A newly-opened highway in the occupied West Bank has been hailed by Israelis but condemned by Palestinians, who are calling it "Apartheid Road".
It's the first operational section of an eastern ring road around Jerusalem that could deny Palestinians access to parts of their territory and threaten a future Palestinian state.
Route 4370 has a high wall in the middle, topped with fencing that segregates the road into two separate two-way lanes.
The western side is for Palestinia
s in the West Bank to use to go around Jerusalem, which they cannot enter without an Israeli military-issued permit, while the eastern side serves Israeli settlers going to and from Jerusalem.
Palestinians from the village of Anata, which lies on the outskirts of Jerusalem but is separated from the city by Israel's barrier wall, say part of the highway is built on Anata's land.
'They want to take that land. Anyone can see the Israelis' plan," said resident Ahmed Rifea. "A few months ago they wanted to take Khan al-Ahmar," Khan al-Ahmar is the Bedouin village that garnered international attention after the Israeli government issued a demolition order against it. "Now they build this new road? They want to take that land," Rifea said.
Originally encompassing 35,000 square-kilometres of land, Anata has shrunk to a little more than 1,000 square-km because more than 90 percent of it lies in Area C as agreed by the Oslo Accords, putting it under total Israeli civil and security control.
The Rifea family owns hundreds of dunams (tens of hectares) of land in Anata, but almost all of it has been confiscated by Israel for road and illegal Jewish settlement construction.
E-1 and 'Greater Jerusalem'
Route 4370 runs northeast of Jerusalem past Khan al-Ahmar and the illegal Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim - in a controversial area known as E-1, which lies on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities want to annex E-1 as part of their "Greater Jerusalem" plan to redraw the borders of the city - Khan al-Ahmar stands in the way, which may be why Israel ordered it demolished.
Expanding Jerusalem further east would create room for more settlement growth, connect Maale Adumim to the city as a suburb and ease the housing crisis for Jewish Israelis in Jérusalem.
The annexation of E-1 would also displace about 140,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem towns and villages, like Anata.
Moreover, it would continue Israel's fragmentation of the West Bank by bisecting the northern Palestinian cities from the south, making any potential future state of Palestine less viable.
A 'gift' from Israel
According to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) spokesperson's office, "The construction of the new road was intended to shorten and optimise travel times for Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria," - using the biblical name for the West Bank in order to deligitimize the Palestinian historical nation.
Israel Afrayat, transportation coordinator for the Israeli civil administration, appeared in a promotional video explaining the purpose of the new road and why Israel has "gifted" it to the Palestinians. The road is meant to "serve all people", Afrayat said in the video, which is published on the Arabic language Facebook page of COGAT. "Our goal is safety first - to protect your children," Afrayat said.
In Truth, the main purpose of this road is to connect Maale Adumim with Jerusalem and to separate Palestinians from their land, especially people from Anata.
Israeli activist group Ir Amim agreed and said the highway "eliminates one of the obstacles to settlement construction in E-1 and should signal cause for heightened vigilance".
According to Ir Amim, the northernmost part of "Apartheid Road" was always intended to "solve" the dilemma of maintaining at least transportation contiguity between northern Palestinians cities and the south while diverting them from the E-1 and Jerusalem areas.
The highway was initially conceived more than a decade ago by late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. International pressure delayed construction for years.
The Palestinian authority found out about the road being opened through the COGAT Facebook page. Other Anata residents learned through the notice distributed to them by COGAT stating that it is forbidden to build on their own land within 300 metres of the new road.
If they close the road, they shut off people from their land. As always, when Israelis open one thing, they close another. "In the end, we will use [the road]. What can we do?" said a Palestinian.
Stay put in their prison, waiting for Israel to finish the genocide that began in 1948 with the Nakba, which as part of the Zionist colonialist plan.
I say so by addressing a fundamental issue that has so far proven unbridgeable: Zionism is simply another case of colonialism. For those arguing that Zionism is a valid movement for "Jewish national rights" the "Jewish rights" by definition take precedence over those of Palestinians, whose very existence as a people, and certainly as the indigenous people, is denied. The problem is that Zionism is a colonial movement of Eastern Europeans Jews to take control of another people’s country, it has no “national” legitimacy. Not only is colonialism illegitimate since it violates the fundamental right of self-determination (and, in its form of permanent occupation, in violation of the 1973 International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid), but the very fact that Jews constitute a nation that even has rights of self-determination is illegal and absurd.
Nevertheless, the Zionists are getting everything they wanted from the beginning, in 1917. And no international law can stop them from the ethinic cleansing of Palestine. This new road is just one more stone to build the Great Israel over the bodies of Palestinians.
I say so by addressing a fundamental issue that has so far proven unbridgeable: Zionism is simply another case of colonialism. For those arguing that Zionism is a valid movement for "Jewish national rights" the "Jewish rights" by definition take precedence over those of Palestinians, whose very existence as a people, and certainly as the indigenous people, is denied. The problem is that Zionism is a colonial movement of Eastern Europeans Jews to take control of another people’s country, it has no “national” legitimacy. Not only is colonialism illegitimate since it violates the fundamental right of self-determination (and, in its form of permanent occupation, in violation of the 1973 International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid), but the very fact that Jews constitute a nation that even has rights of self-determination is illegal and absurd.
