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Hidden with code "Policy Violation" |
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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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Racist Israel seeks your funds for separate Arab roads |
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by Bill AKA DAN "Same Racist Song" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
06 Sep 2004
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Israel is pressing foreign donors to finance the construction of a web of roads through the occupied territories - made necessary by the building of the vast "security" barrier and Jewish occupation of the West Bank.
The Israeli government seeks foreign funding to upgrade the back roads that Palestinians are forced to use - after being banned from routes used by Jewish land thieves. |
It also wants funding to build new roads which take account of the illeagal wall and its pemement occupation. The plan envisages roads that would run parallel to each other - one for Jews, the other for Arabs.
European donors have recoiled from the proposal, in part because they are concerned that funding the new roads will breach July's International Court of Justice ruling against support for construction of the wall. The court said it should be torn down because it breaches the Geneva conventions.
But diplomats say the US may be more willing to pay, given Washington's tacit endorsement of the barrier and support for Ariel Sharon's latest plan to expand West Bank occupation while withdrawing occupiers from Gaza.
"What European donors are not prepared to do is to fund anything that assists the wall or the occupation. The Americans are more flexible," said one European diplomat.
Officials say the request was made last month at meetings with the World Bank after foreign pressure to ease up on the movement of Palestinians.
The meetings came in the wake of a World Bank report on the repercussions of Mr Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw occupiers from the Gaza strip and four West Bankoccupation bases while reinforcing Israel's control over other parts of the occupied territories.
The World Bank called for Israel to allow much greater freedom of movement by Palestinians to help revive the Palestinian economy.
Israel said it was interested in "improving the transportation infrastructure to enable uninterrupted movement across the West Bank" but that it would require "extensive and complex construction with international assistance."
"We're already heavily subsidising the occupation and that worries us," said a foreign diplomat. "We are prepared to help where it means building or reconstructing the Palestinian infrastructure. But there is a lot of concern among the donors that the Israelis think we will just pick up the bill for their actions, whether it's sending tanks into Jenin and Rafah or building the wall."
Foreign diplomats say that any request for improving roads should come from the Palestinian Authority - which has already requested assistance to repair damage done by Israeli tanks but not necessarily in the areas around the barrier and settlements.
Some donors are also worried about the creation of a separate road network for Arabs that one Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, has described as a form of apartheid.
B'Tselem says Israel bars from, or restricts Palestinians on, more than 700km of roads in the West Bank. The Israeli military describes roads from which Palestinians are banned as "sterile", a term some critics say has racial overtones .
B'Tselem said in a recent report that Israel's roads policy in the occupied territories causes "harsh, extensive, indiscriminate, and prolonged harm to the local population".
"By unlawfully discriminating against Palestinians, the Forbidden Roads Regime is reminiscent of the apartheid system that existed in South Africa. The regime violates fundamental principles of international law that are binding on Israel," the report says. |
This work is in the public domain |
