Zionist loathing of the Palestinian city: Apartheid is costly

The process of de-urbanisation of Palestinian society represents the deepest expression of the Naqba. “Suddenly” it became clear that the Israeli economy loses some NIS 20 billion each year as a result of the non-participation of Palestinian women, citizens of Israel, in the work force. The unemployment forced upon Palestinian women, in order to strengthen the regime’s passion for separation and the pleasures of privatization, return as a boomerang to those who implement these policies.

In the Haaretz newspaper from 11 July 2012, a piece by Eli Ashkenazi opened with the words “the city of Nazareth Illit is promoting the paving of a road from the Golani interchange, the goal of which is to bypass the village of Kana from the East. The road, which will be paved primarily on state land and partly on confiscated land of Arab residents from the area’s towns, is not meant to connect with Kana. The Ministry of Transportation has acceded to Nazareth Illit’s request and encourages the plan, but claims it has yet to decide whether the road will link to the village. The ministry ordered promotion of the procedure that will give the plan legal validity. Shimon Gaspo, mayor of Nazareth Illit, said to Haaretz that “there will be no junction that connects it to Kfar Kana” and added that “the minister of transportation is a big fan of this road.” The reason for the excitement of the mayor of Nazareth Illit and the minister of transportation is absolutely clear. They continue to implement the plan to ‘Judaise’ the Galilee. For this there is not even a need to bring Jews from the centre to the North; it is sufficient to transform the original residents of the Galilee into invisible beings. “The bypass roads” intended for Jews only, cover all of historical Palestine and represent an expression of the apartheid policies practiced by Israel since its establishment. Beyond their purpose as a tool for ethnic separation, these roads are an important tool in the de-urbanisation of Palestinian society, a process which continues since the beginning of 1948. This process represents in my eyes the deepest essence of the Naqba. An example of this policy is the Nazareth bypass road in the Galilee. This road – at the cost of NIS 30 million – was inaugurated in the first years following the Oslo agreements. Its construction was a natural continuation of the Israeli regime’s attempt to establish a system of bypass roads in the West Bank, as part of the flowing of the colonial model which was consolidated in the territories occupied after 1967 into the ‘Old Israel’ of the 1948 borders. The construction of this road indeed attained its goal: serious damage to the only Arab city in Israel. The buses to the upper Galilee stopped passing through Nazareth. The lessening of public transportation, which was planned ahead of time, served as an excuse to transfer government institutions from Nazareth to Nazareth Illit. A partial list of the institutions and offices that were uprooted from Nazareth includes the Land Registry Office, Israel Land Administration, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Education and Culture, the court and the Employment Service, amongst others. A majority of these offices were located in Nazareth since it became a district city in Ottoman Palestine. Their removal from Nazareth represents an organized dispossession of the city’s clear urban characteristics, through a continuation and deepening of the de-urbanisation process than commenced in 1948. The new Nazareth bypass road will be connected, as expected, to another apartheid road that connects only to Jewish towns, including tiny villages (mitzpe) which have populations of less than 100 families each, while it bypasses and dispossess transportation resources from the invisble population centres of Israel in the towns of Arabe, Sahnin and Dir Hana, the combined population of which surpasses 60,000. The paralysis of the transportation connections between the city and the Arab villages – including the largest amongst them which received the title of “city” while they are actually only overweight villages – increases the suffocation and the atrophy of these towns, increases levels of unemployment – primarily of women – and provides a substantial boost to traditional and patriarchal forces in the villages. None of this is by chance. A strengthening of the hamulas in Arab society in order to ground its rule over the Arab population is a well-rooted Israeli policy since the first days of the state and under the management, supervision and encouragement of all of the Israeli “experts on Arab affairs” who have been jumping for decades now between academia and the General Security Services. The shifting of public transportation away from Nazareth and an emptying of the city’s urban content indeed resulted in serious consequences concerning social retreat and gender. It is appropriate to extensively quote here a section from the research of Dr. Manar Hassan (2009, Tel Aviv University): This shifting resulted in an almost complete cessation of regular public transportation connecting the Palestinian village in the region to the (Jewish) central cities, thus bringing about the isolation of the former. This fact had a determinant impact on gender relations and the situation of women from certain sectors. The fact that the economic status of Palestinian women citizens of Israel is the lowest in relation to the other gendered groups in Israel (Jewish women, Palestinian men and Jewish men), reduces the chance of numerous Palestinian women vis-à-vis a group of men from the same society (and in general) to obtain a private car…A cessation of public transportation... in the wake of paving those same bypass roads, caused a deterioration of the situation of women who do not own a car. This deterioration resulted both from an increase in their dependence on men and family members with drivers licenses and cars (husband, brother, father or son)…which in numerous cases resulted in the confinement of these women within the four walls of their homes. Similar conclusions were reached