Arab racist "apartheid" - slur crime against Jews
Arab Islamic Apartheid's Racism of propagating the "apartheid" and "racism" slur against multi-racial truly democratic - equality Israel
Introduction
Arab nations attempted to eliminate Israel since the beginning of its re-establishment,[1][2][3][4][5][6] planning complete genocide.
(Including calls by political and religious leaders like, Mufti Haj amin al-Husseini: 'Kill the Jews wherever you find them, this pleases Allah...'[7][8] 'I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all.'[9][10][11] Nasser and other Arab leaders: 'throw the Jews into the sea,'[12][13][14][15] Syria's Assad: 'It is time to embark on a war of annihilation.'[16] Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader al-Qaradawi,[17][18] and Hamas: 'kill them, down to the very last one,'[19][20] Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi: "by Allah we will not leave one Jew alive in Palestine."[21] Iran's Imam M. Rabbani (1994): 'Israel must disappear from the face of the Earth.'[22] Iran's Ahmadinejad in 2005: 'Wipe Israel off map... and Death to America!'[23][24] In 2007: 'Israel, US will soon die.'[25] Speaker of PA Legislature (2007): "Kill Every Last Jew & American."[26] Fatah/Palestinian Authority TV sermon (2010): 'Fight The Jews & Kill Them -- They Are Enemies Of Humanity & Allah.'[27] Palestinian Authority's Yunis al Astal (2011): Jews 'Gathered for Annihilation.'[28] Egyptian Cleric Hazem Shuman (2011): "These Jews... Getting Rid of Them Is a Must."[29] PA's principal religious leader, Mufti Muhammad Hussein (2012): "Islam's goal is to kill Jews."[30] As well as polls of Arab-Palestinians - as late as in 2010[31] and 2011[32][33] - showing majority support for destroying Israel).
Fortunately, they failed time and time again. Yet the demonization of Israel and the Jews never ceased. In fact, despite the racism epidemic in Arabia and religious bigotry in Islamia, the hypocritical Arab initiated vilification campaign of Israel, especially since the 1970s,[34] picked up steam in recent years accusing the very victim of its racism with this horrific crime.
Aided by naive or even by those few super-guilt-ridden radical-lefty-Jews,[35] who fail to see the reality of Israel's dire situation under constant menace from Arabs, Muslims who seek to annihilate it. Using imagery of the powerful VS the powerless, [false as it is, as the Arab side, bent on wreaking havoc upon its population to prove its "victim hood" and draw sympathy, has been using is own civilians,[36][37] thus making the Arab attacker much more destructive than the Israeli side that always seeks to minimize Arab casualties, (like the IDF dropping "millions of flyers over areas it planned to invade," and making "over a quarter of a million phone calls to private homes and mobile phones warning people to leave,"[38]) not to mention the fake fabricated images produced by Pallywood,[39][40]] the use of harsh terminology has been implemented, where self-defense measures are criminalized as "inhumane act[s] of apartheid."[41] Though knowing full well the sincere Israeli concern for survival which prompts its security measures (anybody can be harassed in Israel, the understandable sensitive State has been investigating: Jews, Arabs alike. In fact, right-wing Jews are sometimes harassed more than Arabs.[42] Nor is it too hard to grasp its preferential protection for Jews escaping persecution "Law of Return"), yet, malicious and criminal Arab propagandists, realizing, since 'racism' and 'apartheid' rings a bell of total negativity, the destructive -which is all about demeaning Israel, never about sincere care for the Arab Palestinians- Arab propaganda machine adopted this hype language as a useful tool for its goal of bigoted de-legitimization of the Jewish state in its midst. It also inflates, exaggerates any slight 'usual differences that exist in any Western democracy' to be used as "proof" to "affirm" its pseudo claims.
This hype [regardless how deceptive it is, masking itself as merely "criticizing Israel" their bubble has been burst, time and time again, as it] has been used to harm Israelis and international Jews, in image and often physically. Those openly advocating for the annihilation of Jews wave it constantly and so-called "protesting Israeli apartheid" theatre has been linked with hatred, racist attacks and boosting up Anti-Semitism.
No matter how many non-Arabs the Arab propaganda misinformation [Pallywood] machine manages to recruit with or without money to this propaganda, the seeds of this smear campaign movement is Arab,[43] Arab initiated bigotry[44] that is. No other country on earth has been so scrutinized with half-truths, with exaggerated cases and with 100% complete distortions to be branded in such a vile image.
Conclusion, the "racism/apartheid" mantra is not only unfair, unjust, [correctly termed "The Apartheid Slur"[45]] malevolent and detrimental, but extremely dangerous as well. Another organized Arab-Islamic crime.
Some facts:
OASIS DEMOCRATIC ISRAEL IN THE M.E.
Israel's still the only true democracy in the Middle East.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] Even "apartheid- slur" promoter: Jimmy Carter (paid by the Arab lobby,[54], deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received,[55] has long deep ties with oppressive Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia,[56] had a Syrian committee and a Lebanese committee,[57] and his brother Billy registered as an agent for Libya in 1980,[58]) admitted:
"I recognize that Israel is a wonderful democracy with freedom of speech and equality of treatment under the law between Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis."[59]
ISRAEL: HIGH DEMOCRATIC VALUES DESPITE FACING GENOCIDE
While Israel always faced genocide [60][61] Or as M. Wallace has put it (1958) "the huge majority of the Arab people are interested in the extermination of Israel." [62] It managed to upheld its democratic values despite being threatened like no country on earth... In defending itself against wars of aggression, unparalleled terror campaigns and continuous promises to annihilate it, Israel has a track record on the protection of rights that would compare favorably to the record of any democracy, much less democracies under threat."[63]
Pluralism, diversity and respect for all groups in Israel
From 'Say Yes To Peace':
A Pluralistic Society
Israel formally recognizes 15 religions, including Islam, the Báha'í and Druze faiths, as well as Chaldaic and many other Christian denominations, and others. Each religious community freely exercises its faith, observes its own holy days and weekly day of rest, and administers its own internal affairs. Israel protects the holy sites of all religions.
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where the Christian population is thriving instead of disappearing. Between 1948 and 1998, Israel's Christians grew fourfold, from 34,000 to 130,000.
The Báha'ís, a religious group persecuted in Muslim countries, built its world center in Haifa, Israel.
Israel's non-Jewish minority forms about 20 percent of the population and is made up of Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, non-Arab Christians, Druze, Bedouins, Circassians, Asians and others. Eighty percent of Israelis are Jews of different ethnicities and races from Arab countries, Ethiopia, India, Russia, the former Soviet Union republics, Latin America, the U.S. and Europe. Refugees from Arab and Muslim Middle Eastern and North African countries and their descendants make up over half the Jewish popuation.
Israeli-Arabs
In 1948, almost all of the 160,000 Palestinian-Arabs who remained within Israel's borders became citizens. Today, Israeli-Arab citizens have equal civil and human rights as all other Israeli citizens.
There are 1.3 million Israeli-Arabs now living in Israel, making up almost 20 percent of the population.
Hebrew and Arabic are Israel's two official languages.
There are five official Israeli-Arab political parties.
Three Israeli-Arabs were elected to the first Knesset. Israeli-Arabs have held as many as 12 of the 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament at one time.
All Arab municipalities receive government funding for education and infrastructure.
Many Israeli-Arabs hold high-level positions, such as
- Salim Jurban, selected a permanent member of Israel's Supreme Court (2004)
- Nawaf Massalha, deputy Foreign Minister
- Ali Yahya, Walid Mansour and Mohammed Masarwa, who held ambassadorships
- Major General Hussain Fares, commander of Israel's border police
- Major General Yosef Mishlav, head of homeland security as Israel's Home Front commander
- Israel has enacted affirmative action policies to help its minority citizens achieve full social and economic equality.[64]
From an article titled "Racism in the Islamic World":
In truth, Israel is perhaps the most racially and ethnically diverse and tolerant country in the world. More than half of Israel's Jewish population consists of people of color - blacks from Ethiopia and Yemen, as well as brown-skinned people from Morocco, Iran. Syria, Egypt and Israel itself. In addition, Israel's population includes more than one million Arabs, who enjoy the same civil rights as Jewish Israelis. In Israel hate speech is banned, and it is against the law to discriminate based on race or religion.
In contrast, anti-Semitism—a poisonous form of racism directed specifically against the Jewish people—is rampant in most all Islamic societies. Not only is anti-Semitism commonplace in Muslim nations, but it is propagated shamelessly by their leaders, in state-sponsored media, and by Muslim clergy.[65][66][67]
PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR ARABS, MUSLIMS
Preferential treatment for Arabs, Muslims in Israel, often as "first class citizens" is a routine. There was already a title printed in an American newspaper in 1968: Arabs Treated As First Class Citizens In Israel [68]
The wide range includes: Subsidized housing.[69] Land issues, especially favoring Arab' rights in disputes with Jews.[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] In court (broader issues),[78][79][80][81] In Voting, parties' participation in the election process.[82][83][84] In employment - affirmative action.[85][86][87][88][89] Quotas in academia.[90][91][92][93] In Media freedom.[94][95][96][97] Access to fields, restricting Jews during Arab Olive Harvest.[98] Access to holy sites.[99][100][101]
'MADE' IN ARABIA: "RACISM / APARTHEID" IDEA
Origins of the apartheid/racism slander:
1961: Genocidal pro-Nazi Arab leader: Ahmad Shukairy, 'father' of 'Apartheid' slander
[Also transcribed: Ahmad Shukairy, Ahmad Al-Shukairy, Ahmad al-Shukairi, Ahmad el-Shukairy, Ahmed Shukeiry, al-Shuqayri, Shukeiri, Shukeiry, Shuqeiri, Shuqairy]
The idea to slander Israel via a false analogy to "apartheid" of S. Africa, dates back to an October 1961 speech by Saudi Arabia's representative Ahmad Shukairy during a strongly anti-Western chide. He went as far as to object to Israel's right to try Nazi extermination chief of WW2: Adolf Eichmann.[102][103] Famous for the often hysterical violence of his political rhetoric.[104] A dagnerous agitator since, at least, the age of 19, when he was seized by authorities at the University and expelled from Leabanon.
