User:Bhouston/Israeli apartheid

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Allegations of Israeli apartheid state that Israeli policies toward West Bank Palestinians, and to a lesser extent, its own Arab citizens, violate international law against apartheid, [1] [2][3] or compare the policies to the practices of the apartheid-era South African Government. Opponents state that the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories lacks true parallels to South Africa-style apartheid, and point out the legal status of Israeli Arab citizens. They cite security motives and allege that the use of the term is calculated to achieve political ends.

Contents

[edit] Introduction to the term

The crime of apartheid was defined by a 1973 United Nations convention as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."[4] In 2002, the United Nations treaty establishing the International Criminal Court defined apartheid as any crime against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." It lists such crimes as murder, enslavement, deprivation of physical liberty, forced relocation, sexual violence, and collective persecution."[5]

Allegations that Israel's policies with respect to the Palestinians on the West Bank and, to a lesser extent, its own Arab citizens resemble the policies of apartheid-era South Africa are highly disputed. According to its opponents, it is without merit and misused to isolate and condemn Israel,[6] [7]. However many individuals, including South Africans anti-apartheid leaders like Desmond Tutu, have call it "apartheid' and recognize the parallels [8] [9]. In some instances South African anti-apartheid activists have called it worse than apartheid in South Africa.

[edit] People who have used the term "Israeli apartheid"

A system of Israeli apartheid has been alleged by diverse groups and individuals from across the world and the political spectrum. These have included former United States President and successful Camp David Accords negotiator Jimmy Carter, [10] South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu,[11][12] Winnie Mandela, John Dugard, a professor of international law of South African-origin serving as the Special Rapporteur for the United Nations in a disputed report[13][14][15][16] on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories,[17] peace activist and South African native Arun Ghandhi [18], Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli writer and political scientist,[19] left-wing members members of the Knesset,[20] and by Palestinian and other rights activists.[21][22] The term has also been used by far right elements, including white supremacist David Duke,[23] Holocaust denier Paul Grubach of the Institute for Historical Review,[24] and anti-Semitic groups such as Jew Watch.[25]

[edit] Early proponents of the term

In an article in The Guardian Chris McGreal quotes Hendrik Verwoerd, who he identifies as, "the South African prime minister and architect of the 'grand apartheid' vision of the bantustans as seeing 'a parallel' between Israel and Apartheid South Africa in 1961 saying, 'The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.'"[26]

Following the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six Day War war, there was an intense debate in Israel and elsewhere about the right way to deal with the Palestinian Arab population within the the territories captured by Israel from Jordan and Egypt, particularly on the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Defence Minister, publicly called for the creation of "a sort of Arab 'Bantustan'" in the West Bank structured along similar lines to the nominally independent "homelands" established in South Africa.[27]

The senior British Conservative politician Ian Gilmour was an early proponent of this school of thought which saw South African policy as an unmitigated evil to avoid, rather than emulate. In June 1969 he wrote a lengthy article in The Times arguing that an apartheid-style system was the "logical culmination" of "Zionist exclusiveness." [28]

The argument that Zionism is an inherently racist doctrine was adopted by the Soviet Union, Arab countries and a number of non-aligned nations, against the opposition of Israel and most Western countries. In December 1971, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yakov Malik, accused Israel of promulgating a "racist policy of apartheid against Palestinians.[29]

