On the one hand, these lines of segregation aid in facilitating and maintaining
particular privileges to the Israeli-Jewish population, especially the intentional
and exclusive investment in economic and employment opportunities and
infrastructure. This allows for and ensures Israeli-Jewish development and
growth to achieve the desired demographic majority. On the other hand, this
segregation and consequent privileging of the Israeli-Jewish population by
Israel embeds an exceptionalism that coalesces with a fear of “the other”
– a purposely unknown, misrepresented Palestinian community – and
ultimately aids in the formation of a united Israeli-Jewish population. This
segregation further enables a concurrent denial of Palestinian development
and growth. It is the consequence of two distinct phenomena. First, the
development of Israeli-Jewish communities systematically comes at the
expense of the Palestinian economy and communities. Second, deliberate
policies lead communities in 1948 Palestine, to be chronically underfunded
and neglected, and communities in the occupied Palestinian territories, to
have their economy and socio-cultural connections severed by strategic lines
of Israeli-Jewish colonies and their associated infrastructure that dominate
and divide the land.
The result is that Israel entrenches its political, demographic and economic
superiority and domination in Mandatory Palestine. This is achieved at the
expense of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,
through de-development and dispossession. Ultimately, this leads to the
degradation of the international perception and legitimacy of the Palestinian
right to self-determination.
1.2.2. Fragmentation
Fragmentation corresponds to the full range of laws, regulations and
administrative decisions, policies and practices designed to politically and
territorially fracture the collective identity of a people. Fragmentation policies
violate Article 2(b) of the Apartheid Convention which refers to “deliberate
imposition on a racial group […] of living conditions calculated to cause its […]
physical destruction in whole or in part”.54
Against Palestinians, Israel deploys fragmentation policies at two levels:
•
Territorial fragmentation through the disconnection of the people from
its territory by the division of the territory into incongruous pockets of
lands, subject to heavy restrictions on freedom of movement between
54 Convention on Apartheid, supra 34, art.2(b).
20