[It was amidst a season of strong UN condemnation of South Africa, thus, the Arab icon came up with a tactic of defamation by fictitious comparison to S. Africa's system. He constantly tried to poison the African delegates against Israel. It has been said that he never failed to refer to Israel's UN representative Comay as a South African.[105] He reiterated his "idea" in his 1966 PLO book.]
1961 - That's about 6 Years before the so-called "occupation" even came about, yet, it was picked up by Arab propaganda machine ever since, and has been "adjusted" to any situation between Israel and its Arab attackers. As this well 'oil' greased machine (Arab oil lobby, or the Arab world in general -for that matter- never advocated, nor cared for the Arab-Palestinians,[106] but has used them against Israel) went on, demagogue-like symbolism [like the security fence] have been used and included to be "updated" along the way, to make the criminal propaganda seem somehow "legitimate."
As Shukairy opposed Israel's trial of Eichmann, it's Worth mentioning that at the trial (Session 50), Eichmann's deputy Wisliceny gave eyewitness testimony on the cooperation between Eichmann and the Mufti. That the Mufti, indeed aided in the 'final solution' in exterminating Jews.[107][108][109][110][111] (This is not to suggest that the Nazis 'needed' cooperation in their evil plans.)
Profile:
- Ahmad Shukairy (1908-1980) was born in Lebanon.[112]
- His father, a sheik, was interned in a castle at the time by the Ottoman Empire authorities for stirring up the Arabs against the Turks. In 1910 his family moved to Acre in what was later Palestine.[113]
- In 1927, at the age of 19, the Arab under-graduate was seized at the American University in Beirut for making an over-zealous speech. He was hauled into court as a political agitator and ordered out of Lebanon.[114] He was barred for 10 years from Syria and Lebanon by the French mandate authorities for a fiery speech in favor of Arab unity[115]
- Several times during the 1930's he was jailed in Palestine by British authorities for political agitation.[116]
- Was an aide[117][118][119] and spokesman[120] for the infamous Haj Amin Al-Husseini, Hitler's ally. (The Mufti, who worked closely with the Nazis[121] and prevented Jewish children from being rescued during WW2.[122]) He himself admired Nazism.[123] Furthermore, as testified in U.S. Congress (in 1967), Shukairy actually aided in extermination: he worked with the Nazis in the Middle East and was a henchman of the notorious Mufti who advised Hitler on ways and means of extermintaing Jews.[124]
- Became assistant Secretary General for the Arab League from 1950-56.
- Served as Saudi Arabia's representative to the UN from 1957-1962.
- Famous for his 1956 admission to the falsehood of a "Palestinian" (distinct) people, or Palestine as a "separate" Arab entity.[125][126][127][128][129][130][131]
- Pungently described by one pro-Arab British journalist as "a sort of cross between Adolf Hitler and the Reverend Ian Paisley." His Anti-Semitism became most publicized, at his fall of 1961 UN address, against American-Jews.[132] His hatred crossed all boundries in minimal logic. In a UN (16th session) address he mumbled a ludicrous conspiracy-theory, confusing words, something about fusing finance and the "intention" of creating the State of Israel...
- His openly [shocking] pro-Nazism, was expressed in 1962 at the UN while praising[133][134][135][136] and identifying with Nazi groups.[137]
(Interesting to quote related 'Arab Nazism' in 1962, from the New York Times:
ISRAELI ACCUSES ARABS OF NAZISM; U.N. Envoy Sees Link to Modern Fascist Groups
By KATHLEEN TELTSCH Special to The New York Times December 07, 1962 (Page 14)
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., Dec. 6 Israel accused Arab representatives today of cooperating with neo-Nazi and fascist groups in the United States, Latin America and elsewhere "to exploit anti- Semitism as a political weapon."[138])
- Originator of Arabs controlling U.N. to wage war on Israel.
In an extensive research, the Heritage Foundation published in 1983 "A United Nations Assessment Project Study,", Elaborating on "United Nations Against Israel," whereby the ugly history of anti-Israel Arab powers have been dominating to chastise Israel unfairly. It also shows a systematic "installment" of Arabs in key U. N. positions which helps in this malicious campaign. It reminds us the beginning of it all:
Efforts to denounce Zionism as racism had started as early as 1962, when Ahmad Shukairy of Saudi Arabia had termed Zionism "a blend of colonialism and "imperialism in their ugliest forms," recommending that the U.N. 'exterminate" the Zionist movement. Said Shukairy: "Nazism is now planted in the shape and in the image of Israel in the Middle East."[139][140]
- Described by the 'Time' (Dec. 21, 1959): "Ahmad Shukairy, wildest of Arab orators..."[141] Known for his hate-speeches at the United Nations in the early 1960s, including vile comparisons to Nazis (UN, 1960, in replying to the accusations that Arabs created the refugee problem)[142] crude anti-Semitic statements.[143]
His speeches at the U.N. tone and content were reminiscent of the diatribes hurled against the Western democracies by the Nazi leaders[144] It has been said on Shukairy's anti-American diatribes, few Arabs can match Shukairy In his fanatical hatred of the United States.[145]
- Spearheaded[146] the major shift in Arab strategy[147] in the "creation" of a "Palestine entity" in 1963, seeing that the collective Arab VS Israel war lacks support. It was designed to tap into the anti-colonialism that spread in the UN with the fight in Algeria and to suggest parallels, in order to gather support among Africans.[148] (A 360 degrees shift by this, pathological liar who, as late as 1957 admitted that Palestine is nothing but an integral part of Syria).
(Worth mentioning what author Meir-Levy calrifies on Palestinian "nationalism":
...even a cursory reading of Khalidi's treatment of this subject reveals that the only early example of what he calls "Palestinian National sentiment" is actually an example of Muslim religious apartheid. The Muslim religious leaders of Jerusalem protested the Sultan's permitting French representatives to establish an office in Jerusalem in the late 18th century. The Jerusalem Muslim religious elite were affronted that an infidel "Ifrangi" (Frenchman) not under a dhimmi treaty should be allowed to pollute the sacred precinct with his presence. Disdain and disgust for someone of another religion is hardly an example of nationalist sentiment.[149])
- Was the first to head the PLO in 1964. In [his] then "Palestinian" original charter, there's no call for a "homeland" or so-called "rights," but as part of a 'pan-Arab' struggle.[150] The Palestine Liberation Organization was established: for the express purpose of wiping out Israel. [As openly reported at that time].[151]
- Called to assassinate Jordan's king Hussein and "liberating" Jordan.[154]
- Was very instrumental in the six-day war of June 1967 by collective Arab nations whose leaders, like Shukairy called to annihilate Israel.[155][156]
- Before the 1967 six-day war, he coined the [extermination] phrase: "Driving the Jews unto the sea." (/ "Throwing the Jews into the sea,"[157][158][159][160][161][162] as the official PLO slogan.[163] It was told that when a journalist asked Shukairy what he would do about the Jewish problem if war came, he replied, "There's not going to be a Jewish problem."[164] Like Nasser, he spoke openly of "finishing Hitler's job."[165])
Later on, the Arab leadership admitted, that the statement was in fact stated.[166] Another 'Palestinian' Arab personality (I. Sartawi, who was murdered by fellow Arab-Palestinian [terrorist][167]) acknowledged Shukairy's error.[168] After the six-day war, realizing the great damage it has dome to Arabs, Arab propagandists, including Shukairy himself, tried, somehow to "transform" his statement from the meaning of annihilation to the meaning of "transfer" of Jews (or 'ethnic cleansing'), but it was too late, the clarity of his authentic genocide message was already publicized.[169]
- First head of the 'Palestine Liberation Organization' (PLO) in 1964, that's 3 Years before the "occupation," (what is referred to Israel's victory over Arab aggression in 1967) he called for "liberation." (of what?)[170] Indeed: terrorism of targeting innocent civilians, proceeded "occupation." There was already a long blood trail of Arab attacks in the 1950s and in the 1960s.[171]
- From the New York Times, December 25, 1967: Ahmed Shukairy, the fiery orator who had nourished Arab dreams of destroying Israel, resigned today as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.[172]
There you have it, Arab racism, Nazism and Arab genocide [in action assisting in WW2 and in open declaration in the 1960s] hiding behind "liberation," has invented the "apartheid" meme against its victim: Israel.
Old tactics: the typical hypocritical element of "accusing" Israel with the crime of the Arabs, that of "nazism," was also encapsulated by this Arab-Nazi mastermind of 'Arab-Palestine' in his elaborated opposition to try Eichmann.
This Arab-Nazi also had the audacity to use a line like: "I have never been an anti-Semite; I am a Semite myself." (November, 1966)[173] While, of course, anti-Semitism always referred to anti-Jewish bigotry alone, and not to others. Anti-Jewish bigotry has no parallels in history.[174][175] Today, in the heightened age of Arab anti-Semitism,[176][177][178][179] many Arab, Muslim anti-Jewish bigots attempt to hide their demonic passionate hatred under this kind of coverup - crap - canard.
It is only "natural" that a notorious hate-speaker would come up with such a thesis.
