Reuters
Israel's W.Bank barrier like apartheid - Gandhi kin
Date: Fri Aug 27
By Goran Tomasevic
ABU DIS, West Bank (Reuters) - The grandson of Mahatma Gandhi told Palestinian protesters at Israel's West Bank barrier on Friday that the wall recalled the way South Africa's former white-minority regime treated blacks.
Arun Gandhi, whose grandfather's pacifist campaign helped end British rule in the Indian subcontinent, is on a weeklong Middle East visit to spread the message of non-violence to Palestinians and Israel locked in bloody conflict.
He said the barrier, which Israel calls its bulwark against suicide bombers but Palestinians see as a bid to annex occupied land, might isolate Palestinians but not silence them just as apartheid rule failed to suppress blacks in South Africa.
"I spent my childhood in South Africa. What I've seen today reminds me of bantustans. This wall will not bring security to Israel," he told 2,000 Palestinians at the foot of the huge cement barrier slicing by the West Bank town of Abu Dis.
Bantustans were scattered "homelands" designated for blacks under white-ruled South Africa's policy of racial separation. They were abolished when democratic black-majority government came into being a decade ago.
Palestinians in revolt since 2000 contend that the barrier, and continued Israeli settlement expansion in occupied West Bank areas, could relegate them to enclaves akin to "bantustans" and leave no room for the viable state they seek.
Israel denies any such intention and rejects comparisons with apartheid South Africa. It says the barrier could be torn down and negotiations on Palestinian statehood could proceed if Palestinians ended attacks on Israelis.
"I think it's very bad how a democratic government in Israel and also the people who experienced the Holocaust accept this (situation)," Arun Gandhi, founder of the U.S.-based M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence, told Reuters after the rally.
But he said Palestinians must embrace forms of "non-violent resistance" which would be more likely to foster talks and steps towards independence than a campaign of suicide attacks.
Most Palestinians have welcomed Gandhi but their response to his message has been mixed with some voicing doubt whether non-violent tactics could achieve real change in the region.
The eight-metre (26-foot)-high wall severs Abu Dis from adjacent Arab East Jerusalem where many Palestinians used to shop, trade, go to school and get medical treatment.
Worse off are farmers elsewhere in the West Bank trapped in enclaves by the barrier as it zigzags to take in settlements.
But Israel says it will reroute some of it in keeping with a High Court order not cut off Palestinians from their lands.
Gandhi raised clasped hands with moderate Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie in a show of solidarity at the rally.
Palestinian children mischievously scaled the eight-metre (26-foot)-high wall with footholds in cracks between the concrete slabs and sat on top to watch the gathering.
(additional reporting by Diala Saadeh)
SOURCE
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