RANT: Israel the Apartheid State

I've said it before in my blog, and I'll say it again: the state of Israel is an apartheid state. 



My anti-Israeli stance was sparked (yet again) by the recent bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces on the (yet again) trumped up charges that Hamas was threatening to send missiles into Israel. There was even talk of an all-out assault on Gaza by Israel. At least Hamas responded with over 1000 short-range missiles. At the end of the week-long battle between the two sides there were 160 dead Palestinians, with over 1000 wounded, whilst Israel had six reported dead.

According to a BBC report cited in Workers World, Israel were only held back from a full-on invasion on Gaza due to a "“a shift in international support” away from Israel."

One marvels at how there can still be any international support for Israel, given its many atrocities against Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, etc., over the years, let alone support that can still "shift" away from them.  

Once again, many more Palestinian lives were lost compared to Israeli lives in this latest assault. Once again, an Israeli life is worth a lot more than a Palestinian life. That is how it has always been throughout history when comparing the life of the oppressor to the oppressed.

I was quite surprised to come across a piece of online journalism posted on October 29th that is highly critical of Israel's track record to date, and by no other than al-Jazeera. I say surprised, because  over the past year or so I have lost a lot of the respect I once had for their once-vaunted television station. More and more al-Jazeera looks and sounds like CNN with an Arab face - and that's not a good thing. So it was heartening to read the said article written by the British freelance journalist, Ben White, who specializes in Palestine/ Israel.

Ben White provides a laundry list of Israeli transgressions second to none, which is why I found the article so  compelling and worth blogging about. White is correct when he states how, "To talk about Israeli apartheid is not to suggest a precise equivalence with the policies of the historic regime in South Africa. Rather, apartheid is a crime under international law independent of any comparison..." He then quotes former UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard, who makes the excellent point that, "It [apartheid] is Israel's own version of a system that has been universally condemned."

The neverending land grabs since 1948, the anti-Arab laws, even against Arab Israelis, the broken promises and treachery by Israel in international law 

White makes interesting reference to Israeli and other polls in recent years in which Israeli Jews have been shown to have the following clearly racist views [links within the actual article by White to other articles on the given data are shown here in blue bold]:

• over half of Jewish Israelis saying marriage to an Arab is "equal to national treason" 
• 78 per cent of Jewish Israelis opposing Arabs joining the government
• 62 per cent of Jewish Israelis encouraging the emigration of Palestinian citizens
• 36 per cent of Jewish Israelis being in favour ofrevoking the voting rights of non-Jews

White quotes more examples of how Israeli society sounds remarkably apartheid-esque:

• Kadima MK (Member of the Knesset) Otniel Schneller praised the decision for "articulat[ing] the rationale of separation between the peoples and the need to maintain a Jewish majority and the [Jewish] character of the state", linking this to the formulation of "two states for two peoples"
• Ironically, this slogan of Zionist "moderates" (yes, it's all relative) echoes the rhetoric of Apartheid South Africa's politicians, who warned that "either we must follow the course of equality, which must eventually mean national suicide for the white race, or we must take the course of separation"
• In 2007, Israel's internal security agency the Shin Bet stated it would "thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law"
• In 2008, the agency's then-chief told US officials that many of the "Arab-Israeli population" are taking their rights "too far"
• Israeli law provides for the banning of electoral candidates who deny "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people"
• Proposed bills can be rejected on the grounds that they undermine "Israel's existence as the state of the Jewish people"
• In Jerusalem, constantly touted by Israel's leaders as the country's "eternal" capital, Palestinian residents in the illegally annexed East face planning restrictions, home demolitions, discrimination in municipal services, and the community-shattering Apartheid Wall. 
• Speaking to BBC's Hardtalk in July 2011, Mayor Barkat openly confirmed that he seeks to maintain a Jewish majority in the city (White asks, "imagine if the mayors of London, New York or Paris stated that Jewish residents must not rise above a certain proportion.")
• There are over 300,000 Israeli citizens living in West Bank settlements (plus 200,000 in East Jerusalem), a network of colonies among a Palestinian population without citizenship.
•  Palestinians' freedom of movement is controlled by a bureaucratic "permit" system, enforced by some 500 checkpoints and obstacles. 
• The vast majority of the Apartheid Wall, 700km in length and 70 per cent completed or under construction, lies inside the occupied West Bank. 
• The illegality of this de facto annexation [of the Wall] was confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in their 2004 advisory opinion.

