| March 1, 2007 American Money, Israeli Apartheid An Interview with Jessica Marcy Part Two of a Two-Part Series by Brian Yanity, insurgent49 
Jessica Marcy, born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, has
spent over a year and half living and working in the Middle East. She
traveled to Israel and Occupied Palestine initially in late 2004 for
several months where she volunteered with organizations including a
youth group, a grassroots health committee, and several peace
organizations. Her decision to see first-hand the lives of refugees living under conflict came as a means of preparing for her future work as a humanitarian aid nurse. The experiences she’s had there have changed forever her outlook on the world, and especially on the American government and its media. There is a pressing need for free, independent media sources who don't simply act as mouthpieces for the American government, but instead who educate Americans about the reality of the continuing illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestinian land, and its dire implications for both the region and the world at large. Currently Jessica lives in Amman, Jordan where she has been since December 2005, continuing to work on Palestinian related issues, and attempting to learn the ever elusive Arabic language. She welcomes comments and questions at jessieacre@yahoo.com. This is part two of our interview with her. Since the election of Hamas, Israel and the US have been laying siege to the civilian population. For example, isn’t there an extremely high rate of unemployment in the Palestinian territories? Yes. Stats from September put the rate of unemployment in Gaza at 88%, and in the West Bank at 55%. And even those Palestinians who are employed may not be getting paid. Israel has been refusing to transfer all Palestinian tax revenue to Palestine since early last year. These tax monies amount to about $60 million each month, and are approximately two-thirds of the PA’s working budget. As a point of interest, Israel collects this money on behalf of the PA because there are no ports of entry or exit from Palestinian land that are under the control of the Palestinian government, and this includes Gaza even after the ‘withdrawal’ of Israeli forces in late 2005. For its part, the international community, led by America, has been withholding its financial support of Palestine, as well; support that collectively totals nearly $1 billion annually. Needless to say, thanks to the Israeli and American-led economic sanctions against the Palestinian people, their economy is being slowly strangled, and poverty rates are sky-rocketing as a result. The entire issue of these sanctions against Palestine is a big one because Hamas was elected in free and democratic elections by a clear majority of the Palestinian people. Hamas was their choice, but it's one that America and Israel have so far refused to accept. The hypocrisy of the American government in leading these sanctions is shameful. Bush and company continue to try to garner public support for their Middle East agenda by spewing lies about bringing democracy to the region, and yet clearly in this case, they are unabashedly punishing the entire Palestinian populace for engaging in said democracy. What the American government actually means when they claim to want the people of the Middle East to engage in democracy is for them to only elect to power the people whom the U.S. approves, or more to the point, can control. The U.S. has attempted in the past many months to play puppet-master in Palestinian matters even more directly by funding, arming and training Fatah soldiers in what can only be an attempt to foster conditions for a civil war. These collective actions of political and economic sanctions have so far not been successful in forcing Hamas out of power, but instead have helped the Palestinians in the creation of a unity government. The creation of which, I hope, will result in Palestinians becoming stronger and more clearly focused on national goals, and less likely to cave to the American-Israeli agenda. What is the most important thing for Americans to know about what is going on right now in Gaza and the West Bank? The single most important thing for Americans to recognize about this conflict is that we are not, except on the rare occasion, told anything close to the truth by our mainstream media about what’s happening in Israel and Palestine. Individuals must become responsible for educating themselves about the truth behind the Israeli Occupation, and the Palestinian struggle through other outlets. As U.S. citizens we all carry the right, but more importantly the responsibility to remain involved in and active in our democracy. Educating ourselves about issues is the first important step. Our consistently low voter turn-out rates and widespread apathy show how truly disconnected and disenfranchised people feel about effecting change in our government. That has to change. In the case of Israel, our ignorance and apathy are costing us all a lot of money. We are funding the Israeli State to the tune of several billion dollars every year, and have done so for over three decades. A well-written and researched article was written in 2002 by Richard H. Curtiss entitled "The Cost of Israel to US Taxpayers". It's available online