What does exist, and is plain for all the world to see, is a horrifying regime of totalitarian control of millions of Palestinians who remain prisoners of Israel’s racist system and the army and settler militias that enforce it.
President Jimmy Carter angered Israel and its friends by describing “the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine’s citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank.”
Now, The Electronic Intifada has obtained an Israeli Ministry of Defense Powerpoint presentation which provides a frightening glimpse into the mindset of the bureaucracy of apartheid.
The first page of the document bears the name “Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories” as well as the acronym “COGAT” at the bottom of each page. These appear to refer to the unit of the Israeli army that enforces the occupation against the Palestinian civilian population.
The top of the first slide also bears the names and insignia of the “State of Israel” and the “Ministry of Defense.” Dated January 12, the presentation is titled “Key Measures for easing the daily lives of the Palestinian Population.”
Far from that, the document provides detail of the regime of severe movement restrictions, bureaucratic ethnic cleansing and political manipulation and fostering of collaborators that Israel operates in the the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The document, in English, appears to be genuine. While its exact purpose or audience is not known, it may have been designed to impress foreign diplomats with Israel’s generosity to the Palestinians.
Among the policies the document outlines are:
Efforts to “empower Abu-Mazen” (Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas) by facilitating entry of “security equipment for the Presidential Guard” donated by foreign countries. (The United States recently announced that it would provide millions of dollars of weapons and equipment to this unit which serves as a personal militia for Abbas and his Fatah faction who seek to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government).
Providing special privileges for “the movement of VIPs and senior Palestinians” and others allies of Abbas, including “facilitating movement without security checks.” These special privileges, not available to millions of Palestinians are intended for “Strengthening Abu-Mazen,” presumably at the expense of the democratically-elected Hamas-led cabinet and legislative council dozens of whose members, far from enjoying VIP treatment, have been kidnapped and are being held without charge or trial by Israeli occupation forces.
Special permits for 505 Palestinian “businessmen,” allowing them to be exempt from the pass laws that forbid overnight stays by Palestinians in Israel. They will also be subject to fewer security checks. This privileged class may also benefit from the “Possible return of $60 Million from the frozen tax money to the private sector, subject to identification of the businessman, and the formation of a working mechanism.” This could possibly indicate that Israel, in collusion with Abbas, seeks to misappropriate Palestinian public assets it has illegally seized, bypassing the Palestinian Authority Finance Ministry and redistributing them to Abbas cronies.
With frightening precision, allowing “42,899” Palestinian laborers to work “in Israel and the settlements” and exempting 2,000 Palestinian agricultural laborers from the pass laws so that “overnight stay in Israel” is “permitted.” Of these workers, a mere 1,600 would be permitted to enter occupied East Jerusalem, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank.
Millions of Palestinians around the world are forbidden from visiting or living in their country due to Israeli restrictions and laws that discriminate against non-Jews. A privileged few Palestinians have been able to do so, however, by virtue of their citizenship in the United States or European countries, whose citizens are generally allowed to enter Israel without visas as tourists. Even this precarious existence has recently been threatened by the new Israeli practice of denying them re-entry if they leave the country for any reason. While the document claims these restrictions will be eased, it also confirms the policy of prohibiting ordinary family life for Palestinians. Palestinians (always referred to as “foreign nationals”) with foreign passports, even those with spouses and families Israel does recognize as residents, will be limited to a total cumulative stay not exceeding 27 months in their country. No other country calling itself a democracy systematically treats indigenous people as foreigners and deports them in this manner breaking apart families in the process.
Finally, the document lists a number of catergories of “humanitarian” workers who will be given some leeway from the strict pass laws. These include 1,450 religious personnel, 1,300 hospital employees, 300 hotel workers, and lawyers, teachers and residents of an enclave in occupied East Jerusalem that has been besieged by settlers and the apartheid wall.
Amidst a system of ruthless and obsessive control such as the one Israel operates against Palestinians, not even this token ‘easing’ designed purely for public relations can be taken for granted; Israel routinely lies about what it does. For example, during a summit meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in December, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert promised to remove dozens of checkpoints and obstacles impeding the movement of Palestinians inside the occupied West Bank. The Israeli occupation forces later claimed to have removed 44 of the hundreds of obstacles in fulfillment of Olmert’s pledge. In fact, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported on January 22, the Israeli army “admitted on Sunday that the 44 dirt obstacles it said had been removed from around West Bank villages did not actually exist.”
What does exist, and is plain for all the world to see, is a horrifying regime of totalitarian control of millions of Palestinians who remain prisoners of Israel’s racist system and the army and settler militias that enforce it.
Download the presentation: http://electronicintifada.net/download/documents/key-measures-israel.pdf .
Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.
