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Revision as of 06:42, 9 June 2006 editFormeruser-82 (talk | contribs)15,744 edits or← Previous edit Revision as of 06:53, 9 June 2006 edit undoCJCurrie (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators74,742 edits I was going to write this page off as a POV nightmare, but ... given that the current entry for Israel is disputed text on Israeli apartheid, it seems prudent to revert it pending resolutionNext edit →
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⚫ '''Apartheid''' is a concept in ] derived from the ]n experience. The term is frequently used to compare the actions of various nations to those of ], especially in relation to their treatment of groups who are perceived to be discriminated against.
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===International law===
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In 1973 the ] agreed on the text of the ''International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid''. The immediate intention of the Convention was to provide a formal legal framework within which member states could apply sanctions to press the South African government to change its policies. However, the Convention was phrased in general terms, with the express intention of prohibiting any other state from adopting analogous policies. The Convention came into force in 1976.
⚫ '''Apartheid''' is a ] {{fact}} frequently used to compare the actions of various nations to those of ], especially in relation to their treatment of groups who are perceived to be discriminated against.

Article II of the Convention defines apartheid as follows:

''For the purpose of the present Convention, the term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following 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:''
:''(a) Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person''
::''(i) By murder of members of a racial group or groups;''
::''(ii) By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;''
::''(iii) By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;''
:''(b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;''
:''(c) Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;''
:''(d) Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;''
:''(e) Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;''
:''(f) Persecution of organisations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.''

The crime was also defined in the formation of the ]:
:"The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, 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{{ref|def-of-apartheid}}


== Australia == == Australia ==
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== Israel == == Israel ==
The phrase "Israeli apartheid" (or the terming of ] an "apartheid state") is a ] ]{{fact}} used by some ]-rights activists, ], some ] and ] individuals groups such as ]<!--http://www.davidduke.com/?m=200407--> and ],<!--http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-palestinian-apartheidlaws.html--><!--These groups are at least as notable as the "Palestinian-rights activists" etc.--> and some anti-Zionists to criticize Israel's policies by drawing an ] between the policies of the ]i government towards both ] and ] to those of the ]-era ]n government towards its ] and mixed-race populations. Critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate, using analogies that are historically inaccurate and that the term is offensive and is used as justification for trying to create a boycot which is part of a campaign to de-legitimize Israel's ] as the only homeland of the ] The phrase "]" (or the terming of ] an "apartheid state") is a controversial phrase used by some to criticize Israel's policies by drawing an ] between the policies of the ]i government towards both ] and ] to those of the ]-era ]n government towards its ] and mixed-race populations. Critics of the term argue that it is historically inaccurate, offensive, antisemitic, and a ] used as justification for terrorist attacks against Israel.

=== Origins ===

The analogy was used as early as ] by ], an Israeli-born academic and ]ish member of the ], in his book ''Israel: An Apartheid State'' (ISBN 0862323177) which provided a detailed comparison of Israel and South Africa. The highly controversial ] in ] adopted resolutions describing Israel as an "apartheid state" . The term was subsequently used by the British news paper Guardian as the title for an article by the South African cleric ] 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 ], its policies towards ] which are under military occupation in the ] and ] are analogous to the ] policies of ] towards blacks, for the following reasons:
*While Palestinians who are citizens of Israel vote in the Israeli elections the palestinians who live in ] do not have Israeli citizenship and thus have to vote for the ] but they are under Israeli occupation military law.


*Israel has constructed "Jewish-only" ] in the ], which preclude "some of the most fertile land and richest water resources in the West Bank" from the "indigenous population" .
*Israel has created roads and checkpoints that isolate Palestinian communities , which is seen as a parallel to Apartheid South Africa's ]s.(Ibid)
*Israel is constructing the ] which some detractors have termed the ] for its alleged impact on Palestinians in the West Bank.
*Proponents of the term argue the Israeli policy of demolishing homes is an example of apartheid.
*The government of Israel has termed its policy of disengagement '']'' which literally means "separation". Some translate this word as ''apartheid'' as that word literally means "apartness".

Proponents of this term often claim discrimination against Israeli Arabs.
*Jews can easily gain ]i citizenship under the ], yet Palestinians who fled or were driven out, may not have the ].
*Arab municipalities receive less than one fifth the funding that is given to their Jewish counterparts.
*The government of Israel often refuses to grant permits to build or repair homes, and fails to provide electricity, water, health services, education, roads, or any other infrastructure. One of the consequences is that 70% of ] Bedouin (Arab) infants are not fully immunized and one third are hospitalized within their first year of life.
And in a recent article ("Sharon and the Future of Palestine," NY Review of Books, 12/2/04, Henry Siegman quotes Nahum Barnea, Israel's most respected political commentator: " is not yet the South Africa of apartheid, but is definitely from the same family."

