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平成二十一年（二〇〇九年）一月二十五日（日）
（第二千六百七十八回）
〇前二回の時事寸評（H21.1.23, H21.1.24）で日本の「右翼」「民族派」の「論客」、
藤井厳喜の論説「イスラエルのガザ侵攻を支持する」
（『國民新聞』平成二十一年一月二十五日号）について言及した。
〇そこで、これから、
Sabbah's Blog に、
（これはパレスチナ解放闘争を支持する立場に立って、パレスチナ人民の
ニュース、イスラエル内の反シオニストユダヤ人のニュース、などを発信
するウエブサイトのようである）
二〇〇九年一月十八日、投稿されたイスラエルの反シオニスト的学者オレン･
イフタチェル（Oren Yiftachel）の論説を簡単に解説する。
後日、その全訳を「週刊日本新聞」紙上に紹介したい。
（オレン･イフタチェルは、イスラエルのベングリオン大学の地政学及び都市計画
の教授である）
Oren Yiftachel - The Jailer State
Sabbah's Blogサイト◇http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/author/haitham/
元サイト◇http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/12/jailer-state
〇オレン･イフタチェルの論説によれば、
「ガザ地区は、英領パレスチナの全面積のうち、１．７ パーセント。
一九四〇年代の末、十五万人のパレスチナ難民がイスラエルによって、この小さな
ガザ地区に追いやられた。そのガザ地区にはもともとの住民六万人が住んでいた。」
〇つまり、これで、二十一万人に成るわけである。
〇パレスチナ人＝アラブ人＝イスラムとキリスト教徒が、自分たちの住んで居た
土地を、イスラエルによって暴力的に追放された人々である。
〇一九九〇年代に入って、イスラエルはガザ地区を強制集中収容所、一大刑務所、
巨大な監獄に変えた。
〇しかし、日本人は日本のご主人さまアメリカ・イルミナティサタニスト世界権力
によって演出されたこうした経過について何にも知らない！！
〇ご主人さま（アメリカ＝イルミナティ）のなさることに口出しするなど、恐れ多い！！
と言うわけである。
〇このような条件の下で、
例の藤井厳喜論文のような妄言が出て来るわけである。
（了）
《注》
◎オーレン・イフタチェル教授の著作は以下の通り
※Planning a Mixed Region: Political Geography in Galilee, Ashgate, 1991.
※Urban and Regional Planning in Western Australia (with D. Hedgcock), Paradigm Press, 1992.
※Planning and Social Control: Policy and Resistance in a Divided Society, Pergamon, 1995.
※Ethnic Frontiers and Boundaries (with A. Meir eds), Westview, 1997.
※The Power of Planning (with Hedgcock, Little, Alexander eds), Kluwer, 2002.
※Israelis in Conflict (with Kemp, Newman, Ram eds), Sussex, 2004.
※Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine, Pennpress, 2006.
※その他
【参考】
Oren Yiftachel - The Jailer State
Posted: 18 Jan 2009 02:03 PM CST
Israel has turned Gaza into a massive prison, and is choosing to prolong the cycle of state terror and prisoner resistance that goes with that, writes Israeli academic Oren Yiftachel
"We have a great opportunity now in Gaza to smash and flatten them...[We] should destroy thousand of houses, tunnels and industries, and kill as many terrorists as possible..."
So declared Eli Yishai, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, a few days ago. On the same day Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni promised "to topple the Hamas Regime", and Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert demanded in every forum to "hermetically seal" the Gazan-Egyptian border.
These, and many similar statements by Israeli leaders, sketch in painful clarity the "political geography of mass incarceration" increasingly evident in Israel/Palestine. Under this regime large populations are locked into specific areas against their will, and often against international law, and are then subject to the mercy of their wardens. Typically, when the conditions of imprisonment become unbearable, a rebellion erupts, and is suppressed by violent collective punishment, which in turn sets the conditions for the next uprising.
This is how Israel is now treating its rebelling prisoners in Gaza. As its leaders' statements show, Israel seeks to lock them in the tiny strip and punish them with enormous force. At the same time Israel is further institutionalising the geography of incarceration and with it the likelihood of future uprisings.
This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it peculiar to the Palestinian situation: European colonialism widely used mass incarceration of indigenous groups, condensing them in reserves and Bantustans, to enable whites to freely exploit land, minerals and labour. Today too, racist governments attempt to deal with the existence of unwanted populations by applying methods of spatial containment and violent "punishment", as evident in the cases of Chechnya, Kosovo, Kashmir, Darfur and Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. The key to this spreading political order is the prevention of the rebelling region from gaining state sovereignty, leaving it "neither in nor out" of the state's control system. As a non-state entity, resistance of the jailed against colonial power is often criminalised, leading the state's self-righteous claim that it has no choice but to further oppress the anti-colonial struggle.
Importantly, the mass incarceration strategy is usually not the preferred option. It is typically employed only when the colonial power has lost some of its ability to settle and control the land by other, softer, means, and when the option of ethnic cleansing has become too embarrassing or unpopular. Much to the regret of racist regimes, this is the situation today. Hence, mass incarceration remains one of the main policy options for colonial states aiming to dominate indigenous populations.
Back to Israel/Palestine: Gaza had turned into an open-air jail by the late 1940s when over 150,000 Palestinian refugees were driven by Israel into the small region (covering just 1.7 per cent of British Palestine), joining its 60,000 previous residents. The refugees were never allowed to return to their lands and homes which were confiscated and destroyed. Ironically, it was during the "peace process" of the early 90s that the incarceration of Gaza intensified, with a sequence of closures, movement restrictions and the construction in 1994 of a massive barrier around the Strip. Following the 2005 disengagement and the election of Hamas, Israel's illegal siege around the area was taken up a notch with a near-total blockade of movement and trade.
