PULITZER Prize-winning novelist, prominent Jewish-American author Michael Chabon says the Israeli oppression of Palestinians is worse than the apartheid system in South Africa.
Chabon accompanied other American authors in a trip to Israel last month, and expressed shock over the plight of Palestinians, describing the Israeli occupation as the most ‘grievous injustice’. Part of what makes it uniquely horrible for me and what makes it distinct from apartheid is it is being done by Jews. I am a Jew,’ he said.
‘For a people who went through such a horrific, prolonged persecution, to turn around and eventually oppress another people at such a mass bureaucratic level is somehow to me much more dismaying than apartheid, as horrible as apartheid was, and I am not trying to diminish it.’
The comments sparked widespread discussion online and criticism from right-wing Israeli media. Chabon’s decision to get involved in the campaign against the Israeli occupation was reportedly steered by his Israeli-born wife and fellow author, Ayelet Waldman.
In an interview with Jewish American publication The Forward after the visit, Chabon, 52, described Israel’s occupation of Palestine as the ‘most grievous injustice I’ve ever seen’. Chabon and Waldman will now edit a book written by 25 prominent authors focusing on different aspects of daily life by Palestinians under the Israeli occupation.
Last month’s tour saw Chabon and other writers including Dave Eggers and Pulitzer winner Geraldine Brooks meet Palestinians in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), al-Khalil (Hebron) and villages near Ramallah.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and imposes a wide range of restrictions on its 2.5 million Palestinian residents. Several hundred thousand Israelis have also established unlawful settlements in the West Bank which the United Nations and much of the international community consider illegal.
The latest criticism comes as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS, is gaining momentum on US college campuses and in many places in Europe. The BDS movement seeks to end the Israeli occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands and respect the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his subordinates have called the BDS campaign a new form of ‘terrorism’ to delegitimise Israel. Supporters of the movement, including a growing number of American Jews, have described such criticism as a fear-mongering and divisive tactic meant to prevent legitimate debate about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Meanwhile, the Israeli prison authorities have shut down the supply of water and electricity to Nafha prison, where hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated, the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission said on Tuesday.
The Commission said, in a press release, that a ‘state of tension’ has been prevailing across the prison following the Israeli procedure, adding that clashes could erupt there if the prison authorities continue to cut the supply of water and electricity there. The Commission said the Israel Prison Service will be responsible for any escalation which may occur in the prison.
Meanwhile overnight on Tuesday, Israeli forces detained at least 31 Palestinians in a mass round up. Most of those arrested were teenagers. The arrests included a blind and deaf man. The Israeli raids took place in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestinian security sources said on Tuesday.
An 18-year-old Palestinian was detained in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem on Monday night over suspicions that he was involved in a ‘attack against an Israeli’ earlier that evening, police spokeswoman Luba al-Samri said. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a statement that a total of four Palestinians were detained in Jerusalem’s Old City, identifying three as them as Khalid al-Shaweesh, Sami Abu Rmeila, 15, and Adham Abu Nijmah.
It remained unclear whether the 18-year-old was among the three, or whether he was the fourth Palestinian, which PPS said remained unidentified. Six others were detained in the al-Jadira and Bir Nabala villages of East Jerusalem, PPS added. The organisation identified them as Diyaa Muhammad Shehadah, 20, Rashad Abd al-Fattah Barjas, 19, Muhammad Saed Barjas, 19, Tariq Abd al-Karim Barjas, 17, Muhammad Nizar Zayyan, 24, and Khalid Aziz Zeidan, 50.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources said two Palestinians were detained at an Israeli military checkpoint south of Nablus on Tuesday morning, while another had his identity documents seized. They identified the detainees as Munir, Sami Abbad, 21, and Salih Farah Abbad, 19, while Israeli soldiers reportedly took the identity card of Abd al-Rahim Ali Abbad, 21.
PPS said Waddah Salih Ulayyan was also detained in the Nablus area. The organisation added that Muntasir Bilal Nimir Ajaj, 25, was detained in the northern West Bank area of Tulkarem, while three 20-year-old Palestinians, identified as Jamil Mustafa Tayyim, Mahmoud Mithqal Salih, and Muhammad al-Amin Kanaan, were detained in the village of Turmusayya north of Ramallah.
In the southern West Bank, Israeli forces detained Imad Ahmad al-Faqih, a 23-year-old blind and deaf man, and Udayy Hani Taqatqa from the village of Marah Rabah south of Bethlehem, PPS said. It added that Muhsin Ahmad al-Juaba, 22, was detained in Hebron, while 40-year-old Nidal Bassam Tharifa was detained at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.
Also on Tuesday the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem on Tuesday compelled a local Palestinian family from Silwan, a neighbourhood of Jerusalem, to demolish three of their own shops. The municipality ordered the family to demolish the shops, under the pretext of construction without a permit. The stores have a total area of about 75 square metres.
According to the UN monitoring group OCHA, from February 23 to March 7, 2016 Israel destroyed or dismantled 85 structures in Area C and East Jerusalem for lack of Israeli-issued building permits, including 17 structures provided as humanitarian assistance. This has made 96 Palestinians homeless including 41 children. The demolitions affected 255 others.
According to OCHA statistics, the number of structures demolished since the start of 2016 is already 70 per cent of the demolitions recorded in all of 2015, while the number of people displaced is nearly 68 per cent of the total 2015 figure.
• Electricity grids for all districts in the Gaza Strip will only be providing power for six-hour intervals followed by 12 hours without power, due to a problem with the Egyptian power lines, Gaza’s electricity company announced on Monday morning.
The company’s Public Information Officer Tariq Labad said that Egypt promised to fix the problem as soon as possible. Labad added that once the Egyptian lines are fixed, electricity grids in the Gaza Strip will return to operating eight hours on, eight hours off, as usual.
The Egyptian lines that provide electricity to the southern Gaza Strip contribute 20 megawatts. The Gaza Strip was left almost entirely without power during a number of days last month due to maintenance work on power lines from both Israel and Egypt as well as the ongoing tax disputes on fuel for the enclave’s near-defunct power station.
Palestinian officials announced at the end of April the Gaza Strip would be exempted from paying fuel tax this summer, marking a temporary resolution to the tax dispute that has deepened an electricity crisis in the besieged enclave. The 80 to 100 per cent exemption on fuel tax was expected to go into effect on May 1 to continue until the end of the summer, intended to guarantee Gaza eight hours of electricity per day from the besieged enclave’s sole power plant.
The power plant alongside Egyptian and Israeli electricity grids fail to cover the territory’s energy needs and has suffered from chronic shortages due to the near-decade-long blockade. War has also taken its toll, and during Israel’s 50-day offensive on Gaza in 2014, the power plant was targeted, completely knocking it out of commission.
Each day, millions of gallons of raw sewage pour into the Gaza Strip’s Mediterranean beachfront, spewing out of a metal pipe and turning miles of once-scenic coastline into a stagnant dead zone.
The sewage has damaged Gaza’s limited fresh water supplies, decimated fishing zones, and after years of neglect, is now floating northward and affecting Israel as well, where a nearby desalination plant was forced to shut down, apparently due to pollution.
‘It’s certain that Gaza Strip’s beaches are completely polluted and unsuitable for swimming and entertainment, especially in the summer,’ said Ahmed Yaqoubi of the Palestinian Water Authority.
Environmentalists and international aid organisations say that if the problem isn’t quickly addressed, it could spell even more trouble on both sides of the border. But while Israel has a clear interest in Gazans repairing their water infrastructure, that would likely require it to ease the sanctions on the import of building materials.
The blockade of the Gaza Strip refers to a land, air, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt from 2007 to present.
