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Israeli apartheid

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The phrase Israeli apartheid, or the description of Israel as an apartheid state, is a highly controversial method of criticizing the State of Israel's policies towards Palestinians and its Arab citizens by drawing an analogy between its policies and those of Apartheid-era South Africa. Critics of the term argue that it is historically inaccurate, offensive, anti-Semitic, and a pejorative political epithet used as justification for terrorist attacks against Israel.

The phrase has been used by several different organizations, ranging from Palestinian-rights activists, [1] to neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups and individuals. [2]

Origins

The origins of linking Israel and Zionism with apartheid go back to the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1975 equating Zionism and racism. The text of the UNGA R/3379 states: "the Organization of African Unity... considered "that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure..." The Resolution 3379 was revoked in 1991 by the Resolution 4686.

Analogy

File:Israel barrier zigzag.jpg
"The barrier on the green-line, separating the Israeli-Arab town of Baka West (inside Israel, on the left) from the Palestinian town of Nazlat Issa inside the West Bank (right.)"

Proponents of this term argue that while Israel grants some rights to its Arab citizens, its policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are (or were, in case of Gaza) analogous to the Apartheid policies of South Africa towards blacks, for the following reasons:

Usage

The analogy was used in a 1984 Syrian letter to the UN Security Council that stated in part: "...Zionist Israeli institutional terrorism in no way differs from the terrorism pursued by the apartheid regime against millions of Africans in South Africa and Namibia..., just as it in no way differs in essense and nature from the Nazi terrorism which shed European blood and visited ruin and destruction upon the peoples of Europe" [3]

In 1987 Uri Davis, an Israeli-born academic and Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote a book Israel: An Apartheid State[4], which provided a detailed comparison of Israel and South Africa.

The term "Israeli apartheid" has been used by groups protesting the Israeli government, particularly student groups in Britain, the United States and Canada, where "Israeli apartheid week" is held on many campuses.[5] It has been widely used by Palestinian rights advocates and also by some on the Israeli Jewish left.

Several left wing Members of the Knesset (MKs) have also drawn an analogy between Israeli policies and apartheid, such as Zehava Gal-On of the Meretz party who said of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling upholding the country's controversial citizenship law "The Supreme Court could have taken a braver decision and not relegated us to the level of an apartheid state."[6]

The term has also been used by three prominent South African Anti-Apartheid activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the articles he published following his visit to Israel.[7]

The term has also been used by some Palestinian-rights activists[3] and anti-Zionists, and some neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic individuals or groups such as David Duke and Jew Watch,.

Criticism

Critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate and anti-Semitic. David Matas, senior counsel to B'nai Brith Canada, writes that the starting point for anti-Zionists is the "vocabulary of condemnation," [8] rather than specific criticism of the practises of Israel. He writes that "any unsavoury verbal weapon that comes to hand is used to club Israel and its supporters. The reality of what happens in Israel is ignored. What matters is the condemnation itself. For anti-Zionists, the more repugnant the accusation made against Israel the better." [8]

Because apartheid is universally condemned, and a global coalition helped to bring down the South African apartheid regime, anti-Zionists "dream of constructing a similar global anti-Zionism effort," writes Matas. "The simplest and most direct way for them to do so is to label Israel as an apartheid state. The fact that there is no resemblance whatsoever between true apartheid and the State of Israel has not stopped anti-Zionists for a moment." [8]

In 2004, Dr. Jean-Christophe Rufin, former vice-president of Doctors without Borders and president of Action against Hunger, recommended in a report for the French Ministry of the Interior that the charge of apartheid and racism against Israel be criminalized in France.

