19 October, 2014

Tell Me a Story with a Happy Ending, Part II - The New Yorker

Tell Me a Story with a Happy Ending, Part II - The New Yorker: In short, Etgar, it really, really scares me. I know that in Israel people shout and carry on, How dare you compare us to South Africa? But what’s going on in the territories is separation based on race. The fact is, a settler can vote, move around freely, get Social Security and medical insurance, and a Palestinian can’t— that is separation based on race. And it’s not only in the territories but also inside the 1948 borders, when we’re talking about Arab citizens like me. How can you read in the papers this week that the Supreme Court has rejected a petition against the Admissions Committees Law, which is aimed at preventing Arab citizens from gaining access to state lands—state lands that were owned by Arabs not too long ago. (This has been happening for a long time, but now the practice has legal authority.) Is there any word but racist to describe the fact that a citizen can’t live wherever he wants in his own country, that an Arab citizen has no access to more than eighty per cent of the territory of his own country?