and their integration as a suitable workforce for the Israeli economy, rather
than in the Palestinian society.”398 Although this fits the description of the
experience of Palestinians who possess Israeli citizenship, this observation is
no less applicable in its application to Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian
territory. Not only does the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime by its very
nature marginalize and alienate Palestinians by making them feel that they
are inferior, but it also creates a feeling of alienation within Palestinian society
overall. “Ultimately, we [Palestinian citizens of Israel] live in an Israeli system,
much like the European system – one that is not similar to us at all”.399 In
effect, the end goal is the complete erasure of the Palestinians, as a result of
the structural oppression to which the Palestinian people are subjected to.
Israeli policies are designed to appropriate the ‘self-determination’ narrative
in favor of the ‘Jewish people’. The intended objective is the same on both
sides of the Green Line: manufacturing a sense of Israeli-Jewish cohesiveness,
indigeneity and sovereignty throughout Mandatory Palestine. This objective is
accomplished through the appropriation of Palestinian lands and infrastructure
for the purpose of embedding Israeli-Jewish colonies and reinforcing IsraeliJewish domination on the land and the people. Consequently, the conditions
under which Israeli-Jewish sovereignty and exclusive self-determination can
potentially be claimed, are actually fabricated through these processes.
The gradual transfer of the Palestinian people, their containment in isolated
and concentrated cities, together with the increasing demography of
Israeli-Jews, contributes to altering the natural and historic demographic
composition in Palestine. As such, segregation, fragmentation and isolation
policies are colonial and apartheid practices that seek to contain and replace
the indigenous people with the settler-colonial population, and which
unambiguously undermine the two pillars of the right to self-determination.
The destruction of the foundations of the people’s identity carries dramatic
consequences, as a people divided into several subgroups promotes the
illusion that there are not a people to begin with, and therefore, no right
to collective self-determination. Sufficiently disintegrated, the usage and
acceptance of Israeli imposed geopolitical subgroups serves to eventually
discredit their existence as a national people.400 Specifically, Israel is pursuing
its policies of segregation, fragmentation and isolation in order to undermine
398 Traffic and Transportation Engineer, supra 319.
399 Fahmawi Youth Movement, supra 301.
400 ICCPR, supra 15, art.27; United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment
no. 23: Article 27 (Rights of Minorities), CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5, 8 April 1994, art.2-3.1,
available
at:
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.
aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2fC%2f21%2fRev.1%2fAdd.5&Lang=en [accessed 28 February 2020].
105
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