Baqa, Ash-Sharqiya, West Bank, Palestine
To find the location of where I was today on the map, go to the link below. Baqa Ash-Sharqiya is about 15 miles (and 15 billion light years at the same time) east from Hadera (inside Israel). Below is the link to the full map created by the Israel human rights organization, B’tselem. Where the PHR clinic was located today was in Baqa Ash-Sharqiya, which is near the arrow in green.
http://www.btselem.org/Download/Separation_Barrier_Map_Eng.pdf
What does it means to live in space where apartheid exists? What if that apartheid isn’t law but just an acceptable social practice? The dictionary defines apartheid as a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race. I was talking with someone tonight who believed what is going on in the West Bank is not apartheid, yet I find it problematic to call it anything else. On the border to the West Bank there are 50 cars filled with Israeli Arabs trying to cross the border to go back home to Israel on Saturday evening. These are Israelis who are not Jewish, but who live in Israel, pay Israeli taxes, have Israeli ID cards, go to Israeli schools and vote in Israeli democratic elections. Yet, because of their race/religion/creed and not nationality, they hold a teudat zehut (Israeli National ID Card) just like I do, they are being forced to wait in a longer line, with less service and less respect.
Our minivan drives in a separate line. The white Ashkenazi Jewish line is like an automatic fast lane. An Israeli gets out, flashes his ID and we’re waved through without opening the door, without checking our van, without checking our IDs and with our dignity and personal autonomy intact.
