Works in progress: the partitions of Iraq and Palestine

By Rela Mazali

Works in Progress:

– The partition of Palestine (most recently into Gaza Strip; East Jerusalem; West Bank)
– The partition of Iraq

In Iraq, the occupation is attempting “ethnic” partition.

See: Statement issued this week (October 10, 2010) by the BRussels Tribunal, stating among other things, that,

From the first day of the US-UK occupation of Iraq, the occupation began to undertake a series of measures, directly or through its local allies, to destroy Iraq as a state and a nation and to partition it along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Today, the puppet government of the occupation and its Kurdish partners are trying to hold a population census in Kirkuk province whose aim is to give a permanent legal character to the criminal social engineering, ethnic cleansing and demographic changes that have been implemented under occupation.[1] This could unleash a full blown civil war across Iraq, and potentially lead to its partition and a consequent regional war.”

In Palestine/Israel, Israel’s security forces are now drilling the concentration, in camps, and mass deportation to the Palestinian Authority of Palestinian citizens of Israel: On Sunday, October 10, military affairs reporter, Carmela Menashe, reported (in Hebrew;) that a large scale drill simulated “extreme scenarios of violent protests in the Arab sector following accords with the Palestinian Authority on population exchange. A detention camp for Israeli Arabs will be set up at Golani junction to receive detainees. The large-scale drill was administered and led by the Prison Services and included the military Home Command, the Israel Police Force, the Military Police, fire fighting forces and others.” [Translation mine] Drills are scheduled for Tuesday in Jerusalem.

Secret police force drill for overtaking the Temple Mount, held last July

See: 1) Gush Shalom statement below (October 10, 2010); 2) Important analysis and discussion by journalist and blogger Dimi Reider, who writes,

“First, a drill involving so many forces is by definition following a plan hatched Israeli public servants and/or leaders. Second, bringing all those crowds costs enormous amounts of money in equipment, fuel, ammunition, and most importantly, important peoples’ time. Third, it’s worth noting that the other scenario practiced in the drill is that of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank – Israel’s number one conflict scenario in that region, one which the army and the politicians have been speaking about and preparing for to no end, ever since Hamas pulled off the Gaza coup. … if the top brass are taking the possibility of preparing for transfer as seriously as they take the risk of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank, it means that what Israelis call ??? ????? must be blowing in that direction very hard indeed …”

Ofer Neiman commented:

“It could be added that the report serves to justify the wider scope of the BDS campaign. After all, an official Israeli scenario indicates that the oppression of Israel’s Palestinian citizens may even worsen as a result of political developments involving the dismantling of settlements.”

—————————————–

Israeli security forces practice suppression and mass detention of Israel’s Arab citizens, in implementation of Lieberman’s “population exchange” program.

Gush Shalom: It seems Lieberman is Israel’s true Prime Minister

This week Israel’s security forces practiced the putting down of mass demonstrations and protests among Israel’s Arab citizens and their imprisonment in a large detention camp to be established at Golani Junction in Galilee. The exercise was based on a scenario of the riots being provoked by implementation of Avigdor Lieberman’s plan for “an exchange of populations”, i.e. massively depriving Arabs of their Israeli citizenship. A week ago Lieberman voiced this heinous idea on the podium of the UN Assembly General and Prime Minister Netanyahu murmured some weak reservations. Now it turns out that the security forces are already preparing to implement it in practice, under the responsibility of none other than Labor Party leader Ehud Barak – the Minister of Defence.

It goes without saying that in a country having any pretense to be a democracy it would be unacceptable and unthinkable for the security forces to practice waging war against the country’s own citizens. Together with the racist “Loyalty Oath Bill”
which gained the support of the government, and with the demonstrative resumption of settlement construction in the Occupied Territories, it increasingly seems that Lieberman is the true Prime Minister, and that the government follows on his path, leading the State of Israel in big and rapid strides into the abyss.