1975: Collective Arab demonization of Israel picks up steam
Ever since Arab nations' racist[180] infamous[181][182] move in 1975[183] at the United Nations, ganging up to demonize Israel,[184] and the Arab lobby which began advertising in 1975-6 defiling Israel's important security struggle as "apartheid,"[185] this "racism" idea left a stain on the organization.[186] Indeed, Almost all the former non-Arab supporters of the resolution have apologized and changed their positions. When the General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991, only some Arab and Muslim states, as well as Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam were opposed.[187] (Worth mentioning that about the same era of Arab lobbying, the PLO was granted observer status in United Nations bodies.[188])
Jimmy Carter who almost copied the title of his book straight from Arab "Palestinian" propagandist Marwan Bishara's 2002 book,[189] tied to the Arab lobby,[190] pushed this propaganda (of total distortion, hatred, apology for Arab anti-Jewish crimes,[191] and in 2011 Carter was sued for his "deceptive acts"[192]) even further in 2006 (despite his clarification in saying "I chose that title knowing that it would be provocative."[193] Showing he doesn't really think his provocative title on Israel is deserving), as part of his "waving the bloody shirt of racism."[194] Though he issued some half apology for his errors,[195] Carter was accused of (simply) having a "problem" with Jews,[196] and "Worst Ex-president."[197] His role in helping remove the Shah of Iran (which in turn gave the world the current theocratic totalitarian brutal regime of the Mullahs, committing massacres, crimes against humanity,[198][199][200][201] racist against its ethnic minorities,[202] endangering the region and Europe[203][204][205] with planned nuclear weapons, involved directly or via Hezbollah thugs in pushing violence around the globe including in: Iraq,[206][207] Somalia,[208][209] Lebanon,[210][211] France,[212] Israel,[213] Afghanistan[214][215]) surfaced especially as Strong intelligence has begun to emerge that US President Jimmy Carter attempted to demand financial favors for his political friends from the Shah of Iran. The rejection of this demand by the Shah could well have led to Pres. Carter's resolve to remove the Iranian Emperor from office.[216]
PLO's M. Tarazi
In between Bishara and Carter's (almost) identical entitled erroneously books, there was that PLO's M. Tarazi in Oct. 2005 who pushed the 'apartheid slur' embedded with false statements, in the NYTimes. All the while, editors ignored such obvious refutations of the slur as the fact that 23 percent of the country is non-Jewish, mainly Arab Muslims and Christians, that they are the freest "non-Jews" of the Middle East, and that members of these communities serve in the Israeli parliament, the armed forces, and the Supreme Court.[217][218]
In response, former New York Times foreign correspondent, Clifford D. May wrote: "The NEW Anti-Semitism ...an End Time Factor?"
In 1948, genocidal anti-Semitism took the form of five Arab armies attempting to drive Israeli Jews into the sea.
In 1967, a second conventional war was led by Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. The "Voice of the Arabs" radio station declared the goal: "extermination" of Israel. Ahmed Shuqayri, the first leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, added: "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants."
Since the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000 - when Yasser Arafat turned down an independent Palestinian state on 93 percent of the West Bank and Gaza - radical anti-Semitism has taken the form of suicide bombings in Israel's streets, shops and restaurants.
Former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen said this month many of those responsible believed "after the killing of 1,000 Israelis in the Intifada, Israel would collapse." Well, about 1,000 Israelis have been slaughtered, but Israel has not collapsed. Instead, the Israelis are demonstrating terrorism can be defeated.
So genocidal anti-Semitism is taking another form. This week, the New York Times gave Michael Tarazi, an American lawyer who advises the Palestine Liberation Organization, space on its Op-Ed Page to make this audacious argument: Having failed to eradicate Israel with tanks and terrorism, Palestinian leaders are now "being forced to consider a one-state solution."
Yes, "forced" to consider demanding a "right" to flood Israel with people who hate Israelis, people loyal to such terrorist organization such as Hamas, and who want to replace Israel with a radical Islamist state.
And if Israelis refuse to willingly become a despised minority in their own country, ruled by people who have waged genocidal campaigns against them, that will demonstrate, Mr. Tarazi declares, "Christians and Muslims, the millions of Palestinians under occupation are not welcome in the Jewish state." "Not welcome." Imagine that. The nerve. The chutzpah.
As Mr. Tarazi well knows but neglects to mention, there is only one Jewish state on the planet. It's about the size of New Jersey. By contrast, there are 22 Arab nations and more than 50 predominantly Muslim countries, covering an area larger than the United States and Europe combined.
In these lands, Jews are, to varying degrees, conspicuously unwelcome. In Jordan, a relatively liberal country that has diplomatic relations with Israel, Jews are denied citizenship. In Saudi Arabia, no synagogue or church may be built.
Mr. Tarazi forgets to note, too, that half of Israel's Jews have their roots in such places as Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Iran — but that after intense persecution they fled what had been their families' homes for centuries. Similarly, Christians have fled Syrian-controlled Lebanon and from Bethlehem and Nazareth since those cities came under Yasser Arafat's control.
Nor does Mr. Tarazi appear to recall that almost 15 percent of Israel's citizens are Muslims. They enjoy more rights and freedoms than Muslims elsewhere in the Middle East — including the right to free speech, to vote and to worship as they choose. You do not see graffiti on mosques in Israel.
Israeli Arabs have been elected to Israel's parliament and serve on its supreme court. The CNN cameraman recently taken hostage in Gaza is an Israeli citizen. That was not mentioned in much of the coverage because it was thought that those who took him captive might not know, and it would go better for him if they didn't. Israeli Muslim Bedouins and Druze even serve in Israel's armed forces - and many have given their lives to defend their country.
But Mr. Tarazi believes he can convince "the international community" that if Israelis are unwilling to open their doors to millions of people who have been indoctrinated to believe butchering Jews is a form of "martyrdom," it is the Israelis who are the bigots and oppressors.
If I'm wrong about this, there's a simple way for Mr. Tarazi to prove it. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged to remove all Jewish settlements from Gaza. Mr. Tarazi should tell him not to bother. Mr. Tarazi should advise the Palestinian Authority to "welcome" the Jews living in the Gaza - and the West Bank, as well.
If and when a Palestinian state is created, those Jews would comprise only a small percentage of the population — much smaller than Muslims in Israel. This way, Mr. Tarazi could show he sincerely wants to see "all faiths and ethnicities live together as equals."
But Mr. Tarazi is not sincere. He wants Gaza and the West Bank judenrein. And eventually he wants what is now Israel to become "jew-free" as well — by whatever means. He really isn't choosy.
In 2004, this is the form genocidal anti-Semitism takes. In the long run, anti-Semites seek a world free of Jews. In the short run, a world free of a Jewish state will do.
If they can disguise such extremism as a fight against bigotry, a "struggle for equal citizenship" and against "apartheid," and if they can push such boldly Orwellian propaganda on the pages of the New York Times, they would be crazy not to.
But people such as Mr. Tarazi are not crazy. They know exactly what they are doing. They just hope people like you won't be able to figure it out until it's too late.[219]
Tarazi was also harshly criticized on his propaganda "writings" in 2004 in IHT, acting as if "Palestinians" just want "peace," and ignoring its constant hatred campaign, and refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.[220] His anti-Jewish incitement propaganda through lies, was exposed in 2005 in an article entitled 'Racist road show.'[221]
The fact that Arabs' anti-Jewish boycott began in 1945, and that the "apartheid slur" thesis was crafted in 1961, and the unconditional vilification of the Jewish State no matter what it does or does not, says it all about its roots at pure Arab-Islamic bigotry. There was never a time by the Israel bashers that went something along the line of: had Israel only done 'this' or 'that' she would be accepted.[222]
Non-Arabs used as alibis for Arab racism
Question: Who is N. Finkelstein? Answer: a confused extremist "Prof." associated with 'Holocaust denial,' belittling the Holocaust, [223] and when the Iranians convened a Holocaust-denial conference in 2006, they invited two Americans: former KKK David Duke and Norman Finkelstein.[224] He has praised genocidal Hezbollah,[225] and as researcher Robert S. Wistrich writes: "It is no accident that both the radical Muslims and the neo-Nazis so eagerly quote from such left-wing anti-imperialists as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein... as Jewish alibis to cover up their own virulent racism."[226]
As Jimmy Carter came under fire for his slanderous title, there was a debate in 2007 hosted by "Democracy Now." Carter was defended (mainly) by notorious N. Finkelstein, in such an argument leaning on what some radical liberal Israelis use the term. G. Troy refuted this argument and explained that when Israeli (radical political-motivated) "peace activists" use it, they're being just provocative and incendiary, and they're not so destructive.[227] (Since their political stand and goal is clearly obvious).
