Israel benefits from its repressive occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but this policy stains Jewish values and image and will ultimately prove disastrous for Israel itself, says Amira Hass.

The award-winning Israeli journalist was on a ten-city Canadian tour from Sept 27 to Oct. 8.

Her talk in Ottawa on Oct. 7 presented a very different picture of the Middle East than the one most Canadian media and Canadian government officials convey to us. It could explain why Canadian media and political leaders ignored her visit and the visits of other prominent Israelis who have spoken against Israel’s violation of basic human rights and international law.

“You succeeded in almost eradicating the First Nations (Aboriginals) of Canada. We cannot do so with Palestinians because we are a tiny minority in the Middle East and cannot impose our will on the Arabs indefinitely,” she stated.

Ms. Hass, 55, is the only Israeli journalist who has lived in the occupied territories – Gaza from 1993 to 1997 and the West Bank since 1997. She has covered life in the occupied territories for the Israeli paper Haaretz since 1991. She has received the International Press Institute’s World Press Freedom Hero Prize, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award as well as other honours.

Although the Palestinian Authority established enclaves of self-rule in 1993, Israel has remained the supreme authority in the West Bank and Gaza, she said. Palestinians do not have authority over their own land, water, or borders. Nor do they have freedom of movement within their own land or outside. Though Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza, it tightly controls and has kept the area under illegal siege since 2007, denying basic needs to its people.

The Oslo agreement offered Israel a golden chance for acceptance by its neighbours but Israel chose to rely on force to prolong its occupation and control, Ms. Hass said. She noted that the Arab Spring shows that most Arabs yearn for freedom, justice, opportunity, and democracy and will struggle for these objectives till they are achieved.

The talk, which was attended by hundreds of people, mainly non-Arab and non-Muslim, was sponsored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, KAIROS, and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.

CJPME represents mainstream Canadians and seeks to promote justice and peace in the Middle East by presenting the true situation in the Middle East.

KAIROS represents 11 churches and pursues ecological justice and human rights. It has worked for more than 10 years with Israeli and Palestinian partners to promote human rights and a just peace.

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights is a University of Ottawa student organization that expresses solidarity with the human rights struggle of the Palestinian and Aboriginal peoples. It notes that Ottawa has been built on land of the Algonquin Indians who never ceded it to the white man.

Ms. Haas, who was on board the Tahrir, the Canadian Boat to Gaza, in June and July of this year revealed that Israeli human rights activists have demonstrated every Friday for years against the wall that Israel is building in the occupied Palestinian land, but the movement is not yet widespread. She said that the Israeli government has cut off most contact between Israelis and Palestinians and also bars Israelis from Gaza. Most Israelis do not get truthful information about the Palestinians and are misled by the politicians and the media.

Israelis also benefit greatly from the occupation. For example, they seize the lands of Palestinians and use unlimited water while drastically reducing its availability to Palestinians. Some 500,000 illegal settlers have established themselves in occupied territories. Most of them did so to take advantage of subsidies and other incentives offered by the government. But some are extremists who attack Palestinians and try to make their lives unbearably difficult.

Israeli check posts also disrupt Palestinians’ lives every day. Palestinians have to wait for hours to go to their homes, school, offices, or even hospitals even when there is no curfew. Peaceful, unarmed demonstrators are fired on from helicopters and army posts. Israelis are blind to the sufferings their army and the settlers are inflicting on innocent Palestinians.

Because  Israel is a democracy, Ms. Hass said she has no problems in writing freely about what she sees and or in criticizing her government’s policies. But she noted that that Israel is a democracy only for Jews.  Israeli Arabs do not enjoy equality, equal opportunity, or access to their own land. They need Israeli permits for even routine activities and such permits are often delayed or denied.

Israeli policy, Ms. Hass stated, imperils Israel’s long-term security because it is based on injustice, repression, and force which most Arabs find unacceptable. Israel imports ten billion dollars worth of security-related items every year. Ms. Hass stated that Palestinians believe that Israelis use U.S. weapons on the Palestinians to test them out. The Israelis are now seen in the region not as Jews who promote moral values but as colonial occupiers and oppressors. This cannot endure in a world of rapid change where people have begun to take to the streets to demand their basic human rights, she said.

Ms. Hass did not say anything that has not already been said by other outspoken Israelis. But her visit served to ensure that more Canadians get a  balanced and truthful picture of the Middle East.

Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant, and refugee judge. He has received the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario, and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for his work as a journalist, leadership of Muslims, and efforts to promote better understanding between Canadians of different faiths.■