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It has been suggested that this article be merged into Apartheid outside South Africa. (Discuss)

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Israeli apartheid (or calling Israel an apartheid state) is a controversial phrase used by some critics of Israel to describe the country's policies towards the Palestinian and Israeli Arab populations. Critics of the term argue that it is historically inaccurate, offensive, antisemitic, and is used as justification for terrorist attacks against Israel.

Origins

The analogy was used as early as 1987 by Uri Davis, an Israeli-born academic and Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in his book Israel: An Apartheid State, which provided a detailed comparison of Israel and South Africa. The term was subsequently used by the South African cleric Desmond Tutu in the articles he published following his visit to Israel.

Analogy

Proponents of this term argue that while Israel grants some rights to Arabs living in Israel within its pre-1967 borders, its policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are analogous to the Apartheid policies of South Africa towards blacks, for the following reasons:

• Israel has created roads and checkpoints that isolate Palestinian communities , which is seen as a parallel to Apartheid South Africa's Bantustans.
• The government of Israel has termed its policy of disengagement Hafrada which literally means "separation".

Usage

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. 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."

The term has also been used by three prominent South African Anti-Apartheid activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Criticism

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

• With the exception of Arabs residing in East Jerusalem , the Israeli Arab minority have voting rights and are represented in the Knesset (Israel's legislature) whilst in apartheid South Africa, Blacks could not vote and had no representation in the South African parliament.
• 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.
• 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. The long term goal is to pressure the United Nations to impose economic sanctions against Israel.
• The analogy "demean(s) Black victims of the real apartheid regime in South Africa."
• Zionism is not a manifestation of European colonialism.
• Black labor was exploited in slavery-like conditions under apartheid whilst Palestinians rely on employment in Israel due to the economic failures and corruption of the Palestinain Authority.
• 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".

Some critics of the term such as 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.

References

1. Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State (1987) ISBN 0862323177
2. ^ Apartheid in the Holy Land in The Guardian, by Desmond Tutu
3. ^ Forbidden Checkpoints and Roads at B'Tselem
4. "Oxford holds 'Apartheid Israel' week" at Jerusalem Post by Jonny Paul
5. Left appalled by citizenship ruling at Jerusalem Post by Sheera Claire Frenkel
6. ^ Israel Is Not An Apartheid State at Jewish Virtual Library
7. ^ Abusing 'Apartheid' for the Palestinian Cause Jerusalem Post op-ed by Gerald M. Steinberg (hosted in full at http://www.ngo-monitor.org)
8. Is it Apartheid? at Jewish Voice for Peace by Moshe Machover published 10 November 2004

External links

• "Brothers in Arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria", in The Guardian, February 7, 2006
• "Worlds Apart" in The Guardian, February 6, 2006
• "Israel: an Apartheid State?" in Le Monde diplomatique, November 2003
• Battling Israeli 'apartheid' BBC article on Adel Kaadan's legal battle for the right to live in a Jewish town.
• Israeli Apartheid - Time for the South African Treatment by Omar Barghouti

See also

• Anti-Semitism
• Apartheid (disambiguation) for other uses of the term
• Apartheid wall
• Arabs and anti-Semitism
• Arab anti-Zionism
• Hafrada, a Hebrew term for "separation"
• Intifada
• Islam and anti-Semitism
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• New anti-Semitism
• New Historians
• Zionism and racism

• Israel and Zionism
• Palestine
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict