Editor’s Note: This column is the first installment of a two part series, the second half of which will appear in tomorrow’s Sun.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of listening to one of my friends give a presentation about his summer in Palestine. During the summer, my friend worked as an intern with a human rights group in the West Bank. The part of his presentation that I remember most is his trip to the village of Bil’in. During his brief stay in Bil’in, my friend took part in a protest against a wall that separates the village from a nearby Israeli settlement. The wall cuts off 60 percent of Bil’in’s farmland, in an economy that is heavily dependent on agriculture. Moreover, the International Court of Justice and the Israeli High Court have both ruled that the wall is illegal. The villagers of Bil’in have peacefully protested against the wall every Friday for the past four years. And every single Friday, their protest is broken up by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), who often throw canisters of tear gas to break up the peaceful protests. Sometimes, they even fire live rounds at the protestors. This, of course, is less likely to happen when the media or international supporters are there to take part in the protest.

One of the primary justifications for the wall offered by Israel and its supporters is the threat of Palestinian violence. In effect, Zionists have successfully constructed this conflict as an issue of Israeli security, citing suicide bombings and mortar rockets as examples of Palestinian violence. However, the example of Bil’in and the many other small villages throughout the region demonstrate the inconsistencies of the Israeli argument. Where there are no suicide bombers or even violent protests, the IDF uses violence to maintain and sustain Israeli access to land and the forced separation of Jews and Palestinians.

Since 1967, over 18,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel. Currently, it is estimated that 270,000 to 380,000 Israeli citizens live in the occupied territory of the West Bank. International law prohibits an occupying power from transferring its citizens to an occupied territory. And yet, these relocated settlers are apparently the ones who feel a security threat from the Palestinians. If this were really about security, then Israeli settlers wouldn’t illegally be living in occupied territories in the first place. This conflict does not have to do with security.

There are others who claim that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a religious conflict. To be sure, religion does play a role in the conflict. In a lecture at Cornell last week, Israel’s consulate general in New York, Asaf Shariv, said that the state of Israel must be a majority Jewish population, because if it isn’t, there will not be democracy. In effect, Shariv implied that coexistence between Palestinians and Jews could not be done in a democratic state, despite the fact that Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Middle East had been living peacefully alongside one another for thousands of years before European and American presence in the region. More surprising, however, was his acknowledgement that Israel must be made up primarily of Jews. Imagine an American political official saying that the United States must be made up primarily of Christians. In any case, the statement reveals that the conflict is, in fact, about religion, but only to the extent that religion and racism intersect. That is, both security and religion matter only because they are elements of the broader, historical relationship between racism and empire.

In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 declared, “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” This resolution was rescinded in 1991. However, what cannot be rescinded is the 60-plus years of occupation and racial apartheid. To be clear, apartheid is a social and political policy of racial segregation and discrimination.

Apartheid in Palestine is taking place through the construction of walls / fences, the use of checkpoints and through the sheer fact that Israel occupies Palestinian land, not only through the physical presence of settlers, but also with control over access to the land and the overall economy and way of life for Palestinians. All across the occupied lands of Palestine, walls and fences cut through what is the most fertile of agricultural land and the basis of most economies in this region. Moreover, olive trees, which play a significant role in the Palestinian economy and which symbolize peace in Palestine, have been uprooted and replaced by these apartheid walls, which function to separate. Checkpoints also serve as a major issue for Palestinians. Palestinians lose 12 million hours per year getting through checkpoints to get to the city of Ramallah. All in all, in the last decade, Palestinians have lost about $40 billion in income opportunity. (Even Ethiopian Jews suffer the effects of racism, being treated almost as second-class citizens in Israel.)

To add to this, Palestinians constitute the largest refugee population in the world, with estimates today ranging between four and 10 million. This is up from the original refugee population, which numbered between 400,000 and one million. David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, was quoted as saying, “We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinians) never return … the old will die and the young will forget.” So far, Ben Gurion has gotten his wish, and more.

What is the U.S. stance on this conflict? The U.S. provides $7 million in military aid to Israel every day. It is necessary to juxtapose this with the dollar figure the U.S. contributes to Palestine per day: $0. This money comes from American taxpayers. Last week, when Sharif was asked about this American financing of Israel, he responded that the U.S. taxpayers would get their money back. He provided no details as to how or when this would happen.

The U.S. is Israel’s strongest ally, which is not surprising given America’s imperial interests in the region. In fact, it is argued that Israel was originally set up as an American and European client state. And while Israel has been getting immeasurable support from the U.S., Palestinians are the ones who suffer. The implications here are that American imperial interests in Israel have enabled racial apartheid against Palestinians. My friend, who is half Palestinian, witnessed this first hand this summer. He wasn’t able to see his family in the occupied territory of Gaza because it is almost impossible to get into the area.

Navid Farnia is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He may be reached at nfarnia@cornellsun.com. Over the “Line” appears alternate Thursdays this semester,