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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Commentary Home page  back Print  Send To friend Letters to the Editor Cape Town Times Terry Crawford-Browne--January 12, 2011--I have just returned to Cape Town after three months of monitoring the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and the villages of the Bethlehem area. My colleagues and I were at the checkpoint four days a week from 4am until 7:30am to collect data for the World Council of Churches and the United Nations, and to provide a calming international presence when tensions flared. We formed part of a team of 27 people from 12 countries. The “apartheid wall” runs 750 kilometres – the distance from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. In Bethlehem it is 12 metres high. In rural areas where it is a “fence,” it is even more economically devastating because it cuts a swathe 100 metres, and prevents farmers from tending their fields. The rationale always is “security.” This is utter rubbish, as monitoring the checkpoints soon confirms. The “apartheid wall” is there to strangle the Palestinians economically so that they emigrate and, secondly, to foment fear amongst Israelis to support right-wing militarisation and a fascist state. The “apartheid wall” is about land and water theft, and it is totally illegal in terms of international law including the Geneva Conventions. The Christian population has already dwindled to less than one percent. After 62 years of military occupation of Palestine, every aspect of Israeli society is corrupted – political, legal, economic, religious, social. Israel is a military dictatorship masquerading as a democracy, where everything is trumped by “national security.” The “rule of law” is a farce. There is massive war profiteering by Israeli and international corporations. The “West Bank” and Gaza are Bantustans, even less economically viable than the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa. The Holocaust was a crime against humanity. Sadly, the Zionist descendants of its victims have become the perpetrators of another crime against humanity in Palestine. The good news is that the apartheid “two-state solution” is fast collapsing, and a bi-national state will emerge in which Palestinians will form the majority. Even ardent Zionists within Israel now recognise that “Israel as a Jewish state” has no future. Yours faithfully Terry Crawford-Browne Links to the latest articles in this section European leaders said to implore Netanyahu not to advance annexation Israelis, drop your denial and recognize the Nakba (includes reactions to `Neither Intractable nor Unique`) For a new political imagination, Israeli Jews must unlearn Zionism