Palestinians Need Their Rosa Parks

There has been great progress, great steps forward worldwide, in human and civil rights. In the United States, people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and others fought a hard battle against racial segregation - and for equal rights, such as voting - in the 1950s and 1960s, making great strides for African-Americans. These struggles paved the way, four decades later, for the election of the first African-American president, Barack Obama.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for almost thirty years for standing up against apartheid, would oversee the end of this appalling system of discrimination and become South Africa's first post-apartheid president.

So why, with all this progress, does Israel continue to lag behind. With all the struggles and accomplishments in recent history, Israel remains a throwback to earlier days in treatment and segregation of Palestinians.

The headline of this story puts it very well, on the creation of a "Palestinian-only" bus in Israel, that a Palestinian Rosa Parks is needed.

Many Israelis are appalled at this blatant segregation and discrimination, as seen in the above-mentioned story. When will the Israeli government act, when will they come into the 21st century?

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Wikileaks on Gaza

While the latest wikileaks revelations on Gaza don't offer new information per se, they confirm that Israel had no real intention of resolving matters in Gaza. The leaks show that Israel wanted to keep Gaza on the brink of collapse so that it would be crippled while not crippling it so much as to attract too much international attention.

Gaza has been turned into a prison camp of more than one million people; it is apartheid as Reverend Tutu has said.

Click here to read the story.

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Israel-Palestine: Worse Than Apartheid According to Richard A. Falk of the United Nations

Richard A. Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, writer (the author or co-author of 20 books), speaker, activist on world affairs, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories (From Wikipedia).

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Israel and Apartheid

I saw this great write up on Dawg's blog: "Israeli apartheid: calumny or reality?" I wanted to leave a comment, but I could not. For some settings on my computer I am unable to leave a comment on many haloscan type settings so I have given up.

I do wish to point out that I agree with Dawg's reasoning. As a matter of fact, some observers have indicated that conditions in Palestinians areas, especially Gaza, are worse than they were in Apartheid South Africa because blacks in South Africa were at least able to work and earn their living. In Gaza, even that is hard to come by. There is simply too much to read and it is plain heart-wrenching. That we in Canada and the US support such apartheid is simply incredible – by "we" I mean our governments because the public in general, when they are aware of these apartheid conditions, will not support them.

Below is a video which speaks volumes. These are Australian folks who are opposed to this apartheid.

ISRAEL'S APARTHEID WALL

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Gaza, Israel and Apartheid: There's a Tear in my Heart

According to some observers, conditions in apartheid South Africa were better than in Gaza. Apartheid is criminal, so what should we call the position of Israel with regards to the Palestinians.

How can the US and Canada support such apartheid which is considered worse, by some, than the one which existed in South Africa. One has to admire Brian Mulroney who, contrary to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, opposed apartheid in South Africa. What is wrong with Stephen Harper and the so-called "Liberal" leader Michael Ignatieff? Michael Ignatieff does not come across as human. He is more like a robot who wants to be Prime Minister at any cost. The leadership situation in Canada is depressing. At least Obama recognizes the suffering of people in Gaza. Time will tell how his policies will materialize. There is no such hope from Harper and Iggy.

Now with Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel, will things get any better? Does not look it? However, he and Obama may have serious enough differences that there may be a turn around for the better... maybe.

Here is a song, "There's a Tear in my Heart" which depicts the Gaza situation quite well.

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