through the website of If Americans Knew, (www.ifamericansknew.org). Curtiss is a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer and the current executive editor of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. In his article, Curtiss takes the reader through a systemic accounting of the ways in which we finance Israel, and the many special privileges we extend to them. One example of such privileges is that we distribute our annual foreign aid to them during the first quarter of the fiscal year in one lump sum, rather than quarterly, as all other foreign aid recipients receive it. This means that Israel is then able to turn around and re-invest that same money into the U.S. Treasury and collect interest on it. Big deal? Not if you realize that for every single dollar we give to Israel we add it to our own deficit, and therefore also add to the accruing interest we will ultimately pay on that deficit. If, instead we distributed our foreign aid to Israel throughout the year rather than all at once, we would save millions in the amount of interest that accrues on our deficit. Simply put, the tiny State of Israel, (the entire region of Israel and Occupied Palestine equals about the same area as New Jersey), is and has been for decades, the single largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world. The obvious question to ask our government is WHY? Even if one wants to ignore what’s happening ‘over there’, this question is an important one for us all to ask. Why are our policy-makers continuing to give billions of dollars yearly to Israel when we have 12% of our own citizens living in poverty, with more added each year, no universal health care plan, rising crime rates, and going on two years after Hurricane Katrina, we still have entire segments of those poor people homeless, or living in FEMA trailers? How does the donation of billions of dollars to Israel benefit the well-being of our own country? In April 2004, President Bush said that he granted Israel the “right” to retain large settlement blocks in the West Bank, continuing trends that have been going on for the past few decades. These issues are debated within Israel itself, but hardly discussed within the USA. Despite the publicity of the recent book by Jimmy Carter, there is still taboo on discussion here: just about anything said against Israel in the mainstream media gets an enormous emotional response. How should citizens of the USA hold their own government to account for Israel’s actions? Well, the first question that should enter anyone's mind reading this, is what the hell right does President Bush have to grant any other country the right to do anything? Much less a "right" that results in the continued oppression, destruction, and expulsion of indigenous people from their land. In reality, a dimension in which I recognize Bush does not live, the settlements don’t have the right to exist at all. They are illegal, not just under international law by means of the Fourth Geneva Convention, but under Israeli law itself. Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors Israeli settlements inside the West Bank, estimates that at least 40% of the existing settlements have been built on private Palestinian land. They further state that over 86% of the largest settlement inside the West Bank, Maale Adumim, has been built on private Palestinian land, and that as many as 130 other settlements have been built in part, or completely, on private land. Their documented research is in direct contradiction to the Israeli government’s claims that all existing settlements are built on land that was abandoned by its owners and is now re-classified as state land. Under Israeli law it is illegal for any construction to happen on privately owned land. Even in the cases in which the land has been deemed state land, Israel fails to admit that often the land was never ‘abandoned’, but rather the Palestinians who hold the land deeds are prevented from accessing it. The point of settlements aside, you bring up a great issue about the differences between American and Israeli debates of this conflict. The hot emotions that flare whenever a discussion about Israel does occur in the States is in vast contrast to the relatively healthy debate that goes on in Israel itself. Even the slightest criticism of Israel in America is met with an invariable outcry of anti-Semitism. The recent release of Carter’s book and the personal bashing that he himself has taken these past few months provides an excellent study of this phenomenon. Rather than debate the central issues of the realities for Palestinians living under the Israeli Occupation, the majority of the American media's discussion revolves instead around assumptions of Carter’s supposed agenda. The lack of debate in the States is again due in large part to the widespread media bias and lack of accuracy in reporting that I previously mentioned. Given the lack of responsible mainstream media reporting, it’s inevitable that most Americans will remain ignorant about the core issues of this conflict. The single best thing Americans can do about this issue, and the many others that we all face in this ever-shrinking global society, is to become involved in the creation, and protection of free media outlets. The Net, for example, has been under attack