[edit] Notable individuals and quotes

  • Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Camp David Accords negotiator recently authored a book entitled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The book is highly critical of Israel's treatment of minority groups in Israel and the occupied territories.[30][31]
  • Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Catholic Archbishop supported this analogy first in 1989 when he said in a Haaretz article dated 12-25-89, "I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe [past] events in South Africa." Later, in 2002, he said that he was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to the Holy Land, adding that "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa" and that he saw "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about". [32] Tutu also added that "Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through", and stated that a letter signed by Ronnie Kasrils, Max Ozinsky, and "several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans" had drawn "an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies."[11][12]
  • Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former president of the African National Congress Women's League, anti-apartheid activist, and former wife of South African Nelson Mandela stated: "Apartheid Israel can be defeated, just as apartheid in South Africa was defeated".[33]
  • Farid Esack, a South African Muslim writer, scholar and anti-apartheid activist, and currently William Henry Bloomberg Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School, stated that "the logic of Apartheid is akin to the logic of Zionism", "life for the Palestinians is infinitely worse than what we ever had experienced under Apartheid", and "and the price they (Palestinians) have had to pay for resistance much more horrendous". [34]
  • John Dugard, a South African professor of international law and an ad hoc Judge on the International Court of Justice, serving as the Special Rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories described the situation in the West Bank as "an apartheid regime ... worse than the one that existed in South Africa." [35]. Dugard has since become an outspoken critic of Israel.[36]
  • William Mothipa Madisha, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president , said "the 'apartheid Israel state' is worse than the apartheid that was conducted in South Africa. Madisha also said that Israel "should be seen as an apartheid state and the same sanctions must be applied that were established against South Africa".[37]
  • Ronnie Kasrils, a South African anti-apartheid activist stated that there are stark parallels between the Middle East and the old South Africa and that Israel's apartheid wall will create Palestinian bantustans. [38]
  • Arun Gandhi, peace activist born in South Africa, and grandson of former Indian leader Mahatma Ghandi, criticised Israel's controverisial security barrier, saying, "This reminds me of something you might see in apartheid South Africa. The walls surround cities and towns, choking the people - it's not right.",[39]
  • In 1987, Uri Davis, an Israeli-born academic and Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote a book Israel: An Apartheid State, which drew parallels between Israel and South Africa.[40]
  • Ami Ayalon, Israeli admiral and former leader of Shin Beth, Israel's domestic security agency stated in December 2000: "Israel must decide quickly what sort of environment it wants to live in because the current model, which has some apartheid characteristics, is not compatible with Jewish principles." [41]
  • Several left wing Members of the Knesset (MKs) have 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 citizenship law: "The Supreme Court could have taken a braver decision and not relegated us to the level of an apartheid state."[42]
  • Chris McGreal, the Guardian Unlimited newspaper's Middle East Correspondent, compared Israel with South Africa and alleged numerous similarities.[8][26] This article has been heavily criticized by opponents of the comparison.

[edit] Governments

The apartheid analogy was used in a 1984 Syrian letter to the UN Security Council, which stated: "... 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 essence and nature from the Nazi terrorism which shed European blood and visited ruin and destruction upon the peoples of Europe."[43]

[edit] Non-governmental organizations

  • The term "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.[44] It has been widely used by Palestinian rights advocates, [45] anti-Zionists, and by some on the Israeli Jewish left.
  • In 2006, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which represents 1.2 million South African workers, also criticized Israel as an apartheid state and supported the boycott of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. [46]

[edit] Other people who have made apartheid analogies

Shulamit Aloni, former Education minister and a former leader of Meretz, has said "if we are not an apartheid state, we are getting much, much closer to it."[47] This comment was in response to a proposal by the then-government of Ariel Sharon to bar Arabs from buying homes in "Jewish townships" within Israel proper.[48] The proposed bill was narrowly defeated in the Knesset. At the time, Tommy Lapid, leader of the liberal Shinui party, said he opposed the bill because it "smells of apartheid".[49]

[edit] Israeli practices cited by proponents of the term

[edit] Affecting Occupied Territories

[edit] Military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Palestinians living in the non-annexed portions of the West Bank (i.e. East Jerusalem) do not have Israeli citizenship or voting rights in Israel, but are under Israeli occupation and subject to the policies of the Israeli government and its military. Israel grants rights to its Arab citizens.

According to Leila Farsakh writing in Le Monde diplomatique, after 1977, "(t)he military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) expropriated and enclosed Palestinian land and allowed the transfer of Israeli settlers to the occupied territories: they continued to be governed by Israeli laws. The government also enacted different military laws and decrees to regulate the civilian, economic and legal affairs of Palestinian inhabitants. These strangled the Palestinian economy and increased its dependence and integration into Israel." Fasakh adds that "Israel has constructed more than 145 settlements by 1993 and moved in 196,000 settlers; half lived in 10 settlements around East Jerusalem. The settlements’ exponential growth and scattered distribution over the occupied areas began the structural-territorial fragmentation of the WBGS (West Bank and Gaza Strip); they were intended to challenge the Palestinian demographic in the WBGS. Many view these Israeli policies of territorial integration and societal separation as apartheid, even if they were never given such a name."[50]

[edit] Freedom of Movement

Israel has created roads and checkpoints in the occupied territories which isolate Palestinian communities[51]. Policies also restrict the movement of goods between Israel and the West Bank, and into the Gaza Strip. Marwan Bishara, a teacher of international relations at the American University of Paris, has compared the restrictions on movement to apartheid pass laws[52]; Israel maintains that these roads and checkpoints are important to its self-defense.

