de-politicization. This is compounded by the sense of futility in political
resistance due to the severe inequality and powerlessness engendered by
the economic power disparity, both within Palestinian society and outside
it, and the lack of collective unity as a Palestinian people. This paves the way
for the gradual shattering of the Palestinian people, defined as the de facto
people of Palestine, and de jure recognized as such under international law,
in particular on the basis of the Palestinian National Charter, which forms the
basis for the Palestinian right to self-determination.397
4.2.3. The Coercive Environment and Forcible Population
Transfer
Israel’s practices of segregation, fragmentation and isolation are more
nuanced and subtle than more traditional policies and mechanisms of forcible
transfer. This “transfer” takes a more subtle form as it does not imply a direct
removal of people from their lands. In its tangible form, this is a policy that
seeks the creation of a coercive environment that alienates the people from
each other and their land, thereby compelling them to seek a better future
elsewhere, and overshadowing the fact that their displacement is actually
unintentional and compelled. Unable to sustain the increasing social and
economic pressure that comes from the concentration and splintering of the
social fabric, Palestinians move from villages into towns, especially from Area
C and the Naqab, in pursuit of basic services and economic opportunities.
They then from towns into cities, which are themselves severely restricted
and marginalized in their opportunities and development; ultimately,
Palestinians may seek to leave Mandatory Palestine altogether.
At the same time, Israel is seeking to achieve two interwoven objectives:
the delegitimization of the Palestinian right to self-determination and
the legitimization of Israeli-Jewish self-determination in all of Mandatory
Palestine. In its more intangible form, this policy seeks to obliterate the very
essence of the Palestinian people. Fragmented and isolated into individualized
communities, Palestinians are slowly stripped of their collective unity, identity,
narrative and society, and absorbed and controlled as a minority within the
dominant Israeli regime.
“These Israeli policies lead to the domestication of Palestinians inside the
Israeli society. By restricting the Palestinians and not providing suitable
living and working environments, Palestinians are forced to live and work
in major cities, thus resulting in their internal displacement (migration)
397 Palestine National Charter, supra 27, art.2 & art.5.
104
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