The “Golden Cage” A week ago, a magistrate decided that Oslo Accords are no more in force. Today, he is no more looking into cases (as he was transferred as execution judge!). (See news item below, in Arabic.) Is it the power of Oslo?! Apparently, not only the PA is attached to it, even the judiciary considers Oslo Accords sacred texts! By the Oslo Accords, the PA - and the Palestinian courts - indeed has no jurisdiction on Israeli citizens - even those from Palestinian origin. In fact Oslo created two systems: one is valid for the occupiers citizens, and another for the rest - defined in negative as Non-Israelis. I suspect, we, Palestinians, are trapped by Oslo, to the point they cannot even think of themselves without such golden cage - which is not of gold, of course! Are we, Palestinians, living the post-colonial trauma? The sad thing is that we live the trauma before ending the colonial regime! Israel, in fact, created a system where law, ethnicity & power are so entrenched; making it incomparable to typical occupation or apartheid regimes. It is true that sometimes many, including Palestinians with good intentions of course, prefer to compare Palestine is compared to South Africa where Palestinians are considered the new black! I, personally, don’t think this is completely accurate. Look at the Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship. They often face discrimination inside the state which defines itself as Jewish state, Israel. But those Arab-Israelis when in the occupied Palestinian territory, they are immune from PA jurisdiction, valid for non-Israelis only! So they are neither “white” nor “black”, within the apartheid paradigm. Accordingly, South Africa’s apartheid paradigm isnt accurate to describe the Israeli regime in occupied Palestine. Of course, being different doesn’t mean better. Israeli occupation regime is as discriminatory as South Africa under Apartheid. Still the Apartheid paradigm doesnt tell the whole story. So how can we define Israeli regime in the occupied Palestinian territory? Palestinians need to find their own paradigm, to tell their story, and tell it properly. alaraby.co.uk/politics/14dc578a-de10-49f1-bb84-73a47be55044
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:36:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015