Desperate
situations call for desperate actions. In Morocco, 5 students, occupying the Defense
Ministry for a week, set themselves ablaze after they poured gasoline on their
bodies when police would not allow food to enter the building. They were protesting lack of jobs, especially
for college graduates.[1]
This desperate
action has become a norm in Arab countries after Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian vendor, set his
body ablaze when a police officer humiliatingly slapped him, confiscated his
vegetable cart and then fined him an equivalent to a day wage.[2] The
vegetable cart was Bouazizi’s livelihood.
This desperate action sparked the Arab Spring and within 10 days after
his death on January 4, 2011 the rule of the dictator President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was over in Tunisia.
Americans know very well the concept of this human spirit,
although not to the extreme of setting oneself ablaze. Yet, whether one sets himself ablaze in
Tunisia to protest the laws of a dictator in 2010 or dresses up like an Indian
and dumps the tea imported from England as a way to protest the tea tax imposed
by the British King in 1773, the human spirit is expressing the same concept—the
will to be free from all forms of tyranny, including “taxation without
representation.” Still American’s have forgotten
the revolutionary spirit, having been liberated from England over 230 years
ago.
Americans do not understand that the human spirit to be free did
not end when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. People around the world are still governed by
tyrants, kings and presidents-for-life to this very day. The human spirit to be free still cries out
for freedom in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, The Gulf States, and
Palestine, as well as many other places around the globe.
In
Palestine, the Apartheid State of Israel operates a “taxation without
representation” system of government over the Palestinians. Apartheid Israel collects customs and Value
Added Tax on goods that ultimately are sold in the Palestine. It is Apartheid Israel
and not the Palestinians that sets the tax rates on customs and Value Added Tax
thus taxing the Palestinians without any representation as Palestinians do not have
the right to vote in Apartheid Knesset elections despite Republican
Presidential Candidate Senator Rick Santorum’s belief that the West Bank is
captured territory and therefore is a part of Israel. As such, Apartheid Israel taxes the Palestinians
without representation.
While other
conditions point to an obvious apartheid system in the way Israel is treating
the 4.5 million Palestinians under its occupational control, this one aspect of
Apartheid Israel’s tight grip on Palestinians cries out for social
justice. By controlling and collecting the
customs rate and the Value Added Tax on goods imported into Palestine,
Apartheid Israel controls the Palestinians ability to use these funds for
public services such as electricity, health care, public service salaries, public
works and other government run agencies. This has never been more to the point
when in 2006-2007 Israel withheld the collected taxes from the Palestinian
National Authority because the Palestinian people democratically elected a
Hamas run government. This financial
blackmail was used again this past autumn when Apartheid Israel withheld
collected taxes as a punishment for the reconciliation attempts between Fatah
and Hamas.
This control
of revenues by Apartheid Israel is absolutely absurd. The fact that Apartheid Israel has used the control
of these funds to twice punish the Palestinians for actions that it did not
approve of is unacceptable. Palestinians must rise up against this strong-arm scheme
to manipulate it into what Apartheid Israel wants.
This situation is desperate by itself. However, the situation in Palestine is much
worse. With the hundreds of checkpoints that control every move of the
Palestinians; the destruction of thousands of acres of olive groves; the siege of
Gaza; the daily policy of fear inflicted by apartheid Israeli soldiers; the
continued confiscation of Palestinian land to build illegal settlements; and
the apartheid system of government run by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza
where there are two different laws for two different peoples, the situation in
Palestine has become more desperate than ever.
But does this desperate situation require a Palestinian to
set himself ablaze for the world to take notice that Apartheid Israel needs to
be exposed? The human spirit resonates within
every human being; it did not live in the hearts of the American revolutionists
and then die off. No! It lives in every human being. Americans need to
understand that as long as the human spirit in any people around the globe is
not free, we are all not free.
( © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed. Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)
[1] Jobless
protesters set themselves alight in Morocco, Euronews, English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQeXAChwt4w;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMfqVtO1UcIخمسة Euronews عربي مغاربة يحرقون انفسهم
احتجاجا على البطالة
[2]
Rania Abouzeid, Time Magazine Friday, January 21, 2011 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044723,00.html