====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. It has also been used by ] and ] groups such as ]<!--http://www.davidduke.com/?m=200407--> and ]<!--http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-palestinian-apartheidlaws.html-->.

Several left wing Members of the ] (MKs) have also drawn an analogy between Israeli policies and apartheid, such as ] of the ] 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." Similarly, ], a former Meretz leader and Israeli Education Minister has said "If we are not already an apartheid state, we are getting much, much closer to it."

The term has also been used by three prominent South African Anti-Apartheid activists: Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Mahatma Ghandi's grandson, Arun Ghandi who grew up in Durban, SA and now runs the MK Institute for nonviolence ; and Christopher Brown, with the Christian Peacemaker Teams .

The term is often appropriated by those attempting to advance political goals, such as ]s against Israel or ] in Israel. It is meant to establish a link between political anti-Israel campaigns, on the one hand, and human-rights campaigns against apartheid-era South Africa, on the other.

===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 (who refused to accept israeli citizenship and prefered to keep their palestinian or Jordenian citizenship) , the ] minority have voting rights and are represented in the ] (Israel's legislature) whilst in apartheid South Africa, Blacks could not vote and had no representation in the South African parliament.

*Israeli law is identical to that of most countries in the world, regarding the rights of Palestinians who live outside Israel and are not Israeli citizens. International law does not reqire an occupying power to grant citizen rights to people living on occupied territory, and this is seldom, if ever, done in practice.
*Israel's security situation has forced it to impose restrictions on Palestinians living in the ] and ]. However, these conditions are not imposed on Israeli Arabs (that is, Palestinians who are residents of Israel living within the state's pre-1967 borders).
*The features of legal ] 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..
*Apartheid South Africa strictly denied Blacks their legal rights, in contrast to Israeli law, which upholds Israeli Arabs' rights. Israeli courts have ruled against practices that exclude Israeli Arabs from leasing property. Arabs are being hired in increasing (though still disproprtionately low) numbers in the civil service and government owned agencies. Israeli Arabs also serve as judges in Israeli courts. .
*]s were created as resevoirs for Black labour to be utilised by South Africa whilst providing a legal means to strip Blacks of their South African citizenship. Israel's policy towards the ] and ] are quite different, to keep Palestinian residents of these territories out of Israel and exclude as many as possible from working within Israel.
*Jews constitute a majority of the Israeli population while the situation in South Africa was one of ].
*The claim that the Israeli government refuses to grant permits to build or repair homes, and fails to provide electricity, water, health services, education, roads, or any other infrastructure is simply false. Studies have shown that the Arab population receives as many, if not more, building permits as demographically equivalent groups of Israeli Jews.
*The comparison between Israel and South Africa is fictitious and is made in an attempt to demonize Israel as a prelude to an international ] campaign. The long term goal is to pressure the United Nations to impose ] 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 do 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 ], 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.


==Malaysia== ==Malaysia==

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Apartheid is a concept in international law derived from the South African experience. The term is frequently used to compare the actions of various nations to those of South Africa under apartheid, especially in relation to their treatment of groups who are perceived to be discriminated against.

International law

In 1973 the General Assembly of the United Nations agreed on the text of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The immediate intention of the Convention was to provide a formal legal framework within which member states could apply sanctions to press the South African government to change its policies. However, the Convention was phrased in general terms, with the express intention of prohibiting any other state from adopting analogous policies. The Convention came into force in 1976.

Article II of the Convention defines apartheid as follows:

For the purpose of the present Convention, the term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following 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:

(a) Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person
(i) By murder of members of a racial group or groups;
(ii) By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(iii) By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
(b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
(c) Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
(d) Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
(e) Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;
(f) Persecution of organisations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.

The crime was also defined in the formation of the International Criminal Court:

"The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, 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

Australia

While there is no existing Australian government policy that segregates Aborigines, their poor socio-economic conditions typically leave them somewhat segregated from the rest of Australian society. This situation has led a number of commentators and civil rights groups to characterize the situation as Apartheid. In fact, Australia's government policies are viewed by some as the original impetus for the Apartheid system in South Africa.

