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Template:ApartheidMerges Template:POV-title "Israeli apartheid" is a highly controversial expression used to compare Israel's policy with respect to the Palestinians on the West Bank and, to a lesser extent, its own Arab citizens to Apartheid-era South Africa.

The comparison has also been made by some within Israeli politics and academia to warn of adverse scenarios that would result from current trends. The accuracy and usefulness of the comparison is considered absurd and offensive by many. Critics of the analogy argue that it is a factually inaccurate pejorative political epithet.

The term Israeli Apartheid has been used by diverse groups and individuals, such as John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the United Nations in his controversial report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Desmond Tutu, Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli writer and political scientist, left-wing members members of the Knesset, and by Palestinian-rights activists.

It has also been used by Far Right elements who take a racialist view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist David Duke, , anti-semitic groups such as Jew Watch, and Holocaust deniers such as Paul Grubach of the Institute for Historical Review, and anti-Semitic groups such as Jew Watch. .

The rise in anti-semitic propaganda in the Palestinian territories (propaganda whose ideological roots can be seen to be generally sympathetic to South African Apartheid), on the one hand, while on the other, the fact that the State of Israel formerly supported the Apartheid regime, points to some of the difficulties faced by both proponents and opponents. In particular, since in South African Apartheid, the racist and segregationist components of the policy were well-integrated, as a rational and its enforcement respectively.

Usage

Origins

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 from Jordan and Egypt.

Some invoked the example of South Africa, where a white-dominated government controlled by force a large and politically hostile black African population. 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 much-disputed and controversial assertion that Zionism is an inherently racist doctrine. 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.

Accusation that Israel practices apartheid

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 reject Israel's claims to self-defense and claim that Israel has created roads and checkpoints in the occupied territories to isolate Palestinian communities, a practice they say is equivocal 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.

John Dugard, a South African law professor serving as the special rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories described the situation in the West Bank as "an apartheid regime ... worse than the one that existed in South Africa." . Dugard has since become an outspoken critic of Israel..

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.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu supported this analogy when, in 2002, he wrote: "Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through", and stating that a letter signed by Ronnie Kasrils, Max Ozinsky, and "several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans" had drawn "an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies."

Dr. Jean-Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger and former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières, recommended in a 2004 report about New anti-Semitism commissioned by the French government that the allegation that Israel practises apartheid be criminalized in France on the grounds that 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.)

Proponents also allege that 93% of the land inside the Green Line is owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Israeli Lands Authority(ILA). The actual figures are 79.5% of the land is owned by the government and 14% is privately owned by the JNF, Thus, the ILA administers 93.5% of the land in Israel. ILA lands can not be sold they can only be leased. It is also argued that while 18% of the population within Israel's pre-1967 borders is Arab "only 3.7 percent of Israel's federal employees are Arabs; Arabs hold only 50 out of 5,000 university faculty positions; and of the country's 61 poorest towns, 48 are Arab."

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. Archbishop Desmond Tutu used the term in articles he published following his visit to Israel.

The term has also been used by David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States.

Apartheid as a spectre

A number of voices, both within Israel and internationally, warn that Israel could become an "apartheid state" if the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza were to continue or if certain government policies were implemented. Such arguments are raised both by those advocating complete Israeli disengagement from the West Bank and Gaza and by those who advocate a binational solution.

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

An academic paper by Professor Oren Yiftachel of the Ben Gurion University of the Desert warns that Israel unilateral disengagement plan will result in "creeping apartheid" both in the West Bank and Gaza as well as within Israel itself. .

The analogy has also been used as a warning of what Israel may become if a two state solution is not realised. This allusion has been used in reference to the debate on Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza and West Bank. The Economist, in an article on the debate over withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, asserted that "Keeping the occupied land will force on Israel the impossible choice of being either an apartheid state, or a binational one with Jews as a minority."

