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[Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
As pro-Palestinian demonstrations take place on campuses all across the nation, the idea is persistent and pervasive: yes, the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 were terrible, but Israel had it coming because it is an oppressive apartheid state. The “apartheid” word gets thrown around quite a lot in connection with Israel, yet like so many other charges leveled at the Jewish state, there is nothing to it.
As I noted Friday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) just denounced Israel’s “systematic apartheid,” and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) called for “dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Hate Whitey) likewise said that “we must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending U.S. government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid.”
Those three great statesmen are by no means alone. Thirty-four student organizations at Harvard University issued a statement proclaiming that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” between Israel and the Palestinians and declaring that “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.” The leftist Jewish organization If Not Now tweeted Wednesday: “We’re reckoning with the fact that the Israeli government has failed Israelis and Palestinians by perpetuating a system of apartheid for decades, without concern for the consequences to their citizens. That’s what’s led us here.”
Far-left pundit Marc Lamont Hill tweeted back in 2016 that “Israel is very much, by definition, an apartheid state.” And in 2021, the far-left Human Rights Watch issued a report that claimed that Israel was implementing apartheid policies; the establishment media, of course, eagerly jumped on.
The only thing that’s lacking from the left’s scenario is any actual apartheid. The term “apartheid” comes from South Africa, where it referred to a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that was in place from 1948 to 1991. The word itself means “separateness,” and South Africa instituted numerous laws to keep the races apart in schools, workplaces, and areas where the public gathered, such as beaches.
There is absolutely nothing like this in Israel. As my Jihad Watch colleague Hugh Fitzgerald has explained: “In Israel, Arabs sit on the Supreme Court, serve in the Knesset, go abroad as ambassadors. The chairman of Israel’s largest bank, Bank Leumi, is an Arab. Jews and Arabs work in the same factories and offices, play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras, act in the same films, are treated in the same hospitals by both Jewish and Arab medical personnel, attend the same classes in the same universities. Jews and Arabs own restaurants and start high-tech businesses together. The only difference in their treatment is that Jews must, while Arabs may, serve in the military.”
There are no legal restrictions upon Arabs in Israel. The media watchdog HonestReporting points out that “the legal, state-sanctioned discrimination that is the definition of apartheid is not only absent from Israel, it is furiously combatted by its laws and independent judiciary. Israel’s basic laws serve as legal safeguards, providing protection of life, body, and dignity in a democratic state with equal rights for all, including ethnic minorities.”
In September, Mosiuoa Lekota, who is an actual former anti-apartheid activist from South Africa, said in an interview with Bafana Modise of South Africa Friends of Israel: “I was in Israel, my brother. In Israel, you won’t find the same divisions between Jews and non-Jews that we used to witness during apartheid. There are no segregated buses for different ethnic groups, like Jews and Arabs. In Israel, everyone boards the same bus, travels wherever they need to, and disembarks as they wish. There is no apartheid in Israel, not even within their schools.”
Why, then, has the “apartheid” smear become so common among haters of Israel? Because it plays on Western traumas about racism and serves as a shorthand way to demonize the Jewish state without having to bother with actual evidence. The primary evidence that those who claim Israel implements apartheid policies bring forth when they offer any evidence at all is that Israel has built fences between Israel proper and the areas under the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinians who work in Israel have to pass through checkpoints, some of which involve long lines, to get to and from work.
These measures are in place, however, not because of racism on Israel’s part but because so many Palestinians have victimized Israel in jihad attacks. The leftists who denounce Israel for being an apartheid state would see it rendered defenseless against those who have repeatedly vowed to destroy it. That’s likely the whole idea.
“ The primary evidence that those who claim Israel implements apartheid policies bring forth when they offer any evidence at all is that Israel has built fences “
Borders are racist unless you are African or Muslim.
I wrotIe on a friends page this comment: I visited the 24 communities that existed within Gaza that were mostly created after 67′. They were somewhat remarkable because they made farming towns and lite manufacturing out of nothing- in the desert beach sands of Gaza. And they built homes and schools and synogogues and playgrounds and it was beautiful to see, and visit. That was the result of hard work, the hard work of pioneers and I remember though, thinking how dedicated, hardworking, peaceful they all were. And thats while they were living under the obvious Apartheid of the Muslims surrounding them. That is, when the PLO took over in the 80’s, there no longer any commaraderie that had existed to a certain extent with the local arabs who couldn’t believe that these crazy jews would try to build something out of absolutely nothing in the sands there. They brought bread and salt and hoped they’d build something so they could get some work too. And it did happen. Then it all ended when the PLO was brought back, and so, it was Apartheid then- brought on by the PLO and the PA and those Jewish communities there, a real sight to behold under the hammer of Apartheid, occasionally bombarded by rockets, were given back to the arabs who destroyed almost all of it back in 2005′. For peace….. this is what the left, the progressives demanded, and now this is what we’ve got…. instead.
Now add “Ethnic Cleansing” to the list by Squad Members and others. (They, and many others, took an OATH to protect the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic, but they are instead using The Freedoms in the Constitution TO OVERTHROW the Constitution! If war came here, who would they side with since we are The Great Satan? John Brennan, a Muslim as CIA head? Obama as President? Huma Abedin as Hillary’s aide?) TRAITORS ALL!
The only ETHNIC CLEANSING narrative is against Jews “From the River to the Sea.” “Wipe Israel off the map.” “Gas the Jews.”
Shall we list the attacks against Jews at Universities especially in front of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Czars.
(University of NM Public Salary handbook. Last year Czar made $242,000. Year before $221,000. TODAY: “Zerai, Assata VP for Equity and Inclusion 99 VP, EI/Chief Div Officer Primary 100 $258,994” Four aides at $60-90,000. She is an extremist African American activist, google her, who wrote a long rant in support of BLM. INCIDENT: 2018 Two Muslim females were in the University Library and they claimed a fellow Math student pulled off one of their scarves. STRANGE that, in the quiet Library with every student looking at the monitors, books, and THEIR CELL PHONES and most are capable of FILMING ON A MOMENT’S NOTICE, that there were no witnesses or reports! REPORTED TO DEI. Protests. STRANGELY, this commenter noticed other similar incidents around the country. Two weeks later, eye called UNMPD for their police report. NONE FILED! WHY NOT? Because filing a FALSE POLICE REPORT is a crime! No name of the Math student, penalty, expulsion, fear of attending the same class…. nada EXCEPT headline news and exposing this FAKE STORY!)
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas insist that every square meter of land they occupy be permanently “judenrein” (unless you count hostages, some of them toddlers, who’ve been abducted and taken to Gaza). They also make sale of land to Jews a capital offense. So called “moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wrote his doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust, and also denies the existence of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem (odd, the Romans celebrated their destruction of the Second Temple with the Arch of Titus, which stands to this day in Rome). So called “moderrate Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi” has twice been caught peddling blood libels about Jews making matzoh out of blood of non Jewish children.
If anyone espouses “Apartheid” it’s the Palestinians themselves. Except they would kill all Jews if given half a chance, not keep them in separate and unequal status.
Excellent article! This needed to be said…
Indeed , it has been said many times but both left and right media and the willingly ignorant just plug their ears .
Each time time Israel has bowed to international pressure, mainly from the US, and made compromises and concessions to the “Palestinians” in exchange for peace all it has received are more Hamas rockets and more Hezbollah rockets!
Since Arab Israelis and Arab Palestinians are the same race, any discrimination is based on national identity.
EVERY nation discriminates between citizens and non-citizens.
If that is Apartheid, then every nation is guilty and the term is meaningless.
But no, the definition of Apartheid seems to be different for Israel, and thus anyone who claims Israel is an Apartheid state but does not also claim every other state is, holds Israel to different standards than other countries, and is thus guilty of Jew-hatred under the IHRA definition.
Even after thousands of years go by the anti-semtists want to take the Jews land that was given to them in the Abrahamic covenant. The Israel-Lebanon Maritime Agreement did nothing to bring peace. Hezbollah threatened to attack Israel’s offshore gas infrastructure if the maritime dispute was not resolved. The final deal didn’t address the disputes over their shared land border,. Lebanon’s top negotiator Elias Bou Saab described the deal as a “game changer”. Yair Lapid, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time agreed. They thought it would strengthen Israel’s security and bring billions into Israel’s economy and stability of their northern border. Well what is the result. It cost them dearly.
Prime Minister Netanyahu called it a “historic capitulation”. to an enemy. This only emboldened Hezbollah. Iran, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and numerous other terrorist organizations are consistently probing for Israel’s weaknesses. See how policies make a difference!
Presbyterian Church was first to publicly call the State of Israel an apartheid state.
I have said this for years…and why should anyone care?
South Africa was ruined after it relinquished its apartheid State status…farmers are murdered regularly, as a result, of the failed policy to remedy the change from apartheid state to Communist Racial Hatred Control.
And that is what Israel faces, Today.