Israel's Repressive Permit System - by Stephen Lendman
Palestinians face daily militarized repression.
Under South African apartheid, pass laws segregated blacks from whites, restricted their movements, required pass books be carried at all times, and be produced on demand or face arrest and prosecution.
Evolving from the 18th and 19th century until their 1986 repeal, they restricted entry to cities, forcibly relocated blacks, denied them most public amenities, many forms of employment, and became apartheid's most hated symbol.
Repressive Israeli occupation is worse. It's a sophisticated form of social, economic, political and racial discrimination, strangulation, and genocide.
It incorporates the worst elements of colonialism and apartheid as well as repressive dispossession, displacement and state terrorism. It separates Palestinians from their land and heritage, denies them their lawful rights, and displaces them from areas Israel wants exclusively for Jews.
Apartheid is the worst form of racism. Israel's militarized occupation is the worst form of apartheid. It incorporates violence, military incursions, land theft, home demolitions, targeted assassinations, murder, mass arrests, torture, destruction of agricultural land, and isolation. It's slow-motion genocide, including suffocating Gazans under siege.
The ID/permit system is one of many elements designed to make greater Israel an ethnically pure Jewish state.
Israel requires all permanent residents and citizens over 16 to have a color-coded ID cards. Called te'udat zehut, they're for West Bank and Gazan Palestinians, East Jerusalem ones, Israeli Arabs and Jews.
For Palestinians, they dictate where they may live, work, move, or be allowed through West Bank checkpoints, to Israel or Gaza. Doing so requires hard to get permits. They're easily cancelled without notice.
Jews have blue IDs, Palestinians either Israeli-issued orange ones (in Hebrew) or nearly identical Palestinian Authority-issued green ones with a PA seal on top. The following information is included:
- name and ID number;
- father and mother's names;
- date and place of birth;
- religion;
- marital status;
