As the massacre of civilians continues in Gaza, American journalist Nathan Thrall, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize, denounced the impunity enjoyed by Israel and the apartheid raging in the West Bank, noting that the creation of Israel was carried out through a process of ethnic cleansing that transformed the Jewish minority into a majority overnight.
In an interview with the French website Mediapart, Nathan Thrall said that he wanted his book “A Day in the Life of Abed Salameh: Anatomy of a Tragedy in Jerusalem” to make people feel deep within themselves the tragedy of the historical injustice that the Palestinians were subjected to, to see the consequences of this system, and to learn about the apartheid system in the West Bank and the inequality of life under the yoke of the Israeli occupation.
This book is an investigation in which the journalist traces a series of injuries resulting from a fatal collision in 2012 in Jerusalem between a semi-trailer and a school bus full of Palestinian schoolchildren aged 4 to 6, many of whom were burned to death along with their teachers.
Such a collision might have been ordinary news, the writer says, as the bus leaving East Jerusalem had no choice but to take this long and dangerous detour on the outskirts of Ramallah, due to the separation wall between the Jewish settlements and the Palestinian villages, and the system of permits and checkpoints, to facilitate the movement of settlers and give “the illusion of a continuous Jewish presence from the city to the settlements.”
The children’s bus collided with a truck that was traveling at high speed in heavy rain, on one of the axes of the tragedy, the Jaba’ Road, known as the “Road of Death.” Israeli ambulances that arrived long after the accident were unable to rescue the victims, nor could Palestinian rescue workers, who were hampered by traffic jams caused by military roadblocks and absurd Israeli traffic rules.
No one will be held accountable for anything.
“If, instead of an accident, two Palestinian children had suddenly started throwing stones on the road, soldiers would have rushed there within seconds,” Nathan Thrall, former head of the International Crisis Group’s Israel-Arab program, told Mediapart’s Rachida El Azzouzi.
“Even if the perpetrators are identified, no one, not investigators, lawyers, or judges, will be able to point to the real causes of the tragedy,” says the American Jewish journalist who has lived in Jerusalem since 2011. “No one will say that the Palestinians living in the Jerusalem area are being neglected because the Jewish state has actively sought to diminish their presence because Israeli expansion is the top priority. No one will be held accountable for anything.”
Asked about the investigation into the incident and its symbolism of the Israeli occupation, Nathan Thrall said, “I was on my way to Hebron with a Palestinian colleague when we heard about the incident on the radio. I started thinking about these people, the parents, the children, the teachers, who live lives so different from mine on the other side of the wall that Israel built. The decision to investigate the incident came later, when I was desperate to see how much global interest in the Israeli-Palestinian issue continues to decline.”
The writer pointed out that the world pays real attention to Israel and Palestine when there is war or unusual violence, but this attention is very short-lived, and therefore the writer wanted – as he says – to draw the world’s attention to the so-called calm between wars, and to the system of control of the Israeli Jews over the Palestinians, which is the origin of the recurrence of violence.
Nathan Thrall decided, as he says, to write realistically, starting with an ordinary event like a road accident, so that people would feel deep down the tragedy of the historical injustice that the Palestinians were subjected to, and see this institutionalized system of domination, control and separation imposed by Israel, with the wall, the military checkpoints, the separate roads, the colored ID cards and the set of discriminatory laws, policies and practices.
In response to the fact that the phrase “apartheid” appears only once in his book, the journalist said, “I wrote a book about apartheid. I wanted the reader to understand, through the presentation of facts, that apartheid is undeniably operating in the West Bank, so that he can clarify the situation for himself.”
“The phrase has become commonplace, but understanding the true meaning of apartheid remains superficial,” he said. “I’ve seen delegations come here. They travel to Israel for a week and have half a day in the West Bank, and that half day is the most important part of their stay because it affects them and destabilizes them after they’ve seen it with their own eyes, without anyone having to say the words ‘apartheid’ to them.”
Pure racism
Referring to his extreme pessimism that he would not know the end of apartheid before his death, the writer explained that he saw no chance in the short or even medium term of ending the Israeli system of domination over the Palestinians, because that would require putting Israel under real pressure.
The only way to achieve this, according to the American journalist, is to end Israel’s impunity and hold it accountable, if the United States respects its own laws and stops supplying the Israeli army with weapons that commit systematic human rights violations, if the European Union does the same, and if Israel sees that granting freedom to the Palestinians is less costly for it, things that Nathan Thrall fears will not happen for decades.
The author concluded that the war in Gaza highlights pure racism, saying: “Look at the way the Ukrainian victims are treated, compared to the Palestinian victims who are completely dehumanized. The dehumanization that we see on a large scale today is one of the themes of my book. This dehumanization has become normalized over the past year.”
Actions in the right direction
Regarding hope, the writer says that there has been a process of raising awareness of what is happening that has been ongoing for a year, and that world public opinion has changed, as the International Court of Justice ruled that the occupation is illegal and that Israel is violating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested the issuance of arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and his Minister of Defense.
The writer pointed out that the United Kingdom has suspended dozens of arms export licenses to Israel, that the United States has imposed sanctions on settlers for the first time, that European countries are considering changing their policies towards Israel, and that divestment from companies that profit from the occupation has begun. These are real and important measures in the right direction, and can lead to real change.
The writer pointed out that Zionism is a colonial project in the sense that a group of settlers arrived on land owned by another people with the intention of seizing it. The first Zionist settlers arrived in Palestine in 1882, but the percentage of Jews in Palestine was less than 5%, and it was impossible to establish a Jewish state without carrying out ethnic cleansing, which is what happened.