Gaza is a severe case, but it's not unique. Since its establishment, Israel's ethnocratic regime has worked incessantly to Judaise the country by confiscating Palestinian lands, constructing hundreds of Jewish settlements and restricting the Palestinians to small enclaves. This began with the military government inside the Green Line [1] until 1966, and the establishment of a "fenced area" for the Bedouins in the south, which operates until today. Since the 1990s, the ghettoisation of Palestinians continued with the demarcation of areas A, B and C [2] in the occupied territories, with the advent of closures and checkpoints, and finally with the construction of the wall - all helping to fragment Palestine into dozens of isolated enclaves.
The long-term geographical impact of the Judaisation policy has been dramatic. For example, the Palestinians in Israel, constitute 18 per cent of the population, but control less than 3 per cent of the land. In the entire area between Jordan and sea, the population is just under 50 per cent Palestinian, but they control only 13 per cent of the land. Critically however, Judaisation seems to have reached its limits, and since the Oslo period Israel has been re- arranging its colonial geography to fit that realisation.
The difference between Gaza and the other enclaves is the depth of its isolation and its persistent rebellion. The Hamas leadership never accepted the Oslo illusion, or the promise of "two states for two people" enshrined in the "roadmap" or the "Annapolis process". They have realised that the promise has become an empty rhetoric which enables the ongoing colonisation of their lands. In the meantime, the promised Palestinian state has become fragmented, suffocated and impoverished.
And what has been Israel's response to this crisis? The deepening of mass incarceration, "necessitated" to protect Jewish settlement, maintaining at the same time a massive campaign of personal incarceration, during which Israel has arrested over 10,000 people, and imprisoned them without trials, a group which includes dozens of Palestinian parliamentarians. The incarceration policy has thus resulted in the creation of prisons within prisons.
While the geography of incarceration is typically explained as a security measure, its appeal is also increasing for economic reasons. During the current age of globalisation, personal, commercial and financial movement has become essential for development and prosperity. The geography of mass incarceration helps to keep the unwanted outside the riches of this process. Therefore, the ongoing fortification around Gaza, including the current invasion, also put in place a system of protecting Jewish economic privileges.
Palestinian violence plays an important part in the creation of this geography, through the hostile dialectic between coloniser and colonised. For example, the shelling of Israeli civilians by Hamas and suicide bombing of previous years are clear acts of terror, which gave legitimacy within Israeli society to carry out the incarceration policy. But Palestinian violence, and particularly the shelling from Gaza should also be perceived as a prison uprising, currently suppressed with terror by the Israeli state, which kills many more civilians and creates infinitely more damage than the initial act of resistance. This is the cycle of suppression, resistance and suppression maintained through the which exists within a geography of incarceration
It is important to note, however, that the option of rebellion only intensifies the punishment and killing, but not the basic geography of imprisonment. Hence, even after the current invasion is over, Israel will undoubtedly continue to use this strategy in both Gaza and the (non-rebelling) West Bank, and in softer forms inside the Green Line, where Israel's Palestinian citizens are also contained in small enclaves. I have termed this process "creeping apartheid" - an undeclared yet powerful political order which creates vastly unequal forms of citizenship under one ruling power. Rights under such regimes are determined by a combination of ethnic affiliation and place of birth. This cannot be illustrated more vividly than by noting the differences in mobility and property rights - Jews are free to move and purchase land in almost the entire area under Israeli control, while Palestinians are limited to separated enclaves - Gazans in Gaza only, Jerusalemites only in Jerusalem and so on.
This type of political geography tends to result in a chain of absurdities. Here is one: the invasion and destruction of Gaza is carried out by an ousted Israeli Government, and is actively supported by a defeated US Administration. The two governments which lost power are violently attacking in their dying days the democratically elected Government of Palestine. This leads to the next absurdity: instead of condemning and placing sanctions on Israel, which has put Gaza under siege for the last two years, the world has imposed sanctions over the Hamas Government. In this way the occupied are punished twice: once by the brutal occupation, and a second time attempting to resist.
Sadly, these absurdities are not surprising, being part of the geography of mass incarceration, under which the colonial power will recognise the prisoners' leadership only if they refrain from rebelling against their incarceration, as is currently the case with the Abbas regime in the West Bank. In the case of a rebellion, however, its leaders are likely to be oppressed and often eliminated.
What may be slightly (but not entirely) more surprising is that Israeli leadership and society have not learnt from history that a geography of mass incarceration exists on borrowed time. Such as geography can never receive legitimacy, and hence cannot create security for the jailing side. On the contrary, instability and constant rebellions are likely to undermine the incarcerating regime itself.
To conclude, against the reality of mass incarceration, it may be advisable to listen to Mahmoud Darwish's [3] wise words: "My prison guard looks me in the eye/ I can see his fear/ Like me, he knows that/ today's warden is already tomorrow's prisoner.
Source URL: http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/12/jailer-state
Links:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_(Israel)
[2] http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1592
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Darwish
[4] http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/09/israel-gone-too-far
[5] http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/08/world-gives-israel-green-light
Professor Oren Yiftachel teaches political geography and urban planning at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba. Yiftachel has written extensively on the political geography of ethnic conflict. Among his books are: Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (2006, PennPress), and Israelis in Conflict (ed, 2004, Sussex Academic Press). He is an occasional contributor to Israel's leading newspapers Haaretz and Ynet. Yiftachel is an active member in several peace and civil society organizations, including B'tselem, the Bedouin Council of unrecognized villages, Adva and is a founding member of Faculty for Israel-
Palestine Peace (FFIPP).
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