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Revision as of 13:52, 29 August 2002

Talk about apartheid and the Israel/Palestine conflict has been moved to Talk:Apartheid/Israel Enchanter

Can anybody write something here on the beginnings and ending of apartheid in South Africa? Thanks.

Will that do? GrahamN 21:03 Aug 27, 2002 (PDT)

'Alleged apartheid in Israel'

The contentious paragraph:

However, discrimination in favour of Jews and against other ethnic groups is enshrined permanently in Israeli law. For example the Declaration of Independence defines Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and no political party that seeks to re-define it as the state of all its citizens is permitted to put up candidates for elections . There are also laws preventing non-Jews from buying land in Israel, and 80% of the land still owned by Arabs after the War of Independence has since been appropriated by the state without compensation. In August 2001, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment (LAW) published a paper in which they laid out in detail their case that Israel is guilty of apartheid (see external link, below). In 2002, LAW filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army claiming that Israel's construction of a wall along the Green Line constitutes a crime of apartheid under the UN convention.

Discussion of individual sentences within the paragraph:

"However, discrimination in favour of Jews and against other ethnic groups is enshrined permanently in Israeli law."

The claim of apartheid raised against Israel is about discriminating Palestinian Arabs (who are subject to Israeli military law), rather than Israeli Arabs. --Uri

No it's not, as you would find if you bothered to read the paper. But even if it was, that is no reason to delete the sentence which is a simple truth, backed up by the references to Israeli laws. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Quote from the LAW paper (my emphasis):

In this paper, LAW does not challenge the right of Jewish Israeli citizens to remain within Israel. LAW does not deny the fact of racist persecution of Jewish people in the world or the fact of the Holocaust with the genocide of Jews during the Second World War. LAW does not challenge Jewish peoples' rights of self-determination, however, LAW condemns as racism:

- The measures used to ensure the ongoing racial domination of Jewish Israelis over non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in particular the Palestinians.

- The methods used to ensure this racial dominance by maintaining the State of Israel exclusively for one racial group (namely, for the Jewish people), including the aims of maintaining a Jewish majority at all costs. Since the conception and establishment of the State of Israel, the country has been structured as being an exclusively 'Jewish State' to the exclusion and subjugation of its non-Jewish inhabitants, in particular its indigenous Palestinians'.

- All the measures used to exclude and subjugate Palestinians so they are treated as an inferior and an unequal racial group within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

- LAW condemns the continued practices of dispossession of Palestinians of their lands, property and homes and all measures to 'cleanse' Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestinians and Israel's continued refusal to allow for the rights of return of the dispossessed Palestinian refugees and internally displaced - and instead to make way for more Jewish immigrant 'settlers' within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (including East Jerusalem) of racial equality.

"For example the Declaration of Independence defines Israel as the state of the Jewish people and no political party that seeks to re-define it as the state of all its citizens is permitted to put up candidates for elections ."

The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex (Declaration of Independence, Paragraph 13)

Israeli laws, like the laws of any other country are looked up by paragraphs, not by ammendments. Israel's Basic Law: THe Knesset, paragraph 7a defines the following causes as making a candidatwe unfit for election:

1 negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people;

2 negation of the democratic character of the State;

3 incitement to racism.

Ironically, the only person ever rejected because of 7a was Meir Kahane, and it was basing on 7a(3) --Uri

So what does "the state of the Jewish people" mean, then? If all Israeli citizens are equal, why the need for that phrase, and the need to protect it with a swingeing law denying political representation to those who may wish to change it? Sure, there are words in there about equality, but they mean nothing, because they are flatly contradicted by the Declaration's opening statement "WE ... HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE". Imagine if my country adopted a written constitution that declared that henceforward the UK would be "a Christian Anglo-Saxon state ... open for Christian Anglo-Saxon immigration". Any following words about racial and religious equality would be pure hypocrisy.

In the copy of the Basic Law: The Knesset to which I provided a link, the words you quote are under the heading Amendment No. 9, which it says was "passed by the Knesset on the 13th Av, 5745 (31st July, 1985).", not under paragraph 7a. Follow the link and scroll about 4/5 of the way down and you will see it.

Whether this anti-democratic provision has ever been used or not is irrelevant. It is there. In fact, it is not surprising it has never been used because only Israeli citizens can stand for election, and Israeli citizens are all Zionists, by definition.

The first two sentences of the paragraph state simple facts, the truth of which can be checked by anybody who follows the links I provided to the official Israeli Government web-site. Both sentences should be reinstated as they are without qualification. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

"There are also laws preventing non-Jews from buying land in Israel, and 80% of the land still owned by Arabs after the War of Independence has since been appropriated by the state without compensation."

