UN-Truth

A spate of articles has appeared, reflecting on the forty (40) years that have passed since the Six-Day War in June (5-10), 196z, during which Israel occupied the rest of the former British Mandate of Palestine (East Jerusalem plus the West Bank, which had been occupied by Jordan since the 1948 Mid-East war; and the Gaza Strip, which was occupied by Egypt in 1948.). In addition, Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights.

Here are excerpts from one such article, which we will pick up at a point some 20 years after the occupation:

“Early in 1988, on a visit to the West Bank, I arrived at the military government building in Nablus. All these building in the Territories, just like our police stations inside Israel, are remnants of the British Mandate government, a trace of a shared Jewish-Arab history under foreign rule. I stood facing the large building. To my left was a large tent belonging to the General Security Service and a long line of detainees, mostly stone throwers caught in never-ending chases, were qeueing across the front, waiting to be interrogated. An annoying thin rain dripped from the gray sky. It was cold as February in Nablus can be cold. I stood there, watching. A soldier – one of those who live in rooms adjacent to the military administration offices – crossed the courtyard with a gray IDF-issued towel on his shoulder. Walking to the shower, he encountered a detainee standing by the tent, nonchalantly kicked him, and went on to shower. Another soldier crossed the courtyard, walked by the column of waiting detainees, gave one of them a blow and continued on.

I returned to the newsroom. I wrote a story describing what I saw and warning of what would come. The occupation corrupts. The boundaries between right and wrong blur. The accessibility to authorized violence – even endorsed violence – will eventually create a condemnable and dangerous habit of sanctioned brutality. The freedom to invade the life and the body of the other, to humiliate and oppress, will turn into second nature for a society that will corrupt itself and lose respect for the foreigner.

…

Forty years after obtaining cheap labor and raising a race of masters that employs day-laborers at the settlements, occupying the army and costing in money and blood; Forty years after we turned from a small, threatened country into an empire of aggressiveness, we are still – today more than ever – a country with no borders, a country that knows no boundaries”.

TALLIE LIPKIN-SHAHAK is the former war correspondent for the daily Davar, where she covered the first war in Lebanon and the first Intifada. She is a radio personality and a regular contributor to Ma’ariv, writing on social issues, the arts, and politics.

See full article here.

Filed under: Israel, Palestine & Palestinians