He wrote: "[T]here is no question of penalising political opinions that are critical, for example, of any government and are perfectly legitimate. What should be penalised in the perverse and defamatory use of the charge of racism against those very people who were victims of racism to an unparalleled degree. The accusations of racism, of apartheid, of Nazism carry extremely grave moral implications. These accusations have, in the situation in which we find ourselves today, major consequences which can, by contagion, put in danger the lives of our Jewish citizens. It is why we invite reflection on the advisability and applicability of a law ... which would permit the punishment of those who make without foundation against groups, institutions or states accusations of racism and utilise for these accusations unjustified comparisons with apartheid or Nazism." [9]

Critics argue that calling the country an "apartheid state" or referring to "Israeli apartheid" is incorrect for a number of reasons:

  • All Israeli citizens, including Arabs have full virtually the same rights, including suffrage, political representation, recourse to the courts, etc. They have representatives in the Knesset (Israel's legislature) and participate fully in Israeli political, cultural, and educational life. In apartheid South Africa, "Blacks" and "Coloreds" could not vote and had no representation in the South African parliament.[10]
  • The features of legal petty apartheid do not exist in Israel. Jews and Arabs use the same hospitals, Jewish and Arab babies are born in the same delivery room, Jews and Arabs eat in the same restaurants, and Jews and Arabs travel in the same buses, trains and taxis without being segregated.[10]
  • The comparison between Israel and South Africa is fictitious and is made in an attempt to demonize Israel as a prelude to an international boycott campaign similar to that against apartheid-era South Africa. The long term goal is to pressure the United Nations to impose economic sanctions against Israel.[11]
  • The analogy "demean(s) Black victims of the real apartheid regime in South Africa." [11]
  • Zionism is not a manifestation of European colonialism.[11]
  • Black labor was exploited in slavery-like conditions under apartheid; Palestinians are given the same rights and privileges as all other workers in Israel.[11]
  • Equating Zionism with apartheid is propaganda used to justify Palestinian terrorist attacks and deny Israelis the right of self-defence by demonizing the construction of the West Bank security barrier with the name "Apartheid wall".[11]
  • Opponents of the term argue that the security wall is a reasonable and necessary security precaution to protect Israeli civilians from terroristic violence, and that its existence was made necessary by the Palestinians themselves.
  • Unlike apartheid South Africa,where Aparthied prevented Black mojority rule, in Israel(including the Occupied Territories) there is currently a Jewish majority.
  • Dr. Moshe Machover, professor of philosophy in London and co-founder of Matzpen, argues against the use of the term on the basis that the situation in Israel is worse than apartheid. Machover points out some significant differences between the policy of the Israeli government and the apartheid model. According to Machover, drawing a close analogy between Israel and South Africa is both a theoretical and political mistake. [12]
  • According to Fred Taub, the President of Boycott Watch, "The assertion ... that Israel is practicing apartheid is not only false, but may be considered libelous. ... The fact is that it is the Arabs who are discriminating against non-Muslims, especially Jews."[13]

References

  1. ^ a b Forbidden Checkpoints and Roads at B'Tselem
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ UN Doc S/16520 at 2 (1984), quoting from Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1987. Edited by Y. Dinstein, M. Tabory. (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987) ISBN 9024736463 p.36
  4. ^ Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State (1987) ISBN 0862323177
  5. ^ "Oxford holds 'Apartheid Israel' week" at Jerusalem Post by Jonny Paul
  6. ^ Left appalled by citizenship ruling at Jerusalem Post by Sheera Claire Frenkel
  7. ^ Apartheid in the Holy Land in The Guardian, by Desmond Tutu
  8. ^ a b c Matas, David. Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Dundurn, 2005, pp. 53-55.
  9. ^ Rufin, Jean-Christophe. "Chantier sur la lutte contre le racisms et l'antisemitisme, presented on October 19, 2004. Cited in Matas, David. Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Dundurn, 2005, p. 54 and p. 243, footnotes 59 and 60.
  10. ^ a b Israel Is Not An Apartheid State at Jewish Virtual Library
  11. ^ a b c d e Abusing 'Apartheid' for the Palestinian Cause Jerusalem Post op-ed by Gerald M. Steinberg (hosted in full at http://www.ngo-monitor.org)
  12. ^ Is it Apartheid? at Jewish Voice for Peace by Moshe Machover published 10 November 2004
  13. ^ Presbyterian Church Violates US Antiboycott Laws. General Assembly of Presbyterian Church, USA, votes For Illegal Action at Convention August 1, 2004 (Boycott Watch)

See also

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