Ida Audeh writing from Boulder, Colorado, US, Live from Palestine, 11 December 2008
"......Last month, a group I work with, the Middle East Collective of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, located in Boulder, organized a lecture, "Separate is Never Equal," featuring Palestinian-Canadian lawyer Diana Buttu and South African anti-apartheid activist Reverend Edward Makue.
Buttu gave a well-documented presentation that showed clearly the Bantustans that Israel has carved out of the West Bank. Her presentation included an outline of the consequences of Israeli policies, which has been the immobilization and pauperization by design of the Palestinian people.
For Israel's die-hard supporters in the audience, the question and answer session was an opportunity to make Israel's case, not to explore further the content of the presentations. Two expressed support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (a war crime); a few seemed enraged by the Israel-apartheid connection but could not refute it credibly, considering that the Israeli government itself calls its policy toward the Palestinians one of separation (which is what "apartheid" means), and Israeli law expressly privileges Jewish citizens over non-Jewish (i.e., Palestinian) citizens......"
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