And it goes on:

• In 60 per cent of the West Bank ("Area C"), Palestinians must apply for building permits from Israeli occupation forces; yet according to a 2008 UN report, 94 per cent of applications are denied. Building illegally means demolition.
• In 2011, Israel demolished 620 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, part of what the EU has called a "forced transfer of the native population". 
• Israel also exploits the West Bank's natural resources, such as its "discriminatory" control of water access and usage: Palestinians, over 80 per cent of the population in the West Bank, are restricted to 20 per cent of the water from the main underground aquifer. 
• Human Rights Watch have called Israel's regime in the West Bank a "two-tier system" where Palestinians face "systematic discrimination" (the same terminology they have used to describe policies inside the pre-67 borders as well)
• The Gaza Strip, home to some 1.7 million Palestinians a majority of whom are refugees, is blockaded by the Israeli military behind perimeter fences and "buffer zones" (including at sea)
• Restrictions on movement began in the early 1990s, with an intensified siege being implemented in 2006-'07. Until today, Israel blocks almost all exports from the territory, and pursues what it calls a "separation" policy for the purpose of cutting off Gaza from the West Bank.
• In March, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) described Israel's violations of the right to equality in unprecedented terms. Noting "segregation between Jewish and non-Jewish communities" and a lack of "equal access to land and property" inside Israel's pre-1967 borders, CERD found a regime of "de facto segregation" in the West Bank severe enough to prompt a reminder of the "prohibition" of "apartheid".

The list could go on and on and on and on and on...

Gosh, how very, very familiar this all feels to me. Ah, yes (and as I too have spoken about before), it all sounds terribly reminiscent of how my fellow whites were thinking about blacks and black majority rule and the 'black threat' back in 1980s apartheid South Africa. Different racial issues, same racial prejudices. 

EXCEPT, back then South Africa was a pariah state - as a white South African teenager I was even spat at by a Belgian couple when touring Austria with my mom in 1984. We were constantly harangued because of being white South Africans then. Do Israeli Jews really put up with that much antagonism today?

Apartheid South Africa was banished from the United Nations, the Olympic Games and most 'civilized' pursuits of nations, whereas Israel today is, for the most part, quite comfortably a member of the 'family of nations.' THAT is what I continue to fail to understand.

Israelis, Zionist Jews and their legions of apologists keep making the position of Israel seem somehow 'unique'  in world history, somehow tenuous because of its very 'unique' racial and religious and geopolitical realities. 'Unique' in so many ways, and therefore fully deserving of being able to 'defend' its uniqueness by oppressing an entire people. It's as if Israel is indeed infused by some divine providence to oppress at will, even if conveniently leveraged on the rampant Islam-phobic fears that permeate the West and, in particular, the United States. 

But it's all smokescreens and mirrors. Israel is not unique in any way. For all its so-called religious, racial and geopolitical 'uniqueness,' Israel is little more than a shabby, oppressive little apartheid state, wearing its quasi-racist 'right to self-determination' like a suit of armour with missiles attached.

Israel may be all gleaming and 'modern' and 'Western' to those who care not to look any deeper (as Johannesburg most certainly was back in 1985), but it is still a wretched, oppressive and racist nation at its core, hell-bent on oppressing an entire people at any cost. 

It has no moral imperative because it lost the moral argument a long time ago.

Israel is nothing more than a shabby, tatty little state. I just feel for the millions of second class citizens (and non-citizens) who have to live and die in its malevolent, racist shadow.

Do you get my point?