RACIST APARTHEID MIDDLE EAST: ARABIA, TURKEY, IRAN; NORTH AFRICA
In general
To see "who's talking," it's imperative to expose the Racists [who] cry racism.[228]
A writer has put it: "Unlike the twenty-two Judenrein Arab countries of the Middle East, Israel is the only one which neither believes in nor practices apartheid."[229] Or as D. Suissa put it: "Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East that is NOT apartheid."[230][231] Author, via-a-vis "apartheid" accusation, summed it up: "The Arab nations formally define themselves by their ethnicity, ie, Arab, thus excluding non-Arab ethnic groups, such as Berbers and Kurds. The same is true for religion. Islam is the official religion in all but one of the Arab countries (Lebanon), thus perforce marginalizing non-Islamic faiths, particularly Christian minorities."[232]
Some have written about: the wide Arab apartheid against non-Arabs[233][234][235] including the Arab apartheid in Mauritania, Sudan, (both described as 'Arab apartheid' states,[236]) and Tanzania,[237] for example, in "Sudan and Mauritania, the Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks - Arab apartheid."[238] And even Arabs' apartheid against Arab-Palestinians.[239] About the "Race taboo" in the Arab world, Arab-Islamic racial and religious discriminations against the "other" - ethnicities and religious minorities such as: Alawites, Armenians, Assyrians, Baha'is, Berbers, Chaldeans, Copts, Druzes, Ibadis, Ismailis, Jews, Kurds, Maronites, Sahrawis, Tuareq, Turkmen, Yazidis and Zaidis,[240] how racism in the Arab world is its dirty secret, especially against those with a darker color, [241] anti-Israel Arab apartheid,[242][243] (Arab Muslim apartheid against Israel is so cruel, that it even includes ambulances, as Arab Red Cross societies seek to censure Israel and Magen David Adom.[244]) and Arabism's racism.[245][246][247][248]
In the 1990s, the Arab League was accused of carrying out a racist resolution, in internationalizing support for the oppressive regime in Khartoum, calling "the Arab world to join Khartoum in its racial and religious war against the South."[249] Its SG branded racist by Sudanese in 2011, for downplaying the genocide.[250] Racism accusation come also from members of the Arab League, such as Somalia.[ http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.php?sid=14512&tirsan=3]
Minorities have branded the Arab league, totally racist.[251] A Kurdish writer: "The Arab League as a useless ideological racist Arabist institution has existed only to promote Arabism and Arab racism against colonised non-Arab nations." And that it excludes non-Arabs such as: Copts, Kurds, Berbers.[252]
From an explanation on the anti-Israel boycott by the so-called 'DFI,' its roots in the original Arab-League Boycott of Israel. This antecedent movement is unabashedly anti-semitic and racist, having started with a de facto boycott as early as 1922 against Jewish interests, not Israeli interests, 26 years prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. The Arab League Council formally instated a boycott on December 2, 1945: "Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries". That, might I remind you, is a little less than 3 years before the establishment of the State of Israel and 22 years before the "occupation" began following the 6-Day War in 1967. The Arab-League Boycott and the modern DFI are not one in the same; however, they share the same ideological roots of racism and anti-Semitism towards anyone from Israel.[253]
It has been accused of practicing an 'apartheid' even against the Arab-Palestinians.[254]
An African writer wrote: "The KKK (Ku Klux Klan) is equivalent to the Arab League.[255]
African author K. Boof wrote "about the atrocities of the Arab world," about "Arab Muslim racism, more exploitation of blacks by the Oil companies, more black slaves for the kitchens of Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia."[256]
From "Politics in Francophone Africa" by Victor T. Le Vine:
Arab racism against black Africans is a reality that few educated Africans or Arabs are willing to address publicly, though such discussion did occur in the African media during the 1973-1980 oil crisis; I provide some examples in Le Vine and Luke, The Arab-African Connection. That racism is, of course, quite real. It is one of the unfortunate residuals of the centuries of Arab slaving in Africa, and during my own trips to and within the Arab Middle East I gathered many Arab expressions denigrating and belittling black Africans. Ahdi, the Arab word for slave. remains a term of contempt throughout the Arab world, and it is often used patronizingly or insultingly in reference to black Africans. For informed commentary on these matters, see, notably, Lewis. Race and Slavery in the Middle East, and Gordon. Slavery in the Arab World.[257]
A. Kasem spoke out against Arab racism, its Islamic roots: Any non-Arab, non-white, who has been to a Middle East Arab country will tell the story of absolute racism practiced there. It is no secret that in rich Arab countries, (such as Saudi Arabia) people of dark complexion, such those from Africa, South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh) receive much lower pay than a white person from the western country would. There is strict, unspoken, racial apartheid practiced in the rich Arab countries.... The Muslims of black complexion will never be equal with the white Arabs. The concept of Islamic ummah, regardless of color and ethnic origin is simply not true.[258]
Author writes on: "the dictatorial Arab regimes," and "the Palestinian Authority - where a culture of hate, xenophobia, and racism flourishes against Jews, Christians and the West."[259]
Authors of "Foreign policy of Tanzania, 1961-1981" explain that an "added factor that contributed to the growing taension between the Arabs and black Africa was the discovery of some Arab links with racist South Africa."[260]
From a 1970s testimony by former Black Panther leader Elridge Cleaver:
"Travesty Upon The Truth"
"Having lived intimately for several years amongst the Arabs, I know them to be amongst the most racist people on earth. This is particularly true of their attitude towards black people... Many Arab families that can afford to, keep one or two black slaves to do their menial labor. Sometimes they own an entire family. I have seen such slaves with my own eyes.[261][262][263]
The following was written in the 1980s:
In the late 1970s, it was an open secret in New York that Arab diplomats never invited their black counterparts to their receptions. The ex-President of Senegal, Leopold Scn- ghor, was hesitant in giving recognition to the Polisario Front of SADR because whenever the Front took Moroccan prisoners the blacks amongst them were segregated and shot because the little food they had was not meant to feed black people...[264]
It's quite disheartening to learn that black people are being relegated to second-class citizenship in Mauritania. Black African states must protest to the Arab Berber- government of Mauritania and to all Arab states to respect black people. Abuse of black people by Arabs, especially Syrians and Lebanese, has been ignored for too long. ... two sides in the conflict (Arabs and Israelis): they always have praise for Israelis while wondering why the Arabs hate black people.[265]
In the face of these insults and disrespect no African Head of State has been bold enough to raise a voice... This is because either they risk being overthrown or fear sanctions in the form of in the form of withdrawal of Arab petro-dollars. It is high time for African states to forget this senseless and blind solidarity with the Arabs and to think of the emerging Arab apartheid.[266]
A Somali commented: "You know the Arabs are the biggest racists, they are worse than Apartheid. They despise us because we are black".[267]
Scholar speaks about the 'incredible hypocrisy and double standard' of Islamists that criticize racism in the West, while races are never equal in Islamic societies. That Arab racism is rooted in their culture and tradition:
Islamists living in the West often portray Islam as a religion free of racism. They never fail to criticize western countries of its racist attitude and contempt for people who are not of white complexion. It is quite perplexing that these Islamists never look at their own backyard, of blatant, naked racism enmeshed in the Islamic doctrine. Any non-Arab, non-white, who has been to a Middle East Arab country will tell the story of absolute racism practiced there. It is no secret that in rich Arab countries, (such as Saudi Arabia) people of dark complexion, such those from Africa, South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh) receive much lower pay than a white person from the western country would. There is strict, unspoken, racial apartheid practiced in the rich Arab countries...
The Muslims of black complexion will never be equal with the white Arabs. The concept of Islamic ummah, regardless of color and ethnic origin is simply not true.[268]
In the 1930s the dominant strands of Arab nationalism turned increasingly anti-Zionist and anti- Semitic, leaving little place for Jews or other non-Muslim minorities in the Arab world, as Arab nationalist leaders turned to Nazi and fascist models for their inspirations.[269] "After the Great War, royal houses in Iraq, Jordan, and Arabia incorporated a racial version of Pan-Arabism in various quasi-fascist ideologies they endorsed, ideologies that were part and parcel of their preference for the Axis side."[270]
The [roughly] one Million[271] Jewish refugees[272] from Arab countries, the ethnic cleansing,[273] came about as a result of persecution, racism.[274][275]
In 1947 'Arab Apartheid' expelled Jews from Arab lands. The political committee of the Arab League drafted a law that would direct the legal status of Jewish residents in all Arab League. Jewish anti-discriminatory legislation is approved by Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia...[276]
Former S. African citizen, J. Falkson writes that some are
blind to the stark Judenrein apartheid in the autonomous Palestine Authority areas that stare him in the face. So he does not point a finger at Judenrein, apartheid in Jordan for example. Nor to the Judenrein regimes of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Lebanon, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Kuwait, Qatar and others.
Many had viable Jewish communities until 1948 when they were forced to flee for their lives. Some 700,000 made their way to the Jewish State. In the process these states achieved their Judenrein objective – and also stole their property and possessions.[277]
While "The Palestinian refugees who were 'displaced by the fortunes of war after 1948..." the (Arab) order that all Palestinian flee Israel absolves Jews of any responsibility to those whose lands they now inhabit. By contrast, the Arabs brutalized the Jews who lived in Arab countries, as in the destruction of Iraqi Jewish community that had survived every force for centuries, collapsing only in the face of Arab racism.[278]
In fact, the mass exodus of Sephardic, mainly Arabic-speaking, Jews was by no means an inevitable by-product of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was far more of a conscious act of ethnic cleansing by the Arab world than the flight of Palestinians from Israel in 1948.[279]
The Jewish population are refugees from terror in Arab-run countries, and where Arab racism against Jews and sub-Saharan Africans is common.[280]
From a writer in The Guardian:
The displacement of Jews from Arab countries was not just a backlash to the creation of Israel and the Arabs' humiliating defeat. The "push" factors were already in place. Arab League states drafted a law in November 1947 branding their Jews as enemy aliens. But non-Muslim minorities, historically despised as dhimmis with few rights, were already being oppressed by Nazi-inspired pan-Arabism and Islamism. These factors sparked the conflict with Zionism, and drive it to this day.[281]
Already in 1960, French Minister J. J. Soustelle, said that "the sources of current anti-Semitism were "the Arab League and Pan-Arabism."[282]
Arab countries like Saudi Arabia ban Jews' entry.[283] Jordanian Nationality Law of 4 February 1954 expressly prohibits Jews from holding Jordanian citizenship. Another Jordanian enactment stipulates that the sale of land to a Jew is punishable by death.[284] And as a writer pointed out: Jews cannot become citizens of Jordan, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, yet no one accuses those nations of apartheid.[285]
Saudi Arabian apartheid's barring of Jews surfaced greater into the Western limelight in 2011, when its official (State owned) airlines forced its code-share partner Delta Airlines to adopt Saudi-Arab[286][287] Nazi type barring of Jews from entering the Islamic "kingdom," no Jews, no Bibles on board to the desert kingdom.[288] As the Dutch Daily Standard has put it, barring Jews is the order of the day in the Apartheid Arab Islamic culture.[289]
There's a worrying wide rampant Arab-Islamic anti-Semitism range from demonization, dehumanization, Nazi cartoons, incitement to kill.[290][291] Watchdogs regularly translate and document the routine hate virus in the Arab-Muslim world by public officials, official TV, Muslim clerics, and wider media.[292]
The extend comes as a shock to the West.[293]
Arab racism has been Islamicized using certain Koranic texts [by radicals] to enhance the intolerance and vilification of Jews. [294]
A writer writing on Arab racists, explains:
the so-called "Palestinians," ... are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Aren't they an oppressed minority? No, as Arabs, they are part of the greater Arab Nation who since the 7th century has conquered, oppressed, and occupied everyone else in the Middle East and North Africa. As radical Muslims, everyone can see that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the other terror groups are continuing down the same path as Bin Laden. In fact, not long before his assassination, Hamas "spiritual leader" Sheikh Yassin had begun speaking about the "Global Jihad" in Bin Laden and al-Qaeda type terms. Hezbollah has also been working in the "Palestinian" administered territories for a while already, as evidenced by Israel's recent capture of a Hezbollah cell in Gaza. So, they are part of the regional oppression network, not the future liberty and freedom alliance that Israel should work to build with other minorities in the area. Like that Arab murderer in Sudan who said, "This land is only for Arabs," the late Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi said not long before his demise, "We will continue with our holy war and resistance until every last criminal Zionist is evicted from this land. By G-d we will not leave one Jew alive in Palestine. We will fight them with all the strength we have. This is our land, not the Jews." Most of the so-called "Palestinians" agreed with him... Arab racism marches on...[295]
An Arab journalist accounts that 'Arabs are taught hatred of Jews with mothers' milk.'[296]
Noted author Bat Yeor wrote on an Arab-Islamic culture of hate: "A racism which denies the history and sufferings of its victims."
