ISRAELI APARTHEID

As US President George W Bush had his first White House meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a summit giving Bush a platform for his phony $200 million aid package devastating new realities are being constructed in Palestine. The Apartheid Wall and accompanying infrastructure of Jewish-only bypass roads, military zones and settlements, are rapidly moving towards the permanent ghettoisation of the Palestinian people. Bush`s aid package, however, neither stops these crimes nor helps Palestinians: most of it is destined for occupation projects such as new checkpoints. As part of global aid efforts outlined and coordinated by the World Bank, it supports not liberation but Bantustanisation of Palestine.

The Bank`s latest publication Stagnation or Revival? leaves no doubt about these aims as it meticulously maps out a vision of economic development for Palestine that serves to provide long-term financial support of the Israeli Apartheid system. It begins by repeating the lie that Israeli disengagement will provide Palestinians with a significant amount of land and an ideal environment for development. In reality, Gaza will be totally imprisoned, surrounded by a second eight- metre high wall, with all borders, coastline and airspace controlled by Israel.

In the West Bank, just four tiny settlements are being disbanded. Simultaneously, 46 per cent of the West Bank is being annexed through the wall and Apartheid infrastructure to further expand colonies such as Maale Adumim and the Gush Etzion bloc. Against international law, the Bank sees the economic boundaries of Palestine as dictated by the Apartheid Wall and the disengagement plan, which translates into active engagement in the colonisation of the remaining lands of Palestine.

Despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling the wall illegal and instructing all nations not to render any aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by it, the Bank steps in with an economic formula to sustain and prop up this system of expropriation, dispossession and permanent occupation.

These plans can be broken down into two key areas: the exploitation of Palestinian labour and achieving total control over Palestinian movement.