After or before? The absence of compensation with 1948 refugees is a separate political issue. The only major cases of displacement known to me after 1948 are the case of Ikrit and Biram. --Uri

After or before, what difference does it make? People were removed from their land because they were not Jewish; their land was appropriated by the state of Israel; the displaced people received no compensation. This is highly relevant to the allegations that Israel is an apartheid state. It is not a "separate political issue", whatever that is supposed to mean.

How about this phraseology:

There are laws preventing non-Jews from buying land in Israel. 80% of land owned by Arabs in 1948 has since been appropriated by the state of Israel, without compensation.

Again, these are simple facts (do you deny they are true?). Plain facts are neutral. I can see no reason why this sentence should not be reinstated. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

"In August 2001, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment (LAW) published a paper in which they laid out in detail their case that Israel is guilty of apartheid (see external link, below)."

Have you bothered looking at their web site? Look up the head lines: "Ahmad Sa'adat must be released immediately", "LAW delays demolition home family Thabet Thabet", "LAW files petition against construction of Israel's apartheid wall". Does it lack something? Yes, it probably does: how about the dozens of cases of extrajudicial execution by Palestinian Authority's own men of Palestinians? The page is a Palestinian propaganda effort, and you had swallowed the bait! Talking about Ahmad Sa'adat (chief of the PFLP) but not talking about killing Palestinian civilians is the definition of hipocrisy. --Uri

Here we go. LAW don't pretend to be neutral. They explicitly advocate a particular viewpoint. As you say yourself, that is evident from their site. However, this section of the article, headed Alleged apartheid in Israel, is about that viewpoint. LAW is a leading organisation putting it forward, and their advocacy is clearly signposted as such. The sentence carefully follows Ed Poor's formula for presenting a controversial viewpoint, X says Y about Z. Not wanting to hear "Y" is not a valid reason for deleting the whole sentence. There is nothing wrong with the sentence, and it should be reinstated. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

"In 2002, LAW filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army claiming that Israel's construction of a wall along the Green Line constitutes a crime of apartheid under the UN convention."

Attorney General of Israeli Army does not deal with political issues. Perhaps you meant Mr. Rubenstein, Israel's Attorney General? --Uri

Again, if you had bothered to read the press release, all would have become clear. Quote (my emphasis, again):

On Monday, August 19, 2002, LAW's lawyer Aazem Bishara filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army, demanding an interim injunction against three Israeli military orders which allow actual land and property confiscation for the purpose of constructing Israel's apartheid wall.

The petition was filed on behalf of 34 Palestinian families from various villages located along the 'Green Line', the demarcation line between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, including Deir al- Ghusoun, Shweika, Tel, Farasin, Baqa Sharkia and Kafin. The wall will be either build on their land, separates them from their land, prevents access to their land, or benefit from their land.

The petition demands that the Attorney General annuls the three military orders, 17/2002/T, 20/2002/T, 22/2002/T, which were issued by Israel's military commander of the Westbank, Moshe Kaplinski, which state that the Israeli army will 'cease' (confiscate) these lands until December 31, 2005.

The petition demands an interim injunction to prevent the start of the construction until a decision concerning the matter has been made. In the case, the demands are rejected, the petition argued that Israel's apartheid wall would be built on the June 4, 1967 demarcation line and not on occupied Palestinian land, or on the expense of Palestinians who own deeds proving ownership of the land since the Jordanian administration and the British Mandate.

The orders were issued by the military, not by politicians. The petition is not political, it is legal. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

To sum up: I think that the paragraph was intentionally fallacious, biased, and it used an untrustworthy source. I removed it for these reasons; I'll keep the link temporarily untill a more neutral source is found (Amnesty, UN or something of the sort). --Uri

To sum up: The paragraph presents arguments in favour of the proposition that Israel is guilty of apartheid, but it does so in a neutral style, and it provides sources so that readers can judge for themselves whether they choose to trust the sources. The fact that you distrust them is not proof that they are untrustworthy. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

I find all these accusations against Israel to be both fallacious and anti-Semitic. The previous government of South Africa sponsored Apartheid because it held that blacks were literally inferior to whites, and that the natural place of the "white man" was to rule over the "black man". That is why they were condemned. But anyone who claims that most Israelis have such a view of non-Israelis, like Arabs, is simply a damned liar who is lashing out at Israel. The legal difficulties that Arabs in Israel face exist because the vast majority of the Arab world seeks to exterminate the State of Israel, and many Arabs in Israel itself agree with this goal. Since the first day of its inception, Israel has legally and actually been in a constant state of active war, and suffering from non-stop terrorism. As Israelis have no intention of committing suicide, there are a number of legal barriers that have had to be erected against Arabs. But to twist this into charges of flat-out racism by most Israelis is a lie and an anti-Semitic slander. These out-of-context distortions have no place in a civilized discussion. Once you stoop to this level, you might as well just drop the pretenses and flat-out accuse Jews of murdering Arabs to use their blood in pastry (as mainstream Arab newspapers and collges actually say). RK