Tuesday, January 1, 2008

An Unholy Land Grab: The Story of a Palestinian Farm and Settlers


The young settlers waiting nearby for us to discover this, jeered and laughed and came towards us. My companions ran back to ask the army to protect us while nervously I stayed with the car.

By Janine Roberts
Special to PalestineChronicle.com

"No matter what was promised in Annapolis, a Two State Solution for Israel and Palestine now seems utterly impossible, judging from what I have just seen during a 3-week visit to the West Bank......

The West Bank is now riddled by such colonialist and exclusive housing schemes. I observed such housing developments, marked by their 'European' red tiled roofs, on hilltops throughout the West Bank, all laced together with expensive highways, all with privileged access to scarce water resources, and I have to ask: surely these expensive schemes have already totally undermined the feasibility of a Two State solution, leaving only one outcome possible – the one Israelis say they do not want - that of the One State Solution in which the great effort is put, not into building a wall, but into building a society in which both peoples can live together?

But I fear, the way to this now probably inevitable outcome, the Palestinians will have to continue for years to live in apartheid-like Bantustans, with over four million people subjected to cruel controls and millions more former residents with their keys and title deeds waiting in refugee camps.

Israel likes to pretend it is part of Europe, with its membership of European football and singing contests. One day perhaps it will learn that if it wants to build a state of which it can truly feel proud, and all feel secure, it must be more like Europe in outlawing all forms of racial and religious favouritism. Currently it would not meet the legally required standards for E.U. membership."

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