The Occupied Territories Are the Biggest Prison on Earth
NOVANEWS
By Mark Karlin
A protester peers through a fence in Bil'in, Palestine, on January 7, 2011.
In this Truthout interview, Ilan Pappé, author of The Biggest Prison on Earth, argues that Israel's model for the occupied territories is not an eventual two-state solution. Rather, Israel has built a model of a permanent open-air prison for Gaza and the West Bank.
Mark Karlin: Can you provide a succinct argument to refocus the identification of the West Bank and Gaza as open-air prisons and not "occupied territories"?
Ilan Pappé: Not only open air, but at times, and nowadays in Gaza, a maximum-security prison. Recently, the Israeli government officially celebrated the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Already in 1967, Judea and Samaria,...