Pro-Tibet protest in Beijing
צילום: AFP
Can we surpass China?
As Olympics draw to close, Israel hopes to outdo China's settlement enterprise in Tibet
What Chinese specialty shall we be dealing with this time? After all, there is such great variety: Child slavery, counterfeit medicine, distribution of poisonous toys, air pollution, the attitude to members of the Falun gong…there's so much to choose from.
But let's turn our attention to a specialty where we too have a chance to win a medal: Occupying territories and flooding them with settlers, while repressing and discriminating against the "locals." China has shown great achievements in this field as well.
In 1951, China "liberated" Tibet (claiming it had the "historical right" to do so) and started embittering the lives of residents there. Some estimates put the number of people killed thus far at 1.2 million. Over the years, the Chinese "settlement enterprise" was increasingly developed. Millions of settlers offered financial aid, tax breaks, and higher quality of life to prompt them to move to occupied Tibetan land.
Protests against the occupation have been repressed harshly and using live fire. Land belonging to locals has been confiscated in favor of the settlers. An apartheid-style regime ensures that only matters pertaining to the "new settlers" are being advanced.
We learn quickly
The Chinese regime does not shy away from any scheme in order to make life terrible for the Tibetans and encourage them to leave the area. This has reached the point of forcefully monitoring birthrates: The forced sterilization of women as well as forced abortions.The Chinese government of course vehemently denies these charges. Yet after all, this is common among settlement-supporting governments.
The settlement enterprise in Tibet has been an overwhelming success story. The Tibetans have already become a minority in their country, while the roughly seven million settlers have become the majority by now.
Israel, which as we know also excels in this area, is still trailing behind China. Despite our efforts, we have been unable to reach the peaks of cruelty and brutality achieved by the Chinese. However, we do learn quickly. By the time the next Olympics roll around, we should be threatening their supremacy.
