they make it infinitely easier for Israel to imprison and expel Palestinians from the West Bank. They are an assault on ordinary Palestinians, and an affront to the most fundamental principles of human rights.

Palestine: Israeli Military Order Threatens Mass Deportation

These orders have the effect of turning Palestinians into criminals in their own homes, while directly undermining the efforts of Palestinians to run their own internal affairs. They also open the flood gate for Israel to target foreign-born spouses, foreign workers, and even Israeli citizens as ‘infiltrators’, as well as anyone participating in demonstrations in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s occupation.


Most of all, they reveal the invidious design behind Israel’s settlement policy. The fewer Palestinians there are in the West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem, the more settlers there will be. Israel’s endgame is not peace. It is the colonization of the West Bank.

By systematically violating past agreements, as for example in its refusal to freeze settlements, and undermining international efforts to resume negotiations, Israel is turning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into a zero sum game. At a time when the international community is trying to create an environment conducive to negotiations, these military orders achieve the exact opposite result.

Palestine has long been a litmus test of the international community’s commitment to international law and its defense of basic rights and liberties. The international community must live up to its responsibility and protect the rights of Palestinians. Peace demands nothing less.

Israel will argue that expulsions are justified because Palestinians are breaking the law. But this argument counts for nothing when that law belongs to a system of apartheid and only serves to strengthen Israel’s 43-year long illegal occupation.

Meanwhile, Haaretz says that construction requiring the approval of Jerusalem's district planning committee has been halted for more than a month through instructions sent to the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee.

On Sunday, the Jerusalem municipality said that they were showing sensitivity to the issue but added that there was no intention to stop the work of the local committee. .

The Prime Minister's Office has issued a statement:

The building and planning policy in Jerusalem has not changed and is identical to that conducted by all Israeli governments. In the course of drawing lessons from the incident at the time of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, procedure is currently being developed that will ensure that an incident such as this is not repeated with respect to the timing of the release of proceedings of diplomatic sensitivity.

Comments

[Dave]

Erekat is in no position to discuss human rights. It’s not about “human rights." The “human rights” of Muslims, particularly those of Muslim women, are violated daily in Muslim majority countries, not to mention those of the religious minorities who are unfortunate enough to live those places. From an Islamic point of view, human rights are the invention of the 'Western Crusaders.'

[Old Outsider]

With equal right one could say:
“From an Islamic point of view, human rights are a Western adaption of maqasidu sh-shari’i. Just compare them with the ‘Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen’ of 1789.”

Or one could do without sweeping generalizations like “an Islamic point of view” in the meaning of “this is the point of view of (all) the muslims”.

[Dave]

What about the apostasy law, which is recognised by ALL brands of Islam?

[Old Outsider]

What about the "brands of Islam" who say it is not about apostasy (in fact not about religion at all) but about high treason?

[rezvan]

I think it is all about bad apples not about apples being bad for you. After all they used to say an apple a day keeps the doctor away!

[Catherine]

It's about this, gentlemen:

The orders do not stipulate what a valid permit is, and the wording is so vague that human-rights organisations say they could be used against anyone in the occupied West Bank.

“This is very serious,” said Jaber Wisheh, the deputy director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City. The orders “contradict, fundamentally, the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the forcible transfer of a population under occupation”.

Ten Israeli human-rights groups yesterday sent an open letter of protest to Ehud Barak, the Israeli minister of defence, asking that he delay the orders pending a “serious and comprehensive” review.

“Despite the severe ramifications of the orders, the authorities did not publicise their existence among the Palestinian population, as required, which raises grave concerns that they intended to pass them secretly without public debate or judicial review,” according to HaMoked, the Centre for the Defence of the Individual and one of the signatories to the letter.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100411/FOREIGN/704119885/1001