Arab racism consists of calling the Land of Israel, Arab land, whereas no Palestinian province, village, or town, including Jerusalem is mentioned either in the Koran or in any Arabic text before the end of the ninth century. On the contrary, these locations are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, which represents the religious and historical heritage of the Jewish people. The Bible, which tells the history of this country, tells it in Hebrew, the language of the country, and not in Arabic. Palestinian racism consists of asserting that the whole history of Israel, biblical history, is Arab, Islamic, and Palestinian history.[297]
A 2009 PEW poll of the Arab Muslim Middle East finds 90% to be anti-Jewish.[298]
In a classic testimony of Arab racism against all Asians, E. Husain:
Throughout my stay in Saudi Arabia I never divulged my Asian ethnicity. My goatee beard and good Arabic ensured that I could pass for an Arab. Besides, I had family members in Saudi Arabia on my mother's side and, technically speaking...
After Syria, I refused to be pigeon-holed by Arab racism, to be seen as an inferior hindi, or Indian. In the racist Arab psyche, hindi is as pejorative as kiiffar. In countless gatherings I silently sat and listened to racist caricatures of a billion people by Saudi bigots.[299]
Arab racism against Arab-Palestinians dates back to 1948, Mike Goldberg wrote "Arab racism: the Palestinian refugees."[300] Arab leaders urged the Palestinian Arabs to flee, promising that the country would soon be liberated. Israelis tried to induce the Arabs to stay.[301] "The Arab States, which have encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help the refugees..." From an Arab newspaper at that time: "The Arab Governments told us ' Get out so that we can get in! ' So we got out, but they did not get in."[302] The mufti of Jerusalem for example, appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, "because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead." As some Arab leaders admitted later on: "For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs."[303]
Though, as the Time notes the Arab nations don't care about the Palestinians,[304] an Arab Christian: writes The Arab nations keep the Palestinians and their descendants in squalor. They are denied citizenship rights. They are denied work. They are denied property. They are denied their human rights because they are and always will be a political football in the Arab campaign against Israel.[305] As former UNRWA director Ralph Galloway astutely noted in 1954: "The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."[306][307]
From an article titled: "Arab Apartheid?" In 1947, Arab leaders rejected a UN plan to form an Arab state alongside Israel and went to war. Encouraged by their leaders to leave Israel, some 600,000 Palestinians became refugees in Arab nations. For over 50 years, Arab nations have denied these Palestinians and their descendants citizenship and basic civil rights, including the right to own property, to get an education, or take out loans. In many cases, Palestinian refugees in Arab countries live in squalid refugee camps without basic services. Why? Hisham Youssef, spokesman for the 22-nation Arab League, has acknowledged that the Palestinians perpetual status as refugees – and "very bad [living] conditions" – are a deliberate Arab policy to help the refugees "preserve their Palestinian identity. If every Palestinian who sought refuge in a certain country was integrated and accommodated into that country, there won't be any reason for them to return to Palestine."[308]
B. D. Yemini in an article titled: 'The Arab Apartheid' elaborates on both the Jewish victims and the Arab-Palestinians:
The real 'Naqba' is the story of the Arab apartheid. Tens of millions, including Jews, suffered from 'Naqba', which included theft, expulsion and becoming a refugee. Only the Palestinians remain refugees because they were victims of persecution and repression at the hands of Arab states. This is the story of the real 'Naqba'.
In the year 1959 the Arab League accepted decision number 1457 and this is its text: "Arab states will reject the giving of citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their integration into the host countries". This is a shocking decision, which stands in stark opposition to international norms on all subjects concerning the treatment of refugees during those years and particularly during that decade. The story began, of course, in the year 1948, the days of the Palestinian 'Naqba'. This is also the beginning of every discussion on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict, with an accusing finger pointed at Israel with the claim that she expelled refugees and turned them into miserable people. This lie has become the property of many from the academia and the media who deal with the subject.
In previous articles on the question of the refugees we have already clarified that there is nothing unique this subject to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Firstly, Arab countries refused to accept the Partition plan and started a war of total destruction against Israel, which had barely been established. Every precedent on this subject reveal that whoever initiates a war, especially with declarations of total destruction, pays a price for that.
Secondly, we are actually talking about an exchange of populations: yes, there were between 550 -710 thousand Arabs (the most accurate calculations are those of Professor Ephraim Karsh, who counted and found numbers between 583-609 thousand. Most ran away, a minority were expelled, because of the war, and a greater number of around 850,000 Jews were expelled or escaped from Arab countries ("the Jewish Naqba[309]").
Thirdly, the Palestinians are not alone in this story. Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm in those years. They happened in tens of other sites of conflict and around 52 million people experienced loss of property, expulsion and uprooting ("And the world lies[310]").
And fourth, in all the precedents of population exchange which took place during or at the end of armed conflict, or against the background of the creation of national entities, or the breakdown of multi-ethnic countries and establishment of national entities – there was no return of refugees to their previous areas which had become a new nation. The uprooted and the refugees, almost without exception, found refuge in places where they joined populations with a similar ethnic background: the ethnic Germans expelled from central and eastern Europe integrated into Germany, the Hungarians expelled from Czechoslovakia and other places found refuge in Hungary, the Ukrainians expelled from Poland found refuge in the Ukraine – and so on. In this sense, the similarity of the Palestinians originating from Mandate Palestine to their neighbours in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon was similar, or even greater than, the similarity between many ethnic Germans and the original state in Germany, sometimes after separation of many generations.
Arab countries, and only they, behaved in the opposite manner to the rest of the nations of the world. They trampled the refugees, despite the fact that they shared the same religion and were part of the same Arab nation. They adopted an apartheid system in every sense. So the 'Naqba', one must remember, was not created by the actual uprooting, as happened to millions. The 'Naqba' is the story of apartheid and persecution which the Arab refugees suffered in Arab countries.
After analysing the Arab apartheid [which is encompassing wide discrimination against many groups in the Arab world, but it entails a "unique"] horrific treatment of Arab-Palestinians and their direct fault for Palestinians' situation in: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Kuwait, Yemini concludes on the clarity of how the Arab so-called "unity" and how this particular group of Arabs became "Palestinians":
These are the main nations in which refugees are to be found. Apartheid exists in other countries too. In Saudi Arabia the refugees from mandatory Palestine did not receive citizenship. In 2004 Saudi Arabia announced concessions, but made it clear that they did not include the Palestinians. Jordan too withholds the naturalisation of 150,000 refugees, most originally from Gaza. In Iraq the refugees actually received preferential treatment under Saddam Hussein's rule, but since his fall, they have become one of the most persecuted groups. Twice, on the Libyan-Egyptian border and on the Syrian-Iraqi border, thousands of Palestinians were expelled to temporary camps, whilst no other Arab country would take them in. That was an amazing display of 'Arab solidarity', on behalf of 'the Arab Ummah'. And it goes on. Palestinians from Libya, refugees from the civil war, are arriving at this time at the border with Egypt, which refuses to let them in.
Time after time the Arab countries have rejected suggestions for the resettlement of the refugees, despite there being both place available and the need. The march goes on. In 1995 the Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi decided to expel 30,000 Palestinians, just because he was angry about the Oslo accords, with the PLO, and about the creation of the Palestinian Authority. A Palestinian doctor, Dr. Ashraf al Hazuz, spent 8 years in a Libyan jail (together with Bulgarian nurses) having been accused of spreading AIDS. In August 2010, before the current uprising, Libya passed laws making the lives of Palestinians impossible. These were the same days in which Libya sent a 'humanitarian aid ship' to the Gaza Strip. There is no limit to the hypocrisy.