for some time now, and there are concerted efforts at work in Washington to have it privatized. If this happens, we will lose the great resource of free flowing information so readily available now on the Web. Well we know that U.S. policy towards Israel must fundamentally change, and that Israel must withdraw completely from the areas it occupied in the Six Day War of 1967. The Quartet (U.S., E.U., Russia, and the UN) “peace process” based on two-state solution has not been working, since the 1993 Oslo accords have enabled increased Israeli settlement in the West Bank. As for solutions, what do you think of the “one country” proposal, which I guess is modeled on South Africa’s transition away from the apartheid, or to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland? It is this continued building of settlements inside the West Bank that has resulted in ‘facts on the ground’ that preclude the creation of a viable, two-state solution. Viable being the key word. One has only to look at a map of the chaotic path the Barrier takes as it struggles to encompass settlements to understand why two states will no longer work. The other side, or rather sides, of that Barrier’s path, of course, is what a future Palestinian state would look like, and the image is insane. Thousands of Palestinians now live in what is called “no-man’s land”, in regions that are within the West Bank, but on what has now become the ‘Israeli’ side of the Barrier. The residents of these areas are not going to be given Israeli residency, and yet they are also no longer physically contiguous with the land of the West Bank. What their residency status will become remains unclear. What is clear however is that the current physical reality on the ground prevents any creation of a viable Palestinian state. The construction of the settlements continues unabated today. Despite the fact that Israel agreed under the “road map” to freeze all construction of settlements in the last 90s, just this last December they announced plans for the construction of yet another settlement in the Jordan Valley, inside the West Bank. Twenty-three of the families who be living in this new settlement are part of the group of settlers who were so dramatically removed from the Gaza Strip in late 2005. Israel claimed at that time that the dismantling and removal of those settlements and settlers from Palestinian land was a good faith effort toward creating peace. The fact that now 23 of those same families are being relocated to this new settlement proves that those claims were an outright lie. The removal of the settlers from Gaza was instead a smokescreen to hide the fact that Israel would be strengthening their presence inside the West Bank. All of that said, the two-state solution is still the stated goal of the Israeli and US-led version of the peace process. No decisions about the way forward, two-state or otherwise is legitimate, however until equal voice and respect is present for both sides of this conflict. Unilateral decision-making and demands placed upon the Palestinian people on the part of the Israeli and American governments, as has been the norm for many years, will not result in any lasting solutions for the region. Unfortunately, as the current sanctions against Hamas make clear, Israel, America and the international community at large are currently unwilling to listen to the voice of the Palestinian people. Until the U.S. in particular, ends their unlimited political and financial support of Israel that in turn allows the Israeli State to continue to shun international law and human rights, the future of this region remains bleak. Brian Yanity is a graduate student at UAA, activist and freelance writer. He resides in an undisclosed location in Southcentral Alaska, and can be reached at byanity@insurgent49.com. |
-
Columnists -
-
also by this
writer -
Alaska's Megaproject Mentality, part one American Money, Israeli Apartheid, part one The Price of Fire: An Interview With Benjamin Dangl A Letter To Governor Palin From A Concerned UAA Graduate Student The Power of the Sun 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Help George Bush Bioenergy Potential, From Brazil to Alaska An Introduction To Geothermal Energy Going Nuclear, part two Going Nuclear, part one A Sea of Potential A Letter to Mayor Begich On Renewable Energy In Anchorage Coal: Alaska's Other Black Gold, Part2 Coal: Alaska's Other Black Gold, Part 1 A Letter To BP From a Concerned Alaskan White Gold A Town Without Cars The Myth Of Outside Balto and Togo The Alaska Gas Pipeline: A Critical Analysis, Part Two The Alaska Gas Pipeline: A Critical Analysis, Part One Dispatches From New York City Alaska's Radical Labor History: 1905-1920 Anchorage In the Year 2030 All Aboard City Assembly Resists Change, Democracy Public Power: An Alaskan Tradition Alaska Oil and the Middle East A Fuel tax To Fund People Mover Interview With Rich Seifert Dear Mayor Begich ... Another Alaska Is Possible Avoiding Left Wing Cliches Remember The Knik Arm Ferry? A Million Trips A Day The Rest Of America Upside Down World Alaskan In Palestine North To The Future Ten Reasons To Stop The Knik Arm Bridge Missing The Bus Interview With Evon Peter |
||||||||
| Copyright
2005
Insurgent Media. All Rights
Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
|||||||||
