Friday, September 5, 2008

'Ethnic cleansing by stealth'


With every cruel and unusual punishment meted out against West Bank villagers, Israel is fomenting more and more hate against its own people

Contributed by DJ

A Very Good Comment
Seth Freedman
guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 04 2008

".....The residents of Umm al-Kheir, and several other villages in the area, are prevented from building on their own land, or from grazing their flocks in the pastures nearby, due to the severe restrictions imposed on them by the army and police. In order to protect the ever-expanding settlements, more and more land is annexed under the guise of erecting "security zones", effectively strangling the natural growth of the Palestinian communities, and destroying their livelihoods in one fell swoop.

Their sorry situation is by no means unique; similar repressive tactics are used throughout the West Bank. The policy was described to me by a local activist as "ethnic cleansing by stealth", with the ultimate aim being to make life so tough for the Palestinians that they hold their hands up in despair and relocate elsewhere. Where they go is of little interest to those holding the reins of Israeli power, so long as it's far enough away for the vacated land to be redistributed to a new generation of settlers......

Those who are too blind to see that this is what is occurring under their noses are the same people who convince themselves that the true aim of Israel is to live in peace with its neighbours. The Palestinians, however, live and breathe the reality every day of their lives, and they are not so easily fooled. And if they are to be prevented from feeling as though they've got nothing to lose and resorting once more to violent resistance, there needs to be a major change in the way Israel treats their, and their children's, human rights and needs."

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