In January 2004, Ahmed Qureia, then the Palestinian Prime Ministor, said that Sharon's unilateralism could prompt an end to the Palestinian efforts towards a two-state solution: "This is an apartheid solution to put the Palestinians in cantons. Who can accept this? We will go for a one-state solution... There's no other solution. We will not hesitate to defend the right of our people when we feel the very serious intention to destroy these rights.'" Colin Powll, then U.S. Secretary of State, when asked about Qureia's threat of a one-state solution responded "No. We're committed to a two-state solution. I believe that's the only solution that will work: a state for the Palestinian people called Palestine and a Jewish state, state of Israel. I don't believe that we can accept a situation that results in anything that one might characterize as apartheid or Bantuism." Ehud Olmert, then Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, later commented in April 2004 that, "More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against 'occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle - and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state."

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."

Shulamit Aloni, former Education minister and a former leader of Meretz, has said "if we are not an apartheid state, we are getting much, much closer to it." This comment was in response to a proposal by the then-government of Ariel Sharon to bar Arabs from buying homes in "Jewish townships" within Israel proper. The proposed bill was "narrowly defeated" in the Knesset. At the time, Tommy Lapid, leader of the liberal Shinui party, said he opposed the bill because it "smells of apartheid".

Implementation

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. Some critics of Israeli policy allege that this program is an implementation of "apartheid". The program includes a barrier between Israeli and Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza (see Israeli separation barrier), Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, limitations on travel by Palestinians within the West Bank, and Israeli-only roads (see Israeli settlement).

Israel describes the features of the "separation program" not as methods of enforcing apartheid rule of Israel over the Palestinians, but rather to approach a two state solution unilaterally. Dismantling Israeli settlements and withdrawing the 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 one approach to 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 a temporary security measure.

Criticism

Critics of the term argue that it is inaccurate, anti-Semitic, dangerous, and its use a rhetorical device with no substantive merit.

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 about New anti-Semitism commissioned by French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

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."

Norman G. Finkelstein described the Rufin report as "truly terrifying", and as reflecting "a totalitarian cast of mind" with an "attendant stigmatizing of dissent as a disease that must be wiped out by the state," but the conclusions of the report were welcomed by the anti-discrimination group, SOS-Racism, which called it "a good analysis" of a "new breed of anti-Israel, anti-Semitism."

The following arguments are often made against the term and the comparison:

• Israeli law does not differentiate between Israeli citizens based on ethnicity. Israeli Arabs have the same rights as all other Israelis, whether they are Jews, Christians, Druze, etc. These rights include suffrage, political representation and recourse to the courts. Israeli Arabs are represented 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 analogy "demean(s) Black victims of the real apartheid regime in South Africa."
• Black labor was exploited in slavery-like conditions under apartheid; Palestinians are given the same rights and privileges as all other workers in Israel.
• 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.
• Zionism is not a manifestation of European colonialism.
• In 2003, South Africa's minister for home affairs Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi said that "The Israeli regime is not apartheid. It is a unique case of democracy"
• 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."

