It's not often that The New York Times publishes such a blunt and direct assessment of the position which exists between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. With full credit to op-ed columnist Nicholas Kritoff for writing as he does:
"The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country’s image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant."
And:
"None of that changes the ugly truth that our ally, Israel, is using American military support to maintain an occupation that is both oppressive and unjust. Israel has eased checkpoints this year — a real improvement in quality of life — but the system is intrinsically malignant."
Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan in a piece "How Is This Not Apartheid?" takes up on the Kristoff article and comments:
"These Palestinian Arabs were subject to constant harassment and violence from the Jewish settlers nearby. Kristof adds every caveat - about security, about double-standards, etc. But I fail to see how this kind of governing system, brutally punishing people for being the wrong ethnicity and religion and using the apparatus of the state to impoverish and marginalize them, is somehow in a different moral zone than apartheid. Could a reader mount a case for a clear difference? I think even parts of Soweto were allowed to access the national grid."
"The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country’s image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant."
And:
"None of that changes the ugly truth that our ally, Israel, is using American military support to maintain an occupation that is both oppressive and unjust. Israel has eased checkpoints this year — a real improvement in quality of life — but the system is intrinsically malignant."
Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan in a piece "How Is This Not Apartheid?" takes up on the Kristoff article and comments:
"These Palestinian Arabs were subject to constant harassment and violence from the Jewish settlers nearby. Kristof adds every caveat - about security, about double-standards, etc. But I fail to see how this kind of governing system, brutally punishing people for being the wrong ethnicity and religion and using the apparatus of the state to impoverish and marginalize them, is somehow in a different moral zone than apartheid. Could a reader mount a case for a clear difference? I think even parts of Soweto were allowed to access the national grid."
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