Last night I received a phone call from a Palestinian Christian now living in Australia who informed me, "I can phone America for a penny a minute. I can call Israel for two cents a minute, but when I phone my family in Bethlehem, I am charged $.71 per minute."
Yesterday, Amira Hass, Israeli journalist for Ha'aretz who writes of life in OPT, explained why:
"The air is one escape route from the roadblocks and the separation regime that Israel imposes on the Palestinians. But Israel catches up with them even in the air. Israel does not allocate cellular frequencies to the Palestinians that answer their modern technological, economic, social and personal needs. More precisely, Israel refuses to coordinate with the Palestinians so they can use the cellcom frequencies they should have according to the International Telecommunications Union.
The Communications Ministry claims there is no coordination because we are not speaking to the Hamas government. A convenient excuse, but flawed, because even before the Hamas government arose, Palestinian requests to coordinate additional frequencies went unanswered...the non-allocation of frequencies is another front in the economic war Israel is waging against the Palestinians. [1]
Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem affirms that, "Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of discrimination...This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, as is reminiscent of a distasteful regimes from the past, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa. [2]
Former South African President Hendrick Verwoerd already understood in 1961 that, "Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid regime." -Rand Daily Mail, Nov. 23, 1961.
Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's Minister of Intelligence, and veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle wrote, "Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency...it's a situation infinitely worse than apartheid." [3]
Now, if only all Americans would have ears to hear Israeli journalists reporting from OPT, South African's and Jimmy Carter we could exert pressure on this Administration and Congress to uphold President Bush's promise:
"In the long run, there is no justice without FREEDOM. There can be no human rights without LIBERTY. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we stand with you."-President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address
Enough is enough and only an end to the occupation can begin to bring that about.
The Global June 5th initiative:
http://www.june5thinitiative.org/
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
Might The March to Light a FIRE under Congress June 10, 2007 in DC, be the beginning of liberty from oppression and tyranny and equal access to phone communication for all the people of the land we claim as Holy.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
- http://www.haaretz.com/...
Hebrew: http://www.haaretz.co.il/...
- Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank, May 2002.
- Mail & Guardian, Israel 2007: Worse than Apartheid, by Ronnie Kasrils.
http://www.mg.co.za/...