Notes

1. Oren Yiftachel, Department of Geography and Environmental Development , Ben Gurion University of the Desert, Neither two states nor one: The Disengagement and "creeping apartheid" in Israel/Palestine.
2. Aluf Benn,UN agent: Apartheid regime in territories worse than S. Africa, Ha'aretz, August 24, 2004]
3. ^ Apartheid in the Holy Land in The Guardian by Desmond Tutu
4. Bantustan plan for an apartheid Israel by Meron Benvenisti (The Guardian) April 26, 2004
5. Frenkel, Sheera Claire "Left appalled by citizenship ruling", Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2006
6. Davis, Uri. "The Movement against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine"
7. ^ "The Hypocrisy of Jewish Supremacism", David Duke Online Radio Report, July 22, 2002.
8. Grubach, Paul. "Israel, Zionism, and the Racial Double Standard", The Revisionist, No 1, 2002.
9. "Israel's Palestinian Apartheid Laws", Jew Watch.
10. "Examples of anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim world," Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
11. Chris McGreal, "Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria," The Guardian, February 7, 2006
12. "Problems of victory divide Israelis", The Times, London. 15 June 1967.
13. "Zionist doctrine and Israeli expansionism", Ian Gilmour M.P., The Times. 25 June 1969
14. Summary of news events, New York Times, 10 December 1971
15. Forbidden Checkpoints and Roads at B'Tselem
16. http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060524-074634-8971r
17. Aluf Benn,UN agent: Apartheid regime in territories worse than S. Africa, Ha'aretz, August 24, 2004]
18. Farsakh, Leila "Israel an apartheid state?", Le Monde diploatique, November 2003
19. 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
20. Uri Davis Israel: An Apartheid State (1987) ISBN 0862323177
21. Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina, Against Israeli Apartheid, The Nation, July 15, 2002
22. ^ "French concern about race attacks", BBC News, October 2004.
23. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51552.htm "France: International Religious Freedom Report 2005"], U.S. Department of State.
24. ^ 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.
25. Worlds apart at The Guardian
27. Flore de Préneuf, Israel's apartheid, November 3, 2000
28. "Oxford holds 'Apartheid Israel' week" at Jerusalem Post by Jonny Paul
29. http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/20020604ib.html
30. Meron Benvenisti, Bantustan plan for an apartheid Israel, The Guardian, April 26, 2005
31. Oren Yiftachel, Department of Geography and Environmental Development , Ben Gurion University of the Desert, Neither two states nor one: The Disengagement and "creeping apartheid" in Israel/Palestine
32. "Israel's settlers: Waiting for a miracle", The Economist, August 11, 2005
33. Qureia: Israel's unilateral moves are pushing us toward a one-state solution, Haaretz, January 9 2004, accessed June 26 2006
34. PMO rejects Palestinian assertion on right to declare state, Haaretz, January 11 2004, accessed June 26, 2006
35. Is the two-state solution in danger?, Haaretz, April 13 2004, accessed June 26 2006
36. Left appalled by citizenship ruling at Jerusalem Post by Sheera Claire Frenkel
37. "EDITORIAL: An apartheid state?", Jerusalem Post, November 11, 2002
38. Eric Silver, "Israel Accused of 'Racist Ideology' with Plan to Prevent Arabs Buying Homes", The Independent (UK), July 9, 2002.
39. Lucy Ash, Battling against Israeli 'apartheid', BBC News, December 23, 2004
40. ^ Matas, David. Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Dundurn, 2005, pp. 53-55.
41. Norman G. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005, p. 49.
42. Cite error: The named reference bryant was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
43. ^ Israel Is Not An Apartheid State at Jewish Virtual Library
44. ^ Abusing 'Apartheid' for the Palestinian Cause Jerusalem Post op-ed by Gerald M. Steinberg (hosted in full at http://www.ngo-monitor.org)
45. Is it Apartheid? at Jewish Voice for Peace by Moshe Machover published 10 November 2004
46. S. African Minister: Israel is Not Apartheid by Yossi Melman (Haaretz) September 23, 2003
47. 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
• "Israel: an Apartheid State?" in Le Monde diplomatique, November 2003
• Do not treat Israel like apartheid South Africa by Ian Buruma in The Guardian, Tuesday July 23, 2002
• 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
• Is Zionism Apartheid? at Zionism On The Web
• Myths & Facts Online. Human Rights in Israel and the Territories by Mitchell G. Bard (Jewish Virtual Library). Accessed June 26, 2006.

See also

• Anti-Semitism
• Apartheid (disambiguation) for other uses of the term
• Arab anti-Zionism
• Arabs and anti-Semitism
• Crime of apartheid as defined by the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court
• Hafrada, a Hebrew term for "separation"
• Intifada
• Islam and anti-Semitism
• Israeli West Bank barrier
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• New anti-Semitism
• New Historians
• Zionism and racism

• Islam and anti-Semitism
• Israel and Zionism
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Pejorative political terms