Saturday, October 22, 2005

"Peace Process": Road Apartheid

Special report in The Guardian, Oct. 20 on Israel's creation of a road system in the West Bank which, according to Israeli human rights group B'tselem, has "clear similarities" to South Africa's former apartheid regime. (If you are not Jewish and draw such a parallel, you will be labeled anti-Semitic. Beware! And do not dare to suggest divestment campaigns or boycotts!)

According to the Guardian:

The Israeli newspaper Maariv yesterday [Oct. 19] said the government quietly gave the military the go-ahead earlier this week for a plan to culminate in barring all Palestinians from roads used by Israelis in the West Bank.


The Palestinian leadership and others claim the separation plan, and the road network to make it possible, are elements of a wider strategy to carve out new Israeli borders inside the West Bank alongside the 420-mile security barrier under construction and expansion of settlements.


Israeli human rights group BTselem said Palestinians are barred from or have restricted access to 450 miles of West Bank roads...


It should be added that the Israeli "roads," reserved for settlers and the military, are ultra-modern freeways. Palestinians, of course, have their own, much inferior, much less rapid, roads. Separate but equal?

All this, of course, subsidized and supported by the US government.

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