Preface:

“Do-it-yourself Apartheid in Palestine” comes at a vital time in the Palestinian liberation struggle. The Wall and overall system of apartheid infrastructure such as Jewish-only roads, settlements and military zones, will completely strip the Palestinian people of their lands and imprison them within a series of ghettos across the West Bank. A second Apartheid Wall around Gaza will ensure its status as a hellish prison for the 1.3 million people locked inside. Ghettoization has added a new dimension in the Israeli project of continual Occupation and colonization of Palestine and the expulsion of its people.

One year after the International Court of Justice (ICJ - 9th of July) decision that requires the Occupation to tear down the Wall and mandates the international community not to recognize the situation or act in any way which might serve to sustain it, the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign publishes this report revealing the plans of the World Bank to facilitate and coordinate support for Israel’s apartheid project.

Internally, Palestine is involved in a crucial period of re-defining the structure and ultimate aims of its struggle. The evident failure of the Oslo process and its significance in preparing the Wall has left fundamental questions over goals and aspirations of the liberation struggle. If the Wall is completed and the Israeli apartheid system is cemented into the landscape of Palestine - sealing its population into a series of miserable Bantustans - the scope for any two-state option will be gone. The Wall, as a project of cleansing people from their lands, will refocus attention on the expulsion of the Palestinian people, a project that began in 1948.

As a national grassroots campaign we are at the forefront of resisting the destruction caused by the Apartheid Wall, mobilizing and working within communities on a daily basis, giving them a voice on a national and international level. Against all those that would like to appease us with words and money, or simply find ways to accelerate a process of adapting to the new reality of Bantustans and ghettos that imprison us, the Palestinian resistance on the ground against the Apartheid Wall and its collateral projects is growing. It will ensure that the plans of the Occupation and the international community reflected in the World Bank report will not lead to the “peace of the graveyard” or pacify our yearning for genuine justice and freedom.

Our analysis of the dynamics of international aid in Palestine opens the publication. This exploration of the common interests of Zionism and global capital is framed within the needs of the people on the ground, their struggle, expectations and calls. The supporting statement from Samir Amin highlights the global context in front of which the destruction of Palestine takes place, leading us into a detailed chronology of the Apartheid Wall and resistance against it. In this stage of the Wall’s construction and the complicity of the international community (particularly the United States and Europe), it is clearer than ever before that apartheid can never survive without global support. Israeli apartheid is a crime against humanity which is simply not sustainable without the external funding which props it up.

The World Bank’s support for a system of continued colonialism and racial capital, dressed up as some kind of “aid” or “development” is highly disturbing, and equally alarming is the apparent eagerness of international governments and “aid” organizations to adopt its proposals, further develop them and ultimately implement them. It reveals that the international community, after 56 years of Israeli violations, is still willing to support the Occupation's plans for the colonization of Palestine and the expulsion of its people. No ICJ decision appears able to hold off this determination.

As with the global anti-apartheid struggle against racist South Africa, worldwide civil society, movements and individuals have begun to pressure their governments and institutions to take steps to halt any aid and assistance to the Israeli apartheid project and to bring an end to its policies of definitive expulsion and imprisonment.

With the failure of any kind of “dialogue” initiatives with the Occupation, the only concrete means to support our struggle has emerged within the movement to isolate Apartheid Israel. Consumer boycotts, academic, cultural and sports boycotts, divestment and concerted pressure on governments to put sanctions and arms embargos on Israel is the way forward and is increasingly being recognised by people from across the world who struggle for liberation and justice. With the ever growing global movement to isolate Israeli apartheid, international backing is increasing for the Palestinian grassroots committees in their daily resistance to the latest manifestation of Israeli apartheid: the Wall. This report presents some of the challenges to be overcome in finding genuine and effective means to create solidarity with Palestinians struggling for justice, sovereignty and liberation.

To View the Full Report As PDF File (216)KB