These words are just the essence of the apartheid against minorities in the Arab world as a whole, and against the Palestinians in particular. But there is a difference. Whilst the Copts in Egypt or the Kurds in Syria are real minorities, the Arabs from mandate Palestine were supposed to be an integral part of the Arab nation –the Ummah. Two of the symbols of the Palestinian struggle were born in Egypt - Edward Said and Yasser Arafat. Both of them tried to invent for themselves Palestine as a fatherland. Another two of the prominent symbols of the Palestinian struggle are Fawzi Kuakgi (who contended with the Mufti for the leadership of the Arab revolt against the British) and Izz a Din Al Kassam. The first was Lebanese and the second Syrian. There is nothing strange in that. Because the struggle was Arab. Not Palestinian. And despite that the Arabs of mandate Palestine turned into a downtrodden and rejected group, as a result of the Arab defeat in 1948. In the vast majority of the descriptions from those years are of Arabs. Not of Palestinians. Later, only later, did they become Palestinians.[311]
S. Nasser wrote: "Arab racism simmers in Galilee." About Jordanian and Egyptian illegal Arabs that infiltrated Israel and are acting against Israeli Arabs.[312]
In "brotherly" Arab counries like Saudi Arabia, they live in a racist climate, says Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples.[313]
Blogger lays out Arab League's apartheid, listing its members' 'apartheid systems.' [VS 'full democracy' with equal rights for all in Israel].
Arab League apartheid
The reports are in on Israel Apartheid Week, which was held last month in a handful cities and on several university campuses across North America and in the UK. The story was the same everywhere, from New York to Oxford. Hateful, bigoted diatribes from the podium; real debate quashed anytime someone with a different view tried to speak. Utter demonization of Israel—all in the name of human rights.
I am tired of it. So, in the service of fair and open debate, I offer a description of “apartheid” as it is actually practiced among the member and observer states of Israel’s neighbors in the Arab League. My information is largely drawn from the latest Freedom House survey and personal knowledge. The summaries below barely begin to tell the story of human rights abuse and discrimination in these countries.
I do not want to demonize Arab countries, still less Arab people, who are the most direct victims of “apartheid” in their own countries. But I think that if Israel-haters are going to throw the label “apartheid” around, a severe reality check is in order. And I think that in future, students at any campus that is threatened with “Israel Apartheid Week” should organize an “Arab League Apartheid Week” in response.
Of course, the labeling game takes us nowhere in the long run. So I would recommend that any “Arab League Apartheid Week” be accompanied by a petition drive supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state that is democratic, tolerant and at peace with its neighbors. That, hopefully, would take the debate beyond name-calling and towards a productive effort towards resolving the conflict.
But until then, I think the human rights practices of Israel’s neighbors must be exposed to the same level of scrutiny that Israel faces. Abuses in Arab countries do not excuse abuses by Israel, which deserve to be addressed in their own right. However, Israel-bashers should have to explain why they continue to ignore the far graver abuses practiced by every single other country in the Middle East.
First, as a basis of comparison, Israel:
Israel is a full democracy. Jews and Arabs enjoy equal political rights. Press freedom is guaranteed and citizens enjoy freedom of expression, of assembly, and of association. Racial discrimination is illegal. Freedom of religion is protected for all faiths. The judiciary is fiercely independent and women have full equality. Problems persist in the Palestinian territories; these are largely the result of ongoing conflict.
Next, apartheid South Africa:
Apartheid South Africa featured rule by a white minority government and the complete disenfranchisement of the black majority. Media freedom was subject to severe restrictions. Freedom of expression, assembly and association were limited. Many political activists and were banned, arrested or killed by police. The judiciary retained only partial independence. Women’s rights were weakly protected.
And now, the member and observer states of the Arab League:
Algeria
Algerians cannot change their government democratically. Journalists who report human rights violations or corruption risk jail. Islam is the state religion. Under the state of emergency, freedom of assembly is restricted and the judiciary is not independent. Torture is used, and some suspects are “disappeared.” The rights of the Berber minority (20%) are not recognized. Women suffer severe discrimination.
Bahrain
Power has been held by a single family for two centuries. Political parties are illegal. Freedom of expression is limited, and websites have to register with the government. The judiciary is controlled by the executive, and the royal family controls internal security. The Shia majority is underrepresented in government and faces social discrimination. Women are not granted equal protection of the law.
Comoros
One of the few members of the Arab league in which democratic change is possible. Islam is the state religion, and other religions face restrictions; detainees sometimes face forced conversion. Freedom of expression is not fully respected and security forces put down demonstrations with disproportionate force. The former president tried, but failed, to change the constitution to allow himself to remain in office.
Djibouti
Democracy is largely a sham, as the ruling party uses its incumbency to entrench its power. The government owns the main media outlets and freedom of speech is not respected; journalists are jailed if they cover such issues as human rights abuses. Islam is the state religion. Female genital mutilation is a common practice. Opposition groups are harassed and their members are subject to detention.
Egypt
Despite recent elections, Egypt remains an autocracy, and opposition leaders face imprisonment. Freedom of assembly and association barely exiss, and freedom of speech is closely restricted. All TV is state-owned; independent journalists are harassed, and certain books and films are routinely banned. Islam is the state religion. Homosexuality is criminalized. Female genital mutilation is common.
Eritrea
The country is dominated by an autocratic government that suppresses opposition severely. All broadcasting is state-controlled and there is virtually no freedom of the press. Members of minority Christian faiths are persecuted. Students are subject to a form of conscription bordering on forced labor. The judiciary is not independent and torture and other abuses are common, especially toward political prisoners.
Iraq
The country recently held its first democratic elections, and political parties are flourishing. Sectarian violence has led to harsh crackdowns. Freedom of expression is respected, though extremists often target journalists. Freedom of religion is upheld by the government but has been hurt by Sunni-Shia conflict. The judiciary is independent but prison practices remain foul. Women’s rights are improving.
Jordan
An absolute monarchy controls the country. Freedom of expression is restricted and journalists are punished for visiting Israel, with which Jordan is at peace. Jews are barred from citizenship by law. Intelligence agents monitor the press. Islam is the state religion. Freedom of assembly is limited and arrest is often arbitrary. Palestinians are victims of discrimination, as are women, who face honor killings.
Kuwait
The royal family controls the country. Political parties are banned and opposition leaders harassed by the state. Freedom of expression and Internet use are restricted. 300,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1990-2. Islam is the state religion and other faiths must practice in private. There is no judicial independence and freedom of assembly and association are limited. Women face wide discrimination.
Lebanon
The government is dominated by Syria, and faces constant pressure from Hezbollah, a terrorist militia. Parliamentary democracy is largely a sham. Press freedom is wider than in other Arab states but is still limited. Security forces routinely use arbitrary arrests and torture. Citizenship is denied to Palestinians, who face broad discrimination. Women also face some legal and social restrictions.
Libya
Controlled by Qaddafi, the country remains one of the world’s least free. Opposition is illegal and dissent policed by state security forces. Media freedom is non-existent. The government monitors mosques and academic freedom is nil. Freedom of assembly and expression are suppressed. The judiciary is not independent and torture is common. The Berber minority suffers discrimination, as do women.
Mauritania
A military coup in 2005 has led to slow democratic reforms. Press freedom and freedom of assembly were non-existent until recently. Islam is the state religion and other religions are repressed. Slavery is still practiced in parts of the country and racial discrimination against black people is widespread. The judiciary is not independent. Women face discrimination, and many suffer genital mutilation.
Morocco
The country remains a monarchy. Morocco has also brutally occupied Western Sahara for 30 years. Opposition parties exist but are forbidden to challenge the monarchy. Critical journalists are jailed, and the state dominates the media. Academic freedom and freedom of association are restricted. Though there is religious tolerance, Jews are targets of terror attacks. Women still face legal discrimination.
Oman
The country remains an autocracy. Political parties are banned and freedom of expression is limited. Government censorship of the media is common and journalists who criticize the government are arrested. Islam is the state religion and other faiths face restrictions. The judiciary is controlled by the sultan and trials are often held in secret. Africans suffer various kinds of discrimination, as do women.
Palestine
One of the few Arab polities to hold democratic elections, the Palestinian Authority yet exhibits repression independent of Israeli occupation. There is no freedom of the press. The government sponsors anti-Jewish incitement, and land sales to Israelis are punishable by death. Islam is the state religion and religious identification is mandatory. The judiciary is not independent. Women are exposed to honor killings.
Qatar
The emir controls the government, and power is hereditary. Freedom of expression enjoys some protections, but Internet sites are censored. Islam is the state religion; other religions are respected but apostasy is a capital offense. Freedom of assembly, though officially protected, is limited in practice. The judiciary is not independent. Women have some rights but need a man’s permission to get a driver’s license.
Saudi Arabia
Despite a few democratic reforms, the country remains a theocratic autocracy. There are no political parties and no media freedom; offending journalists are banned. There is no religious freedom; Islam is the state religion, period. Petty crimes are punished with corporal punishment, even beheading. Discrimination against Shiites and foreigners is common. Women are virtually non-citizens.
Somalia
Attempts to establish a democratic government have been hampered by civil war and religious and separatist strife. There is no meaningful freedom of the press. Islam is the state religion and other religions are not allowed. There is no rule of law and human rights abuses are rife. Women are the victims of severe discrimination and genital mutilation. Anarchy prevents any real freedom.
Sudan
The autocratic, Arab-dominated government continues to carry out a genocide in Darfur that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Media freedom is non-existent. Islam is the state religion and Christians are victims of persecution. The judiciary is not independent, and human rights abuses are widespread. Women face discrimination and are subject to systematic rape by Janjaweed militiamen.
Syria
The Ba’ath dictatorship is one of the most repressive in the world. Dissidents are arrested and tortured. There is no freedom of the press, freedom of expression or of assembly. A state of emergency has existed for over 40 years. The constitution requires a Muslim president; government is dominated by the Alawite minority, while the Kurdish minority is repressed. Women still face legal discrimination.
