This week

Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban

Last Saturday saw the end of “Israeli Apartheid Week” held in over 40 cities all over the world. Beirut joined the activity at the American University of Beirut last Thursday. The week started in 2005, but became world renowned and more widespread in 2009 when universities throughout the world showed movies about the Israeli war on Gaza, exhibited photos of killed Palestinian children and destroyed Palestinian houses. Lectures were given about the economic, social and political Apartheid to which the Palestinian population is subjected in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in pre-1948 Palestine .

In 2010, a remarkable number of Jewish, and even Israeli, economists and human rights activists took part in this week in British, Canadian, American and Spanish universities. This inspired horror in the hearts of the protectors of the Israeli entity, because those taking part in the Week have called for boycotting Israel until it puts an end to its racist policies. For the first time in history, Israeli ballet shows on the Montgomery theatre near Washington get surrounded by demonstrations staged by Americans protesting against allowing the Israeli ballet group to perform on the theatre.

Hundreds of Spanish children have, during recent weeks, sent protest cards to the Israeli embassy in Madrid calling on Israeli authorities to stop killing Palestinian children. They also accuse Israelis of killing for money. The Spanish children, aged 5-10 years asked the Israeli ambassador, in letters sealed with official school stamps, “How many Palestinians have you killed, ambassador?”

About 90 British personalities, including members of parliament, lawyers, actors and others sent a letter to the British government calling on it to abide by international agreements which provide for prosecuting war criminals regardless of their nationality or the positions they occupy. A dim light of supporting justice even appeared in the tunnel of the US Congress when it called, in a letter signed by about 54 Democratic congressmen, on President Obama to try and lift the blockade against unarmed civilians in Gaza . American academics have also called for imposing an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel because of its war on Gaza and the blockade it is imposing against it.

At the beginning of last month, a campaign was organized to boycott Israeli flowers exported to the Netherlands . A sign was raised reading: “Beware, don’t give your girlfriend a rose of shame. Don’t buy a flower with the Netherland stamp on it, because most of these flowers are brought from occupied land”.

A Jewish film maker is showing his documentary about a West Bank village, “Ba’lin Habibi”, produced in 2006, in the Boston area universities.

The Israeli Apartheid Week has a website which everybody can visit. It staged lectures, seminars and demonstrations throughout the world in order to show Israel ’s racist face and the ugliness of the crimes it is committing against the Palestinian people.

The week sounded alarm bills in Israel where the foreign ministry prepared lists of the names of students who should accompany any lecturer leaving Israel so that they sit in the lecture hall, wave Israeli flags and shout slogans in support of Israel when the audience starts shouting against Israel and attack the Israeli speaker, like what happened recently in universities and cultural centers in different parts of the world. For the first time in its history, Israel has waged diplomatic campaigns with the aim of protecting Israel’s image from “accusations or distortions” in the West, as they call it, and the real manifestation of the crimes Israel has committed against the Palestinians for the past sixty years.

But the international community remained silent to a great extent. Now, regardless of the silence of governments, however, intellectuals, parliamentarians, university professors, civil-society organizations and former ministers have started to set up tens of forums and activities throughout the world in support of the Palestinian people. These are Christians, Muslims and Jews who have teamed up to expose Israeli crimes and destroy the lie which Israel has adopted and promoted that the conflict in the region is a religious one and that Muslims are hostile to Jews in Palestine.

In this week, the “Israeli Apartheid Week,” American and Western communications intensified with all Arab parties to push the Arab initiative follow up committee to take a decision which deepens rifts in Palestinian ranks and provides Israel with the a cover to negotiate without any frame of reference, guarantee or real commitment towards the peace process, while Israel continues to Judaize holy places under the full sight of all Muslim governments. It continues building settlements, imposing a blockade and destroying homes.

The Israeli government was the first to welcome the decision and wasted no time to use it to embellish its image. Netanyahu hastened to boast that “ Israel is not the obstacle to peace”. But less than 48 hours after the decision, while we are still in the international “Israeli Apartheid Week”, Israeli occupation forces entered al-Aqsa sanctuary from its seven gates and attacked Palestinians performing their prayers. Israeli occupation vehicles crushed to death four children in the West Bank .

This shows the Israeli government’s insistence on sending an urgent message to the Arab follow-up committee stressing Israel ’s persistence in committing murder, terrorism, settlement and house demolition despite the recent decision.

In this week too, American media made a great fuss about Mosa’ab, son of Hamas leader Hasan Yusuf, imprisoned in Israeli jails. He was interviewed by CNN and BBC because he betrayed his family, homeland and religion. He was presented, thus, as a model for “cooperative” agents at a time that Israel is using the strategy of infiltration in its assassinations, murders and occupation. It considers these crimes victories and achievements for which it decorates its killers and terrorists.

The shameful promotion of treason is a source of disgust for the children of Palestine and for the whole world. In the end, it immunizes them against Israeli intelligence infiltration, because what Mosa’ab Hasan Yusuf stands for is diametrically opposed to the simplest human values, education, religion, personal and national dignity of the Palestinian people, but represents the Israeli racist view of the Arabs whom it wants only as agents in the service of its interests.

This week shows, without a shadow of doubt, that fighting for justice and freedom in Palestine and for exposing the reality of Israeli crimes of war, blockade, settlement and Judaizing, has gone beyond the Arab threshold to a wider and more important arena. But the most dangerous thing is that pressure is put on Arabs in order to make decisions to cover for international embarrassment caused by the actions of Israel in world capitals and find explanations and justifications for Israel and the American administration which supports it with money and international resolutions.