[edit] Separation program

In response to the Intifada, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel began in 2002 to implement a "separation program" (Hebrew Hafrada) designed to physically separate Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank. The program includes fences and walls between Israeli and Palestinian areas, limitations on travel by Palestinians within the West Bank, [53] and Israeli-only roads [54]. Some critics of Israeli policy consider this program, and the philosophy behind it, to be a form of apartheid [55].

Israel described the features of the separation program not as methods of enforcing apartheid rule of Israel over the Palestinians, but rather as an unilateral approach to a two-state solution. Israel has dismantled Israeli settlements and withdrawn the army from the Gaza Strip.[citation needed] The 2006 realignment plan of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for withdrawing the army from most of the West Bank. The West Bank barrier has been portrayed as one approach to such a solution.

[edit] Israeli West Bank barrier
See also: Israeli West Bank barrier

The Israeli West Bank barrier has been called the "apartheid wall".

The wall isolates Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and consolidates the annexation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlements. The International Solidarity Movement describes the barrier as part of a "long-term policy of occupation, discrimination and expulsion," which effectively constitutes a feature of "Israeli apartheid". [56] Israeli left wing groups such as Gush Shalom and more recently by the Israeli State Prosecution itself (in reference to the part built beyond the 1949 Armistice lines) have described the wall.[citation needed]

88% of barrier is currently fenced while only around 11.5% actually walled.[57]

According to the US Central Intelligence Agency, over 1 million Arabs on the Israeli side of the barrier are full citizens of Israel, and constitute 15% of Israel's population.[58]

The Israeli foreign ministry claims that the West Bank barrier will cause no transfer of population and that none of the estimated 10,000 Palestinians (0.5%) who will be left on the Israeli side of the barrier (based on the February, 2005 route) will be forced to migrate.[59] South African Apartheid involved the forced removal of about 1.5 million South Africans to Bantustans, created in order to force legal borders and eliminate the rights of the black population, and the U.N. has made forced migration a crime against humanity.

The barrier has been presented as a reasonable and necessary security precaution to protect Israeli civilians from Palestinian terrorism. Supporters of the barrier consider it to be largely responsible for reducing incidents of terrorism by 90% from 2002 to 2005.[60][61][62] Israel's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, stated in 2004 that the barrier is not a border but a temporary defensive measure designed to protect Israeli civilians from terrorist infiltration and attack, and can be dismantled if appropriate.[63]

The Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the barrier is indeed defensive and accepted the Israeli claim that the route is based on security considerations [64]

[edit] Separate Roads

Israel has created separate road for Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said "Palestinians are barred from or have restricted access to 450 miles of West Bank roads, a system with 'clear similarities' to South Africa's former apartheid regime". The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that the Israeli government gave its military approval to implement a plan to culminate in barring all Palestinians from roads used by Israelis in the West Bank. "The purpose is to reach, in a gradual manner, within a year or two, total separation between the two populations. The first and immediate stage of separation applies to the roads in the territories: roads for Israelis only and roads for Palestinians only," the newspaper said.[65]

[edit] Within Israel

[edit] Land policy

93.5% of the land inside the Green Line is not held by private owners. 79.5% of the land is owned by the Israeli Government through the Israeli Land Authority, and 14% is privately owned by the Jewish National Fund. Under Israeli law, both ILA and JNF lands may not be sold, and are leased under the administration of the ILA.[66]

Critics say that as a result of this leasing arrangement, the vast majority of land in Israel is not available to non-Jews.[26] In response, Alex Safian has argued that this is not true -- according to Safian, the 79.5% of Israeli land owned directly by the ILA is available for lease to both Jews and Arabs, sometimes on beneficial terms to Arabs under Israeli affirmative action programs. While Safian concedes that the 14% of Israeli land owned by the JNF is not legally available for lease to Israel's arab citizens, he argues that the ILA often ignores this restriction in practice.[66]

In March 2000, Israel's High Court ruled in Qaadan v. Katzir that the government's use of the JNF to develop public land was discriminatory due to the agency's prohibition against leasing to non-Jews.[67] According to Dr. Alexandre Kedar of the Haifa University Law School "Until the Supreme Court Qaadan v. Katzir decision, Arabs could not acquire land in any of the hundreds of settlements of this kind existing in Israel.[68].

