RANT: Proud, Apartheid Israel

My last post was a rant about how Israel is undoubtedly an apartheid state - if not identical in its racist and segregationist policies to that of apartheid South Africa, it nevertheless meets all the criteria for having its own brand of Zionist-inspired 'apartheid.'

Just over a month ago a poll of Israeli Jews was published by the Israeli liberal left-leaning daily, Ha'aretz, that subsequently provoked a firestorm of controversy against Israel around the world, and even perhaps some serious soul-searching within Jewish Israel itself. It also inspired the al-Jazeera article by Ben White that formed the basis of my last post, and to which I made many references. Below is a graphic breakdown of that poll's controversial findings:



NB: The "famous American author who is boycotting Israel" as quoted in the above Ha'aretz poll is Alice Walker, the African-American author of the best-selling novel The Color Purple. 

They are very telling results indeed. They strongly suggest a (Jewish Israeli) nation that is at somewhat odds with the oppression of the Palestinian people by their state of Israel, but who seem somehow resigned to being the oppressor and, even more bizarrely, to being okay with living in what is essentially an apartheid state. 

Even the article in Ha'aretz by Gordon Levy about their own poll had the headline: "Apartheid, by any other name."

But then the byline to the that very headline reads: "No, Israel is not an apartheid state, but the occupation in the territories is apartheid." 

Excuse me?

That's a bit like a headline back in 1985 in, say, the Johannesburg daily newspaper The Star having stated: "No, South Africa is not an apartheid state, but the homeland system is apartheid."
Yeah, right. Talk about cognitive dissonance on a grand, national scale.

The journalist Christopher Bollyn wrote an excellent article in his blog in response to this poll in late October, entitled "Israel - Apartheid Without Shame or Guilt." Here are some of the points he makes, even further evidence of the apartheid state that is Israel, if any was needed:

• Israeli checkpoints prevent Palestinians from moving freely in their own country. Jews, and cars with Jewish license plates, however, are allowed to pass without stopping
• Three out of four Israelis support the use of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank
• A third to half of Jewish Israelis want to live in a state that practices formal, open discrimination against Israeli citizens who are not Jewish. An even larger majority wants to live in an apartheid state if Israel annexes the territories

Bollyn makes the telling observation that the Ha'aretz poll shows how it "...lays bare an image of Israeli society, and the picture is a very, very sick one. Now it is not just critics at home and abroad, but Israelis themselves who are openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists." 

He continues, "We're racists, the Israelis are saying, we practice apartheid and we even want to live in an apartheid state. Yes, this is Israel." And makes the further salient points that, "The "Jewish" part of "Jewish democracy" has won big time. The "Jewish" gave "democracy" a knockout, smashing it to the canvas. Israelis want more and more Jewish and less and less democracy. From now on don't say Jewish democracy. There's no such thing, of course. There cannot be. From now on say Jewish state, only Jewish, for Jews alone. Democracy - sure, why not. But for Jews only." 

Bollyn then makes a very serious conclusion about the state of the state of (Jewish) Israel: "the image of Israel 2012 is this: We don't want Arabs, don't want Palestinians, don't want equality, and the hell with all the rest. Values-shmalues, morals-shmorals. Democracy and international law - those are matters for anti-Semites, not us. We will vote for Netanyahu again, recite that we're the only-democracy-in-the-Middle-East and wail that the whole world is against us."

Because that is indeed the Israel of today - democratic, yet for whom?; defiant, yet so very scared; oppressor, yet always the victim. 

Hypocritical, shameful Israel.

Do you get my point?