by the researcher Wafa Alias, a transportation engineer the results of whose research, which initially was meant to examine the impact of the bypass roads on development of the towns, accidents and more, noted that “paving of the bypass (roads) influenced particularly badly on a large group of Palestinian women…the lives of these women changed for the worse due to the separation of their towns and their isolation and confinement to home.” In “travel diaries,” residents of Majd al Krum, Rama and Shefa Amr were asked to fill out, we see that 32% of the women aged 20-50 (83% of them married and 69% without driving licenses) do not leave their homes for a full work week[1]. Dr. Manar Hassan notes that an additional aspect of the process of deurbanisation which continues to impact the city of Nazareth, together with all of Palestinian society in Israel, is an almost complete absence of immigration from the village to the city, and in the case of Nazareth from the nearby villages to it. The massive migration process from the village to the city which occurred during the British mandate period and accompanied the process of urbanization and the flourishing of the cities, particularly those central amongst them, came to an end in 1948 with the occurrence of the castastrophe and subsequent elimination of the cities. The confiscation of the land of Nazareth and its transfer to the Jewish city of Nazareth Illit strictly limited the expansion possibilities of the city and the possibilities of absorbing immigrants. The opposite, migration from Nazareth to other villages and even to Nazareth Illit, is happening. A majority of Israel’s Jewish residents are not at all interested in these processes, which appear to them as necessary due to the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. However, the practical implications of this policy, shared by all governments of Israel, have recently become evident. “Suddenly” it became clear that the Israeli economy is losing each year some NIS 20 billion as a result of the non-participation of Palestinian women, citizens of Israel, in the work force. The unemployment forced upon them in order to strengthen the passion for separation and the pleasures of privatization of the government, return as a boomerang to those who implement the policies. The self-righteous lamentations of Minister of Finance Steinitz and his master Netanyahu indeed describe a reality – but this is precisely the reality that they and their predecessors worked hard to create for years. To their gloomy calls of amazement at the miserable situation of Arab women, we must relate to like the words of the magician at a children’s party, who looks with surprise at the rabbit in his hat as if he has never seen it. This brings us back to the bypass road planned for the Kana village, a seemingly local event which embodies all the Zionist state’s history toward the members of the first nation of Palestine and primarily the relation of Zionism to the Arab city. Of course we can also find here the security excuse, which represents the eternal fig leaf for hiding the nakedness of apartheid. Mr. Gaspo, mayor of Nazareth Illit, dubs the paving of the apartheid road “a existential topic for the residents of Nazareth Illit.” “The road is important from a strategic perspective,” explains Gaspo. “Tomorrow a sheikh (in the West Bank or Gaza Strip – E.A.) can be eliminated and the road will remain open. Every time there is a targeted killing there is one or another demonstration there. I don’t think that Nazareth Illit should be under blockade whenever there is this or that land day.” In 2010, following the demonstration to mark a decade to the 2000 October events in Kfar Kana, Gaspo wrote that “paving of the road from our perspective is an existential matter which directly influences the daily routine and quality of life of 50,000 people. Can it be imagined that Nazareth Illit, the capital of the Galilee, will be besieged each time that the residents of nearby Kfar Kana will decide, and this happens night and day, to demonstrate in the streets? The unbearable dependence of the Nazareth Illit residents on the daily use of an internal road of Kfar Kana is not only a bother to quality of life, but at times also a danger to human life.” Gaspo is not a lone voice. Jewish politicos both on the municipal and policy levels express themselves on topics related to Palestinian citizens regularly and with the arrogance of the rulers of the land, seemingly the representatives of modernity and logic, and impose on the Palestinians responsibility for their distress. However, the “existential” security and strategic reasons are no more than a fig leaf to cover the real strategy of oppression and separation which continues since establishment of the state of Israel. Unlike South Africa, which was also an apartheid state but more open about it, Israel does not have the vast natural resources which permitted the separation policies of South Africa for so many years. The sole “natural” resources on which Israel can rely for its development are the people living here, i.e. their ability to become productive people. We see here that the Zionist strategy of excluding the Arab population, and that populations’ dispossession and transformation to marginal results in material damage to the economy and development of the state and eventually harms the preferred Jewish citizens, and this is without talking about the moral aspect. It is doubtful whether the Jewish state can and is capable of implementing a serious change of this policy. Its history and political trends which developed point to the trend of deepening apartheid, not its elimination. Therefore the most reasonable prediction for the continued existence of Israel is its decline to the level of a third world country. *This is the first article in the series Zionist Loathing of the Palestinian City

Eli Aminov

Eli Aminov was a member of the former Revolutionary Communist League (Matzpen) and founded the Committee for a Secular Democratic State [1] Article by Abthihaj Zbeidat: Al Arab al Yaum, 12.4.2007

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