MUSCAT, 1 March 2004 — Israel has, for years, been defying international law and UN resolutions, behaving as it wishes in total disregard to the whole world.
The latest of its inhuman and arrogant acts is the building of a barrier of racial segregation.
The wall is a flagrant violation of the Palestinian rights and the world has raised a collective voice against Israel. Banners of protests were raised even from within Israel where voices of peace and justice have been heard loud in condemning this horrible racist act.
The apartheid barrier fulfills Israeli goals outlined by the government of Sharon the hawk in accordance with a well-drawn-out plan. The most important of these goals, of course, is the siege of the people of Palestine and humiliation and harassment of the intifada because of its damaging impact on Israel.
The goals also include usurping big areas of Palestinian lands and putting it under Israel’s authority.
Disaster shall befall the Palestinian people when the barrier is completed, as 73 percent of citizens living west of the barrier would suffer from a multitude of problems, including blockage of access to basic needs such as health care. Thousands of Palestinians would be denied access to their towns, villages and farms, and this will hit them hard. Their lives will be shattered; turmoil will be the order of their days.
One hundred thousand people living inside Al-Quds city would become outsiders and they would not be able to enter Al-Quds for jobs. It means a large number of people shall lose their jobs and means of livelihood for an unspecified period of time. The Israeli goals are crystal clear as it continues building the wall disregarding the voice of protest and warning from the whole world. Why not — the Zionists are well accustomed to flouting international law. Israel refused to attend the hearing on the wall in the World Court at The Hague. It comes as no surprise. Israel knows very well that its position is weak and it has no defense whatsoever. The rejection of the hearing is a clear admission that Israel is on the wrong side of the wall. Otherwise, it should have come to the court and presented its version in support of its case. All the international organizations have failed in preventing Israel from building the apartheid barrier. Even the US administration, which claims to be the sponsor of the road map for peace and defender of justice, has kept silent, doing nothing to halt the wall. To add salt to the wound, on the day of the commencement of the hearing in the World Court, an American committee in charge of studying aid to Israel announced that it would recommend releasing the second installment of US loan amounting to $9 billion. What an irony! Isn’t this an encouragement and outright approval of the illegal acts of Israel?
Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands had a busy day on the day of the hearing as he himself was distributing photographs of the bus destroyed last Sunday in a suicide operation in Al-Quds. He was doing all he could to influence public opinion in the Netherlands in his country’s favor. But why didn’t the ambassador distribute photographs of the shelling of Jenin city and the daily killing of innocent Palestinians? Or, he could distribute photographs of Israeli soldiers robbing in broad daylight Palestinian banks last week of nearly $9 million and their defiling of the Al-Aqsa complex last Friday. Better still, why not the photographs of Israeli soldiers’ intrusion into the offices of Bait Al Zakat in certain Palestinian cities?
The apartheid barrier is the latest in Israel’s inhuman acts against Palestinians and its efforts to tighten the siege of occupied territories.
— Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali is the editor in chief of The Times of Oman.
