| Revision as of 15:41, 24 June 2006 view source207.195.243.89 (talk) moving to body of the article. If this suggested was acted upon it would deserve to be in the lead. Since it hasn't been it's just a single person's opinion← Previous edit | Revision as of 16:00, 24 June 2006 view source Nagle (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers16,107 edits All implementation items now have cites.Next edit → | ||
| (5 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
| Line 25: | Line 25: | ||
| It has also been used by ] and ] individuals or groups, such as ], <ref name=duke/> the former leader of the ] in the ], and '']'', <ref name=watch/> described as a "hate site" by the ]. <ref>, Anti-Defamation League, April 22, 2004.</ref> | It has also been used by ] and ] individuals or groups, such as ], <ref name=duke/> the former leader of the ] in the ], and '']'', <ref name=watch/> described as a "hate site" by the ]. <ref>, Anti-Defamation League, April 22, 2004.</ref> | ||
| ==Implementation== | |||
| ⚫ | Dr. ], president of ], has recommended in a report to the ] that the allegation be criminalized in ], because it is a "perverse and ] use of the charge of racism against those very people who were victims of racism to an unparalleled degree" and has "major consequences which can, by contagion, put in danger the lives of our ]ish citizens". <ref name="Rufin">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.</ref> |
||
| The term "apartheid" was originally applied as a political epithet. But in response to the ], under Prime Minister ], Israel began to implement a "separation program" designed to physically separate Palestinians and Israelis in ] and the ]. This program included the following main components: | |||
| * Walls and fences between Israeli and Palestinian areas, primarily in the West Bank ''(Main article: ]). | |||
| * Israeli withdrawal from ]. | |||
| * Limitations on travel by Palestinians within the West Bank | |||
| * Jewish-only roads ''(Main article: ])'' | |||
| * Fenced refugee camps at ] and ]. | |||
| ==Criticism== | ==Criticism== | ||
| Critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate, ], and dangerous.<ref name="Rufin" /> David Matas, senior counsel to ], argues that the starting point for ] 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." <ref name="Matas">Matas, David. ''Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism''. Dundurn, 2005, pp. 53-55.</ref> | Critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate, ], and dangerous.<ref name="Rufin" /> David Matas, senior counsel to ], argues that the starting point for ] 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." <ref name="Matas">Matas, David. ''Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism''. Dundurn, 2005, pp. 53-55.</ref> | ||
| Line 48: | Line 55: | ||
| *According to Fred Taub, the President of ], "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."<ref> August 1, 2004 (Boycott Watch)</ref> | *According to Fred Taub, the President of ], "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."<ref> August 1, 2004 (Boycott Watch)</ref> | ||
| ⚫ | Dr. ], president of ], has recommended in a report to the ] that the allegation be criminalized in ], because it is a "perverse and ] use of the charge of racism against those very people who were victims of racism to an unparalleled degree" and has "major consequences which can, by contagion, put in danger the lives of our ]ish citizens". <ref name="Rufin">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.</ref> | ||
| ==Notes== | ==Notes== | ||
| <div class="references-small"> | <div class="references-small"> | ||
Revision as of 16:00, 24 June 2006
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into Apartheid outside South Africa. (Discuss) |
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 individuals and organizations organizations, ranging from South Africans to Israeli political scientists and Members of the Knesset to Palestinian-rights activists, to neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups and individuals.
The phrase is used by some Israelis of the center and left to warn what Israel may become if the occupation of the West Bank continues and to justify the withdrawal from Gaza. Others use it to describe what they allege Israel is.
Usage
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 stated: "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 was revoked in 1991 by Resolution 4686.
Proponents of the 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. They say that Israel has created roads and checkpoints in the occupied territories that isolate Palestinian communities, which is seen as a parallel to Apartheid South Africa's Bantustans; that the government of Israel has termed its policy of disengagement Hafrada, which literally means "separation"; and that the Israeli West Bank barrier is referred to by detractors as the Apartheid Wall for its impact on the Palestinian population in the West Bank.
The 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 essense and nature from the Nazi terrorism which shed European blood and visited ruin and destruction upon the peoples of Europe."
In 1987, Uri Davis, an Israeli-born academic and Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote a book Israel: An Apartheid State, which alleged a comparison of Israel and South Africa.
The term 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, anti-Zionists, and by some on the Israeli Jewish left. 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." Archbishop Desmond Tutu used the term in articles he published following his visit to Israel.
It has also been used by neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic individuals or groups, such as David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States, and Jew Watch, described as a "hate site" by the Anti-Defamation League.
Implementation
The term "apartheid" was originally applied as a political epithet. But in response to the Intifada, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel began to implement a "separation program" designed to physically separate Palestinians and Israelis in Gaza and the West Bank. This program included the following main components:
- Walls and fences between Israeli and Palestinian areas, primarily in the West Bank (Main article: Israeli separation barrier).
- Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
- Limitations on travel by Palestinians within the West Bank
- Jewish-only roads (Main article: Israeli settlement)
- Fenced refugee camps at Jenin and Ramallah.
Criticism
Critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate, anti-Semitic, and dangerous. 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."
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."
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: "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."
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.
- 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 similar to that against apartheid-era South Africa. 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; Palestinians are given the same rights and privileges as all other workers in Israel.
- 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".
- 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 South Africa, where Aparthied prevented Black majority 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.
- 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."
Dr. Jean-Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger, has recommended in a report to the French government that the allegation be criminalized in France, because it is a "perverse and defamatory use of the charge of racism against those very people who were victims of racism to an unparalleled degree" and has "major consequences which can, by contagion, put in danger the lives of our Jewish citizens".
Notes
- ^ Apartheid in the Holy Land in The Guardian by Desmond Tutu
- Davis, Uri. "The Movement against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine"
- ^ "Israel's Palestinian Apartheid Laws", Jew Watch.
- ^ "The Hypocrisy of Jewish Supremacism", David Duke Online Radio Report, July 22, 2002.
- Forbidden Checkpoints and Roads at B'Tselem
- 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
- Uri Davis Israel: An Apartheid State (1987) ISBN 0862323177
- "Oxford holds 'Apartheid Israel' week" at Jerusalem Post by Jonny Paul
- Left appalled by citizenship ruling at Jerusalem Post by Sheera Claire Frenkel
- "Google Search Ranking of Hate Sites Not Intentional", Anti-Defamation League, April 22, 2004.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Matas, David. Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Dundurn, 2005, pp. 53-55.
- ^ Israel Is Not An Apartheid State at Jewish Virtual Library
- ^ Abusing 'Apartheid' for the Palestinian Cause Jerusalem Post op-ed by Gerald M. Steinberg (hosted in full at http://www.ngo-monitor.org)
- Is it Apartheid? at Jewish Voice for Peace by Moshe Machover published 10 November 2004
- Presbyterian Church Violates US Antiboycott Laws. General Assembly of Presbyterian Church, USA, votes For Illegal Action at Convention August 1, 2004 (Boycott Watch)
Further reading
- Briefing to the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination Template:PDFlink
- "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