Although there are formal restrictions on the lease of JNF land, which is privately owned by the JNF , "in practice JNF land has been leased to Arab citizens of Israel, both for short-term and long-term use. To cite one example of the former, JNF-owned land in the Besor Valley (Wadi Shallaleh) near Kibbutz Re'em has been leased on a yearly basis to Bedouins for use as pasture."[69][70]

[edit] Government Employment

18% of the population within Israel's pre-1967 borders is Arab. "Only 3.7 percent of Israel's [government] employees are Arabs; Arabs hold only 50 out of 5,000 university faculty positions; and of the country's 61 poorest towns, 48 are Arab."[71]

[edit] Identity cards

 The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.
Main article: Identity card (Israel)

"In recent decades, partly as a result of international action against the former Apartheid policies in South Africa, ID cards or documents with racial categories have come to be viewed with international disapproval."[72] Israeli identity cards,[73] required of all residents over the age of 16, indicate whether holders are Jewish or not by adding the person's Hebrew date of birth.

In a controversial article in the Guardian, journalist Chris McGreal reported that having indications of Jewish ethnicity on national identification cards is "in effect determining where they are permitted to live, access to some government welfare programmes, and how they are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen."[74] The same article also compared Israel's Population Registry Act, which calls for the gathering of ethnic data, to South Africa's Apartheid-era Population Registration Act.

[edit] Marriage

A 2003 law forbids married couples comprising an Israeli citizen and a Palestian from an occupied territory from living together in Israel.[75] The law does allow children from such marriages to live in Israel until age 12, at which age the law requires them to move out of Israel.[76] This is reminiscent of South African apartheid immigration laws, which adversely affected Indian practices of endogamy, in that they were forbidden from importing brides from their native country as they had done for generations prior to the apartheid regime.[75] Israel cites security and not fears of further drain on minority status, as white South Africans did, as reason for their immigration policies.[75]

The law was passed as an emergency one year measure in 2002, and has been renewed every year since. The law was narrowly upheld in May 2006, by the Supreme Court of Israel on a six to five vote. Israel's Chief Justice, Aharon Barak, sided with the minority on the bench, declaring: "This violation of rights is directed against Arab citizens of Israel. As a result, therefore, the law is a violation of the right of Arab citizens in Israel to equality."[77]

[edit] The debate on the future of Israel

A number of voices, both within Israel and internationally, warn that Israel could become an "apartheid state" if the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza were to continue or if certain government policies were implemented. Such arguments are raised both by those advocating complete Israeli disengagement from the West Bank and Gaza and by those who advocate a binational solution.

Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli political scientist and the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem warns that Israel is moving towards the model of apartheid South Africa through the creation of "Bantustan" like conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip[78]

An academic paper by Professor Oren Yiftachel of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev warns that Israel unilateral disengagement plan will result in "creeping apartheid" both in the West Bank and Gaza as well as within Israel itself. [79].

The analogy has also been used as a warning of what Israel may become if a two state solution is not realised. This allusion has been used in reference to the debate on Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza and West Bank. The Economist, in an article on the debate over withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, asserted that "Keeping the occupied land will force on Israel the impossible choice of being either an apartheid state, or a binational one with Jews as a minority."[80]

In January 2004, Ahmed Qureia, then the Palestinian Prime Minister, said that Sharon's unilateralism could prompt an end to the Palestinian efforts towards a two-state solution:

“ This is an apartheid solution to put the Palestinians in cantons. Who can accept this? We will go for a one-state solution... There's no other solution. We will not hesitate to defend the right of our people when we feel the very serious intention [of Israel] to destroy these rights.'" [81] ”

Colin Powell, then U.S. Secretary of State, when asked about Qureia's threat of a one-state solution responded:

“ No. We're committed to a two-state solution. I believe that's the only solution that will work: a state for the Palestinian people called Palestine and a Jewish state, state of Israel. [...] I don't believe that we can accept a situation that results in anything that one might characterize as apartheid or Bantuism." [82] ”

Ehud Olmert, then Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, later commented in April 2004 that,

“ More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against 'occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle - and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state."[83] ”

[edit] Criticisms of the term

See also: New anti-Semitism

Some critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate, anti-Semitic, dangerous,[84] and used as a rhetorical device with no substantive merit. South African-born Benjamin Pogrund, who reported on black townships in South Africa for the Rand Daily Mail from 1958-1985 and who currently lives and works in Jerusalem gives a personal account of the difficulty of the comparsion between Apartheid in South Africa and the situation in Israel in The Guardian in response to Chris McGreal's articles. Specifically, Pogrund argues that McGreal "muddled in distinguishing between the situations of Israeli Arabs and West Bank Arabs and Jerusalem Arabs" and goes on to describe his experiences with the Israel Arab population:[85]

"Nearly three years ago I underwent an operation in a Jerusalem hospital. The surgeon was Jewish, the anaesthetist was Arab. The doctors and nurses who looked after me were Jews and Arabs. I lay in bed for a month and watched as they gave the same skilled care to other patients - half of whom were Arabs and half of whom were Jewish - all sharing the same wards, operating theatres and bathrooms. After that experience I have difficulty understanding anyone who equates Israel with apartheid South Africa. What I saw in the Hadassah Mt Scopus hospital was inconceivable in the South Africa where I spent most of my life, growing up and then working as a journalist who specialised in exposing apartheid. It didn't happen and it couldn't happen. Blacks and whites were strictly separated and blacks got the least and the worst. And this is only one slice of life. Buses, post offices, park benches, cinemas, everything, were segregated by law. No equation is possible"

[edit] General criticism

David Matas, senior counsel to B'nai Brith Canada, argues that the starting point for anti-Zionists is the "vocabulary of condemnation", 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."[6]

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."[6]

Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley deal with the topic in their book Seeking Mandela.[86] They write in critism that emphasizing simiilarities between Israel and the South African regime has the effect of "delegitimizing Israeli governance" and that:

After fascism and African decolonization, the apartheid regime constituted an international pariah state, and equating Jewish treatment of Palestinians with Bantustans and the suppression of national liberation casts Israel in a similar pariah role.

In November, 2002, Lee Bollinger, in his capacity as President of Columbia University, said in a statement about a divestment petition at the university that the analogy of Israel to South Africa at the time of apartheid, "is both grotesque and offensive". [87]

In 2004, Dr. Jean-Christophe Rufin, former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières and president of Action Against Hunger, recommended in a report about anti-Semitism [88] commissioned by French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin[89] that the charge of apartheid and racism against Israel be criminalized in France.[84] He argued that the new "anti-Semitism is more heterogeneous" than previously thought and not confined to right-wing organizations or youth from North Africa. [90] He wrote that a "subtle" form of anti-Semitism exists in "radical anti-Zionism" expressed by far-left and anti-globalization groups, and he condemned acts against Jews as a pretext to "legitimize the armed Palestinian conflict." [91]

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.[84] ”

The conclusions of the report were welcomed by the anti-discrimination group, SOS-Racism, which called it "a good analysis" of a "new breed of anti-Israel, anti-Semitism".[91] Norman G. Finkelstein, by contrast, described the recommendations as "truly terrifying", and as reflecting "a totalitarian cast of mind" with an "attendant stigmatizing of dissent as a disease that must be wiped out by the state".[92]

In 2003, South Africa's minister for home affairs Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi said that "The Israeli regime is not apartheid. It is a unique case of democracy".[93]

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."[94]

In her book, The Trouble with Islam Today, Irshad Manji lists numerous reasons why Israel is not an apartheid state. Arabs can run for office, and there are several Arab political parties. Arab Muslim legistlators have veto powers. In 2003, when two Arab political parties were disqualified for supporting terrorism, the judiciary, free from political interference, overturned the disqualifications. Women and the poor can vote. Emile Habibi, and Arab, was awarded the Israel Prize for literature. Hebrew speaking children are encouraged to learn Arabic. Road signs are bilingual. Arabs study side by side in universities, and live in the same apartment buildings. Palestians who commute from the West Bank have state benefits and legal protections. Israel has a free Arab Press, Al-Quds.[95]

