Israeli apartheid: Difference between revisions

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

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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, 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.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu commented upon and supported the analogy between Israel and apartheid era South Africa when, in 2002, he wrote: "Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through. (South African Cabinet Minister) Ronnie Kasrils and (South African Member of Parliament) Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the antiapartheid struggle, recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name." Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out the relevance of the South African experience."

Dr. Jean-Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger and former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières, 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". (See the criticism section below.)

Usage

The origins of linking Israel and Zionism with apartheid policies go back at least to the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. Following the Israeli victory in the war, there was an intense debate in Israel and elsewhere about the future of the large Palestinian Arab population of the territory captured by Israel.

Some invoked the example of South Africa, where a white-dominated government controlled by force a large and politically hostile black African population. South Africa's approach was seen by some – for better or worse – as a potential model for Israel. 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.

Others saw the South African example as one to be avoided, rather than emulated. The senior British Conservative politician Ian Gilmour was an early proponent of this school of thought. In June 1969 he wrote a lengthy article in the London Times arguing that an apartheid-style system was the "logical culmination" of "Zionist exclusiveness."

Similar views have been expressed by many others since then, often in connection with the assertion that Zionism is an inherently racist doctrine, which is also an extremely contentious and hotly disputed viewpoint. The argument 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. After several years of debate, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 in 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.

File:Israel barrier zigzag.jpg

The barrier on the Green Line, separating the Israeli-Arab town of Baka West (inside Israel, on the left) from the Palestinian town of Nazlat Issa inside the West Bank (right). Some of its critics have dubbed it the "Apartheid Wall".

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

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

According to Leila Farsakh writing in Le Monde diplomatique, after 1977, "(t)he military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WGBS) 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 WGBS (West Bank and Gaza Strip); they were intended to challenge the Palestinian demographic in the WGBS. Many view these Israeli policies of territorial integration and societal separation as apartheid, even if they were never given such a name."

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 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.

Proponents also point to the fact that 93% of the land inside the Green Line is owned by the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Lands Authority. This land was reserved exclusivly for Jews until an Israeli Supreme Court ruling in 2000.

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 in 2002 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
Israeli-only roads (Main article: Israeli settlement)

One can interpret some features of the "separation program" not as methods to enforce apartheid rule of Israel over the Palestinians, but rather to unilaterally approach a two state solution. Dismantling Israeli settlements and withdrawing Israel's army from the Gaza Strip (and most of the West Bank if the proposed (2006) realignment plan of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert takes place), will allow the Palestinians self determination in the areas "separated" from Israel, and thus be a major step towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state existing alongside Israel. The "separation barrier" can be seen as a method to approach such a solution.

Other features of the "separation program", such as limitations on travel by Palestinians within the West Bank, may disappear if the realignment plan is successful and Israel withdraws from most of the West Bank, and thus may be arguably seen as a temporary security measure rather then a method to enforce long term apartheid.

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
Bantustan plan for an apartheid Israel by Meron Benvenisti (The Guardian) April 26, 2004
Left appalled by citizenship ruling by Sheera Claire Frenkel (Jerusalem Post) May 15, 2006
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.
Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina, Against Israeli Apartheid, The Nation, July 15, 2002
^ 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. Cite error: The named reference "Rufin" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
"Problems of victory divide Israelis", The Times, London. 15 June 1967.
"Zionist doctrine and Israeli expansionism", Ian Gilmour M.P., The Times. 25 June 1969
Summary of news events, New York Times, 10 December 1971
Forbidden Checkpoints and Roads at B'Tselem
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060524-074634-8971r
Meron Benvenisti, Bantustan plan for an apartheid Israel, The Guardian, April 26, 2005
Farsakh, Leila "Israel an apartheid state?", Le Monde diploatique, November 2003
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
Worlds apart at The Guardian
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4111915.stm
"Oxford holds 'Apartheid Israel' week" at Jerusalem Post by Jonny Paul
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/20020604ib.html
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.
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/8228.htm
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20051019-095908-7655r.htm
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/821573801.html?FMT=ABS&startpage=13
^ 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)

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