Tunisia
The country has been ruled by the same dictator for 20 years. Press freedom is completely non-existent and critical journalists are imprisoned. Islam is the state religion. The judiciary is not independent and trials are largely kangaroo courts. The state routinely uses torture and solitary confinement to punish dissidents. Women enjoy legal protections but suffer discrimination in inheritance law.
United Arab Emirates
The country, which has never held an election, is a total autocracy. There are no political parties and freedom of expression is curbed. Islam is the state religion, though there is religious tolerance. There is no freedom of assembly or association. Non-citizens suffer discrimination, and the judiciary is not independent. Child labor has been common in the camel racing industry, and women suffer discrimination.
Yemen
The country is a virtual one-party state, despite regular parliamentary elections. The media is severely repressed and critical journalists are harassed and beaten. Islam is the state religion and sharia is the foundation of law. Jews and other minorities suffer severe discrimination. The judiciary is controlled by the executive and women face numerous restrictive laws as well as the threat of honor killings.[314]
Jerusalem: real Arab apartheid in "Palestine" under Jordanian rule 1948-1967 Vs. Israel's free & equal status
One of the many ugly faces of Arab apartheid and ethnic cleansing on Jews, was also shown at Israel's early days of re-establishment.
V. Sharpe in "In prayer, Jews face Jerusalem but Muslims face Mecca":
Prior to the miraculous event that took place when the Jewish people's 3,000 year old capital city [of Jerusalem] was restored to the Jewish state in the 1967 Six-Day War. For 19 long years from 1948 to 1967, Jordan had occupied Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the eastern half of Jerusalem. Only Pakistan and Britain had ever recognized Jordan's illegal occupation.
The British officered Jordanian Arab Legion had forced out at gunpoint the Jewish residents of the Old City and the neighboring Jewish villages: It was Apartheid and ethnic cleansing, Arab style.[315]
The historic sharp contrast of the status of Jerusalem, whereas under Jordanian Arab-Islamic rule 1948-1967 it was divided, Jews were chased out and ethnic cleansed, and discriminatory laws were applied. After Israel won over the Arab attackers in 1967, it libertated the holy city, unified it and abolished all discriminatory laws.
From JVL on Jerusalem
City Divided
When the United Nations took up the Palestine question in 1947, it recommended that all of Jerusalem be internationalized. The Jewish Agency, after much soul-searching, agreed to accept internationalization in the hope that in the short-run it would protect the city from bloodshed and the new state from conflict. The Arab states were as bitterly opposed to the internationalization of Jerusalem as they were to the rest of the partition plan. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, subsequently, declared that Israel would no longer accept the internationalization of Jerusalem.
In May 1948, Jordan invaded and occupied east Jerusalem, dividing the city for the first time in its history, and driving thousands of Jews — whose families had lived in the city for centuries — into exile. For the next 19 years, the city was split, with Israel establishing its capital in western Jerusalem and Jordan occupying the eastern section, which included the Old City and most religious shrines.
During the War of Independence, fire from Arab League forces, made it impossible to reach the positions on Mt. Zion. At the time, a tunnel linked Mt. Zion with Yemin Moshe (in Western Jerusalem). The tunnel was very narrow, so Uriel Jefetz (a commander of the Irgun) designed a unique cable car to evacuate the wounded and bring supplies to the soldiers on Mt. Zion. As a result of the reinforcements of this cable car, the Harel Brigade conquered Mt. Zion on May 18, 1948. While it was only in use for half a year the IDF kept the car a secret and in working order from 1948 to 1967.
In 1950, Jordan annexed all the territory it occupied west of the Jordan River, including east Jerusalem. The other Arab countries denied formal recognition of the Jordanian move, and the Arab League considered expelling Jordan from membership. Eventually, a compromise was worked out by which the other Arab governments agreed to view all the West Bank and east Jerusalem as held "in trust" by Jordan for the Palestinians.
From 1948-67, the city was divided between Israel and Jordan. Israel made western Jerusalem its capital; Jordan occupied the eastern section. Because Jordan — like all the Arab states at the time — maintained a state of war with Israel, the city became two armed camps, replete with concrete walls and bunkers, barbed-wire fences, minefields and other military fortifications.
Broken grave stones in the Mount of Olives cemetery
In violation of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, Jordan denied Israelis access to the Temple Wall and to the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, where Jews have been burying their dead for 2,500 years. Jordan actually went further and desecrated Jewish holy places. King Hussein permitted the construction of a road to the Intercontinental Hotel across the Mount of Olives cemetery. Hundreds of Jewish graves were destroyed by a highway that could have easily been built elsewhere. The gravestones, honoring the memory of rabbis and sages, were used by the engineer corps of the Jordanian Arab Legion as pavement and latrines in army camps. The ancient Jewish Quarter of the Old City was ravaged, 58 Jerusalem synagogues — some centuries old — were destroyed or ruined, others were turned into stables and chicken coops. Slum dwellings were built abutting the Western Wall.
Jews were not the only ones who found their freedom impeded. Under Jordanian rule, Israeli Christians were subjected to various restrictions, with only limited numbers allowed to visit the Old City and Bethlehem at Christmas and Easter. Because of these repressive policies, many Christians emigrated from Jerusalem, leading their numbers to dwindle from 25,000 in 1949 to less than 13,000 in June 1967.
Jerusalem is Unified
In 1967, Jordan ignored Israeli pleas to stay out of the Six-Day War and attacked the western part of the city. The Jordanians were routed by Israeli forces and driven out of east Jerusalem, allowing the city's unity to be restored. Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s mayor for 28 years, called the reunification of the city "the practical realization of the Zionist movement's goals."
Freedom of Religion
The Temple Mount
After the war, Israel abolished all the discriminatory laws promulgated by Jordan and adopted its own tough standard for safeguarding access to religious shrines. "Whoever does anything that is likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the various religions to the places sacred to them," Israeli law stipulates, is "liable to imprisonment for a term of five years." Israel also entrusted administration of the holy places to their respective religious authorities.
Muslim rights on the Temple Mount, the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa Mosque, have not been infringed, and the holy places are under the supervision of the Muslim Waqf. Although it is the holiest site in Judaism, Israel has left the Temple Mount under the control of Muslim religious authorities.
Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians — many from Arab countries that remain in a state of war with Israel — have come to Jerusalem to see their holy places. Arab leaders are free to visit Jerusalem to pray if they wish to, just as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat did at the El-Aksa mosque.
Along with religious freedom, Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem have unprecedented political rights. Arab residents were given the choice of whether to become Israeli citizens. Most chose to retain their Jordanian citizenship. Moreover, regardless of whether they are citizens, Jerusalem Arabs are permitted to vote in municipal elections and play a role in the administration of the city.[316]
Indeed, some lament: "The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall."[317][318]
Racist isolation and boycott campaign since 1945
Copying "The most notable example of an anti-Jewish boycott.. that instituted by the Nazis in 1933."[319] Arab nations started boycotting Jewish products even before the modern State of Israel, in 1945.[320] In recent years it has also been linked with causing racism against Jews.[321] In "BDS, Anti-Semitism's New Face," the writer expands on the movement to "isolate Israel as part of their program to destroy Israel."[322] One of the major pushers for the "divestment campaign" to isolate Israel, is The Arab based 'CounterPunch.' (hosted by Pilosoft, which hosts as well various Arab organizations including aljadid, associated with the ADC Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and) It is also one of the leading "truthers," malevolently spreading around conspiracy theories about the Islamic 9/11 attack.[323] The Palestinian lobby... strategy of Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions, itself an extension of a racist Arab League boycott campaign against Jews that goes back (formally) to 1945 - years before the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel.[324] Scholar explains the roots of modern boycott:
This antecedent movement is unabashedly anti-semitic and racist, having started with a de facto boycott as early as 1922 against Jewish interests, not Israeli interests, 26 years prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. The Arab League Council formally instated a boycott on December 2, 1945: "Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries". That, might I remind you, is a little less than 3 years before the establishment of the State of Israel and 22 years before the "occupation" began following the 6-Day War in 1967.