[edit] Legal status of Israeli Arabs

  • Israeli law does not differentiate between Israeli citizens based on ethnicity. Israeli Arabs have the same rights as all other Israelis, whether they are Jews, Christians, Druze, etc. These rights include suffrage, political representation and recourse to the courts. Israeli Arabs are represented in the Knesset (Israel's legislature) and participate fully in Israeli political, cultural, and educational life. In apartheid South Africa, "Blacks" and "Coloureds" could not vote and had no representation in the South African parliament.[96]
  • Black labour was exploited in slavery-like conditions under apartheid; Palestinians are given the same rights and privileges as all other non-citizen foreign workers in Israel. [97]
  • 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.[96]
  • According to StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organisation, Arab Israelis are often eligible for special perks. The organisation has pointed out that the city of Jerusalem gives Arab residents free professional advice to assist with the house permit process and structural regulations, advice which is not available to Jewish residents on the same terms.[98]
  • According to StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organisation, "FACT: Apartheid was an official policy, enacted in law and brutally enforced through police violence, of political, legal and economic discrimination against blacks. Apartheid is a political system based upon minority control over a majority population. In South Africa, blacks could not be citizens, vote, participate in the government or fraternize with whites. Israel, a majority-rule democracy like the U.S., gives equal rights and protections to all of its citizens. It grants full rights and protections to all Arab inhabitants inside of Israel, a reality best exemplified by Israel’s Arab members of parliament. Israeli citizens struggle with prejudices amongst its many minorities, just as all multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracies do, but Israel’s laws try to eradicate – not endorse – prejudices. The Palestinian Authority, not the Israeli government, governs the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Like many Arab nations, the PA does not offer equal rights and protections to its inhabitants. Branding Israel an apartheid state is inaccurate – and emotional propaganda.

[edit] Demographics

  • The concept that Jews and Palestinians are distinct races is highly controversial.
  • Unlike South Africa, where Apartheid prevented Black majority rule, in Israel (including the occupied territories) there is currently a Jewish majority.[99][100]

[edit] Differences between Israel and South Africa

  • 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.[101]
  • Israel never formally annexed the West Bank or Gaza, and the Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, and they don't want to be. Palestinians have their own government, the Palestinian Authority.[102]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Desmond Tutu http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1957644.stm Tutu condemns Israeli apartheid
  2. ^ Jonny Paul, Oxford holds 'Apartheid Israel' week, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 15, 2006, accessed October 21, 2006
  3. ^ Jon Kerkon, Opinion: Levin must speak out against divestment, Yale Herald, November 21, 2002, accessed October 21, 2006
  4. ^ United Nations (30 November). International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Retrieved on 8 October 2006.
  5. ^ United Nations (2002). Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 2, Chapter 5. Retrieved on 9 October 2006.
  6. ^ a b c Matas, David. Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Dundurn, 2005, pp. 53-55.
  7. ^ Not an "Apartheid Wall". Debunking the outrageous comparison between Israel and racist South Africa. (Honest Reporting) February 15, 2004
  8. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1957644.stm Tutu condemns Israeli apartheid
  9. ^ http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020715/tutu Against Israeli Apartheid
  10. ^ http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15169723/site/newsweek/ Jimmy Carter discusses the Mideast conflict.
  11. ^ a b Apartheid in the Holy Land in The Guardian by Desmond Tutu
  12. ^ a b Tutu, D., and Urbina, I. 2002. Against Israeli apartheid. Nation 275:4-5. source
  13. ^ U.N. Human Rights Official Uses Status To Promote Anti-Israel Bias, Anti-Defamation League March 10, 2006
  14. ^ [1] (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
  15. ^ UN Envoy Calls for End of Israel by P. David Hornik (FrontPageMagazine) September 30, 2005
  16. ^ Submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs On the occasion of the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. March 2005. Abuse of the Special Rapporteur Mechanism
  17. ^ Aluf Benn, UN agent: Apartheid regime in territories worse than S. Africa, Ha'aretz, August 24, 2004]
  18. ^ Arun Ghandhi, Occupation "Ten Times Worse than Apartheid", Speech, Palestinian International Press Center, August 29 2004, accessed September 17 2006
  19. ^ Bantustan plan for an apartheid Israel by Meron Benvenisti (The Guardian) April 26, 2004
  20. ^ Frenkel, Sheera Claire "Left appalled by citizenship ruling", Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2006
  21. ^ Davis, Uri. "The Movement against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine"
  22. ^ Löwstedt, Anthony. [http://www.dada.at/gems/gesellschaft/Apartheid.pdf "Apartheid – Ancient, Past, and Present: Systematic Gross Human Rights Violations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine", 2006
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  102. ^ Truth, Lies & Stereotypes...

[edit] Books

[edit] Further reading

[edit] See also

Israeli apartheid, allegations of Israeli apartheid, allegations of Israeli apartheid, allegations of

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