Brazil

Growing inequities in the economic and social status of Afro-Brazilians in Brazil have been described as "social apartheid". According to São Paulo Congressman Aloizio Mercadante, a leading member of Brazil's leftist Workers' Party (PT), "Just as South Africa had racial apartheid, Brazil has social apartheid." The exclusion of youth (particularly street youth) from Brazilian society has also been described as "social Apartheid". Carlos Verrisimo states these two inequities are often inter-related, and Cristovam Buarque, Governor of the Federal District from 1995 to 98, Minister of Education from 2003 to 2004, and currently PT senator for the Federal District argues that "Brazil is a divided country, home to the greatest income concentration in the world and to a model of apartation, Brazilian social apartheid." The Nation has described Brazilian president Lula as "fighting to bring the poor of Brazil out of economic apartheid".

Canada

Canada's treatment of its native peoples has been described as "Canada's Apartheid". Canada's citizenship laws (described as "apartheid laws") did not grant full citizenship to native peoples until 1985 In 1966 Thomas Berger stated:

The history of the Indian people for the last century has been the history of the impingement of white civilization upon the Indian: the Indian was virtually powerless to resist the white civilization; the white community of B.C. adopted a policy of apartheid. This, of course, has already been done in eastern Canada and on the Prairies, but the apartheid policy adopted in B.C. was of a particularly cruel and degrading kind. They began by taking the Indians' land without any surrender and without their consent. Then they herded the Indian people on to Indian reserves. This was nothing more nor less than apartheid, and that is what it still is today.

In the 1980s the Urban Alliance on Race Relations compared Canada's practices to Apartheid, and stated "Perhaps the most severe and yet overlooked example of discriminatory practices towards Canadians is to be found in the treatment of our own indigenous people, the Native Canadians" . Even in the 21st century, according to Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, "Economically, socially, politically, culturally, we have come to accept a quiet apartheid that segregates, and thus weakens, native and non-native society", and in 2004 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation describes Canada's Indian Act, and reserve system for native Indians, as "Apartheid: Canada's ugly secret".

China

China's houku system of residency permits, which has effectively discriminated against China's 800 million rural peasants for decades, has been been described as "China's apartheid". According to Jiang Wenran, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, this system has been "one of the most strictly enforced "apartheid" social structures in modern world history. He states "Urban dwellers enjoy a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while peasants, the majority of the Chinese population, are treated as second-class citizens."

France

Muslims in France have recently been accused of apartheid due to their unwillingness to integrate into the French society. Many Muslim quarters in France are no-go areas for non-Muslims, and even the police avoids them. An internal security agency in France reported in 2004 that 300 communities across the country were marked by Islamic fundamentalism, anti-Semitism, and violence, coupled with hatred of France and the West. Some Muslims are already calling for the imposition of sharia in predominantly Muslim districts; in some areas, they have imposed Islamic dress, chase away French shopkeepers selling pork and alcohol, and shut down cinemas on the basis that they are "places of sin".

India

India's treatment of it's lower-class dalits has been described by UNESCO as "India's hidden apartheid". According to Rajeev Dhavan, of India's leading English-language newspaper The Hindu, "'casteism' is India's apartheid which will continue in its most vicious and persistent forms for decades to come." Eric Margolis has claimed that "frantically tr

Israel

The phrase "Israeli apartheid" (or the terming of Israel an "apartheid state") is a controversial phrase used by some to criticize Israel's policies by drawing an analogy between the policies of the Israeli government towards both Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel to those of the apartheid-era South African government towards its Black and mixed-race populations. Critics of the term argue that it is historically inaccurate, offensive, antisemitic, and a political epithet used as justification for terrorist attacks against Israel.

Malaysia

In 2006 Marina Mahathir, the daugther of Malaysia's former Prime Minister, and a campaigner for women's rights, described the status of Muslim women in Malaysia as similar to that of Black South Africans under apartheid. She was apparently doing so in response to new family laws which make it easier for Muslim men to divorce wives, or take multiple wives, or gain access to their property. Mahathir stated ""In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women." According to the BBC, she sees Muslim Malaysian women as "subject to a form of apartheid - second-class citizens held back by discriminatory rules that do not apply to non-Muslim women." Her comments were strongly criticized: the Muslim Professionals Forum stated "Her prejudiced views and assumptions smack of ignorance of the objectives and methodology of the Sharia, and a slavish capitulation to western feminism's notions of women's rights, gender equality and sexuality," and Dr Harlina Halizah Siraj, women's chief of the reform group Jamaah Islah Malaysia said "Women in Malaysia are given unlimited opportunities to obtain high education level, we are free to choose our profession and career besides enjoying high standard of living with our families."

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's practices against women have been referred to as "gender apartheid" and "sexual apartheid". Saudi Arabia's treatment of religious minorities has also been described as "apartheid". Until March 1, 2004, the official government website stated that Jews were forbidden from entering the country.

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