Nevertheless, the Zionists are getting everything they wanted from the beginning, in 1917. And no international law can stop them from the ethinic cleansing of Palestine. This new road is just one more stone to build the Great Israel over the bodies of Palestinians.
PALESTINA
Without an acknowledged history, whole nations and peoples can be erased from human memory. Most invaders understand this dynamic and all too often determine that the best way to keep lands they have taken is to erase the history of those who lived there when they invaded. All too often, this erasure of the indigenous history and culture is accompanied by mass murder. The most egregious examples of this latter manifestation most often involve Europeans committing genocide in the Americas and Africa. In the case of Palestine, the mass murder was on a lesser scale, but the wholesale removal of the inhabitants of Palestine by Zionist/European colonizers in what is known as the Nakba was nearly complete.
Recently, Pluto Press published what is perhaps the most comprehensive and complete history of the Palestinian people to date. Titled Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, the text traces the Palestinian people and their culture from pre-biblical times to the modern day. Author Nur Masalha has composed a narrative befitting a people whose future is ultimately crucial to the world’s. Describing most historical narratives about nations as myths based on religions and folk tales, Masalha rejects this approach and takes the reader through a detailed examination of trade, governance, and various inhabitants’ personal documents. In doing so he describes a history of a people and a place that began long before more traditional histories of either Palestine or Israel start. The result is a history based in verifiable data and unadorned by romantic notions of nationalism and religious mythology.
Furthermore, Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History challenges and broadens most conventional narratives that primarily highlight the role of the elites in recent Palestinian history. In other words, the text brings the role of the villagers, farmers and everyday working folk into the discussion. In a general way, this means it is a people’s history.
The author begins his text with a discussion of the peoples in the region historically called Palestine. It is a description based on archaeological finds and interpretations that places different peoples coming together in what ultimate describes the historic beginnings of the Palestinians. Originally a polytheistic people, over time the Palestinians were (after the early polytheistic phase of prehistory), first predominantly Christian, then Muslim. Palestinian Christianity was part of the Byzantine rite and, like most churches under the eastern synod, fairly independent. It was during this predominantly Christian period that much of what we consider Palestine was politically organized and structured.
Naturally, the role of religion is important throughout the history delineated in this text. However, this is not unlike histories of much of the world. It is apparent from the reading that the wars waged over the lands that are Palestine have been sold to those invaders and occupiers as religious wars, even if they were primarily about land and conquest. This remains the case even as the text finally reaches the twentieth century and the actions of the Zionist movement to settle the land known as Palestine and remake it into Israel. When discussing this part of history, author Masalha portrays the role played by the Zionist movement not so much as a unique movement but as part of the ongoing European colonization of Palestine (and the world). In describing this, Masalha enumerates the multiple ways the Zionist occupation involved numerous British government and private endeavors –including cartographers, military members and diplomats—in their endeavor to erase Palestinian history and culture.
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History is the most comprehensive English language history of Palestine to date. This book is a painstakingly researched and well-documented deconstruction of the myths too many Zionists and their western apologists have convinced the world to be factual history. In this careful reconstruction of Palestinian cultural and economic history on the land historically known as Palestine, Nur Masalha has provided a resounding renunciation of the modern Western understanding of Palestinian history. His work undertakes a tremendous and important task and succeeds—four thousand years of history cannot be denied. This book is an important work in its own right. In the politics of the times, it also becomes an important tool in the struggle of the Palestinian people.
BRASIL
The Intercept Brasil
"Com esses ministros, é preferível que Cultura não tenha ministério", avalia o -escritor-poeta-compositor-cantor Chico Buarque.
"Só posso dizer o seguinte: em vista da qualidade dos ministros deste Governo, acho que é preferível que a cultura não tenha ministério", diz ao jornal El País. Nem todos concordam que as mudanças promovidas pela extrema direita causarão riscos à cultura brasileira.
O presidente Jair Bolsonaro só começou fazer referências diretas à cultura durante a campanha após um incêndio destruir completamente o Museu Nacional em setembro. Ele prometeu eliminar o Ministério da Cultura e concentrar as políticas do setor em uma secretaria específica como parte de seu plano de encolher a Administração pública e economizar. A Cultura está acomodada no mesmo ministério que o Esporte e a Cidadania.
O presidente da Ancine (órgão público que regula e promove o cinema), Christian de Castro, também afirma que o setor não sofrerá impacto algum, que a produção está amparada por uma legislação que existe há 20 anos. Mas ela enfatiza que a liberdade criativa é necessária para fazer filmes e vendê-los. "Sempre que há censura, perdemos dinheiro", diz. O cinema brasileiro movimentou mais de 2,7 bilhões de reais em 2017.
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