The Mega Prison of Palestine

In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. I asserted that the genocidal policies are a result of a lack of strategy. The argument was that since the Israeli political and military elites do not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killing of citizens whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest by force their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians — more than one hundred in the first days of March 2008, unfortunately validating the adjective “genocidal” I and others attached to these policies. But it was not yet a strategy. Continue →

Who cares they’re only Palestinians

11 July 2008

by Greg Barns

If you are an Israeli citizen living in the West bank towns of Samaria and Judea and you beat up a Palestinian, even kill him or her, there’s a 90 percent chance you will get away with it.

The latest Data Sheet (attached) from Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, confirms what many have long suspected to be the case – that the system of law enforcement in Israel treats Palestinians in much the same way as black South Africans were treated by that country’s police force when the apartheid regime was in place.

Yesh Din has tracked police 205 investigation files opened in recent years.  81 of these files relate to attacks on Palestinians by Israeli civilians and this includes 2 cases of shooting that led to death, and 9 cases of serious injury.  The remainder deal with incidents where Palestinians were assaulted with sticks, knives, rifle butts, as well as attacks on their houses and vehicles. Continue →