The Arab-League Boycott and the modern DFI are not one in the same; however, they share the same ideological roots of racism and anti-Semitism towards anyone from Israel. During the initial years of the Arab-League Boycott, all products, whether made by Jew or Arab were boycotted...[325]
Author G. Jochnowitz:
Despite Israel's lack of importance and despite the weakness of the moral charges against it, Israel is an outcast. Israeli nationalism - Zionism - has been declared racism. The Arab League enforces secondary and tertiary boycotts against Israel. Jews may not enter Saudi Arabia, except for American soldiers. Malaysia forbids the performance of "Jewish" music. This endless policy of boycott and non-recognition is officially the policy of most Arab states. Countries like Libya, Iraq or Saudi Arabia have never suggested that they would make peace if Israel did X or Y or Z. Their opposition to Israel, supported by leftists everywhere in the world, is one of permanent enmity. Since such a stance excludes the possibility of peace, it is implicitly genocidal and therefore radically evil.[326]
In a classical example, an ardent anti-Israel "advocate", who has -for a long time- called for a boycott of Israeli goods, jumped to the next step by calling (in 2009): "Do not buy anything from businesses run by the Jewish community."[327]
Arab nationalism, Fascism and Nazism
Arab nationalist movements are deeply rooted in the Fascist and Nazi rise of the 1920's and 1930's, "literally all of the founders of Arab nationalism, Amin el-Husseini, Sati' al-Husri, Michel Aflaq, and others, were in this category: Arab nationalism itself was a direct imitation of German nationalism during the interwar period when the Germans turned to Nazism."[328] One of the first [modern] pan-Arab and pan-Islamic leader/hero was Hitler's staunch ally, the Mufti of "Palestine."[329][330][331]
Arab officials requested from the Nazis in 1933 the establishing of Arab Nazi Parties in Palestine and in Iraq. It was rejected by Nazi officials at that time.[332] (It seems, the Germans didn't pick -what they considered- a member of the "monkey" race, as Hilter regarded the Arabs,[333] but a "pure Aryan," like: Ben Salem, former SS-Bann- fuehrer Bernard Bender, who was Chief of the Gestapo Special Branch for detection of Jewish underground movements in Poland and Russia,[334] ran the Political Section of the Egyptian Gestapo, and was called by the Germans the chief of the Arab Nazi party and chosen by the enemy as the future representative of the Arabs in the political meaning of the word.[335]) Nevertheless, an Arab Nazi Party in Palestine was in effect active later on by the Husseinis who used the Palestinian Arab Party for it.[336]
The "pan-Arab and pan-Islamic alliance with the Nazi regime,"[337] has a long lingering impact till today,[338] with parallel ideologies and aspirations in pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism.[339]
Libya
The Libyan Arab Republic is a major hub in the slavery market coming out of the Arab-Islamic controlled Khartom regime.[340] There have been major racist attacks against African migrant workers,[341] Over the years, reports have surfaced of harsh, sometimes xenophobic, behaviour by Libyans towards black African migrant workers.[342] Blacks have been used as scapegoat in the 2011 uprising against the oppressive regime of Gadhafi.[343] Gadhafi is accused of bringing a truly racist crusade against Chad and Africa,[344] and for pushing the Arabization in the Sudan-Chad region via a racist pan-Arab ideology, Arab supremacy on non-Arabs.[345]
Berbers spoke out against "Gaddafi's dictatorship to stop its discriminatory apartheid policy on all things Amazigh."[346] World Amazigh Congress in January 2011 stated that "The Khadafi regime... continues to follow its apartheid politics towards Imazighen, depriving them of their language and culture, and threatening them with death when they claim their Amazigh identity."[347] In May 2011, Berber activists held the "Moroccan flag during a protest." In "solidarity with Bouzakhar brothers detained by the Libyan apartheid regime."[348]
Iraq
The Ba'ath regime since the 1950s' was regarded "a kind of Arab Nazi Party."[349]
In Iraq, the racist fringe has come to occupy center stage; it was Saddam Hussein's foster-father, uncle, and father-in-law Khairullah Tulfa who wrote the edifying pamphlet. Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies.[350][351]
Sunnis in Iraq have viciously enforced ethnic and religious apartheid in Iraq for over 40 years against minorities such as: Kurds, Shia and Marsh Arabs.[352] The Sunni ruling class of this Iraqi minority, behaved like Apartheid of South Africa, against the rest of Iraqi diversity.[353]
Saddam, in his racist anti non-Arab hatred of the Kurds,[354][355] has carried out the genocide in Anfal, where he used chemical weapons, with a clear goal of ethnic cleansing the Kurdish population.[356] He also conducted ethnic cleansing against the Shi'a Iraqis and the Marsh Arabs whose culture has flourished for more than a millennium.[357][358]
The Times has put it "Kurdish and marsh Arab genocide and anti Shi'ite apartheid."[359] Even today, the Kurds suffer second class status and racism.[360]
Arab "Palestinians," have been brutally targeted in Iraq, Palestinians face rape, torture, death in post-2003 Iraq, desperately in need of help to leave county.[M.E. OnLine, Nov, 2006. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=18521] There has been a real Palestinians: 'Ethnic cleansing' in Iraq, especially in 2006.[361]
Black Iraqis face racism.[362]
Yemen
The section with a darker complexion, the indigenous al-Akhdam, the "lowest" class, have been subject to cruel racial stigmatization, harsh discrimination and oppression.[363][364]
From a report submitted to the UN, in May 2011 on the "human rights situation of the Al-Akhdam population":
The report focuses specifically on the human rights situation of the Al-Akhdam community in Yemen, a situation which has been addressed by the Committee in the List of Issues
For centuries the Al-Akhdam has suffered perpetual discrimination, persecution and ensuing crimesat Yemens most marginal social, economic, and political spaces where they are violently excluded from mainstream society as an untouchable ethnic outcaste.
Social discrimination faced by the Al-Akhdam
Local folklore proverbs, inherited over generations, have helped isolating the Akhdam socially andhave enhanced enhanced apartheid-like differences.
Such proverbs indicate that the Akhdam are unclean and dirty, e.g. Never be lured by Akhdam, who are dirty even in bones or: If a dog eats in your saucer, clean it; but if a khadem eats in your saucer, break it.[365][366]
Palestinian-Arabs
1) Anti-black Arab racism in the area of Palestine dates back at least since the Bedouins' owning African slaves.[367] The groups of black people living in the Negev and as refugees in Gaza today are the descendants of slaves of the Bedouin.[368][369][370] In Arabic "oabd," pl. "oabid."[371] However, slavery as an institution faded away by the Bedouins only when they came under the Israelis.[372] Under the old system slaves could not sit in the guest tent, or shig, at the same level as their masters. In some places this is still observed, with the role of the black people as inferior "servants."[373]
Arab-Palestinian authority has been condemned[374] for a racist cartoon against African-American C. Rice[375][376] by its press. The Hamas authority in Gaza portrayed C. Rice as a "black snake."[377]
2) Targeting of civilian Jews by Arab Palestinians and Hezbollah only because they are Jews, has been well noted, despite all excuses under which Arab-Islamic attackers hide under.[378] A writer in Haaretz exposes the racism of Arabs (in Israel/Palestine) justifying terror against Jews: Terrorism is many things, but justifiable is not among them. The person who justifies terror in any form, is declaring that it is legitimate in certain cases to kill innocent people. If justifying the murder of innocents because they belong to a certain hated group is not abject racism, I'd like to know what is.[379]
During Israel's anti-terror operation in Jenin (2002), Arab "Palestinians" refused [to be helped/cured by] blood donations from Jews, because they didn't want 'Jewish blood.'[380] Jews are frequently described as [in radical Islamic teaching] "apes and pigs."[381] This typical Palestinian-Arab racism of dehumanization of Jews is shamelessly paraded on national TV.[382] The constant Anti-Jewish hatred campaign by Palestinian political, religious Authority and media is documented.[383]
Hamas, and its anti-Jewish hate literature was connected,[384] for example, to the Islamic gang "The Barbarians," who in 2006, kidnapped Ilan Halimi in Paris, targeted for being a Jew,[385] tortured him for over 3 weeks,[386] often while the Quran was recited.[387][388][389] Kidnappers were torturing Halimi - for their amusement,[390] then stabbed him and set him alight.[391]
JPost article decries Arab racism's plan for [ethnic cleansing] "No Jews in Judea," and how critics are pre-occupied with Israel who's "ultra-tolerant", yet, are silent about Arab racism.[392]
Researcher I. Marcus shows the "striking similiarities of Palestinian and Nazi racism," and the taboo -since WW2- of incitement to genocide of Jews, that has been broken by the Palestinian authority.[393]
3) The refugees of 1948's plight under 'Palestinian authority' has been categorized as an apartheid status.
In an article titled "Enforced Misery: The PA and the Balata 'Refugee' Camp," A. H. Miller asks: Where are the flotillas protesting the PA's version of apartheid?
If you want to use the term "apartheid" to characterize some aspect of Middle East politics, then Balata is a good place to apply it. It is the Palestinian Authority's answer to Soweto.
The PA does not permit the children of Balata to go to local schools. It does not permit the people of Balata to build outside the one square kilometer. The people of Balata are prevented from voting in local elections, and the PA provides none of the funds for the necessary infrastructure of the camp - including sewers and roads.
Balata and the other refugee camps are showcases of contrived misery. They are Potemkin villages in reverse. Naïve peace activists and unsophisticated Western clergy are led through such camps to witness the refugee drama, with Israel conveniently and prominently cast in the role of villain.
Originally, there were about 700,000 Palestinian refugees. Because the Palestinians have rewritten the meaning of the term "refugee," creating refugees that transcend generations; there are now 4.5 million Palestinian refugees.
The original number of Palestinian refugees is roughly equivalent to the number of Mizrahi Jews that were forcibly evicted from the Arab and Islamic world after the establishment of the state of Israel. Israel, and to a lesser degree the West, absorbed these refugees. Within three years, they ceased being refugees. Today, neither they nor their descendants inhabit dismal, overcrowded camps, living as a people apart and without hope.
The Arab world supposedly cares about the plight of the Palestinians. But the Arabs have done little to transform Palestinian refugees into citizens. With the exception of Jordan, Palestinian refugees have been treated throughout the Arab world as a people apart - people to be showcased, but not to be extended a modicum of civility and compassion.[394]
S. Stern exposed 'the hypocrisy of the Palestinians when it comes to hurling accusations of "apartheid,"' under "Mr Abbas tear down this wall":
Balata's Palestinian residents are prohibited, by the Palestinian Authority, from building homes outside the camp's official boundaries. They do not vote on municipal issues and receive no PA funding for roads or sanitation. As part of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's "economic renaissance" and state-building project, a brand new Palestinian city named Rawabi is planned for the West Bank near Bethlehem. But there will be no room at the inn for the Balata refugees. Sixty years after the first Arab-Israeli war, Balata might accurately be defined as a UN-administered, quasi-apartheid, welfare ghetto.
This historical and political absurdity-unique in the experience of the world's tens of millions of refugees displaced by modern war and political conflict-helps explain why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas walked away from the best deal his people have ever been offered. It happened in November 2008, when Ehud Olmert, then the prime minister of Israel, presented him with a detailed map of a future Palestinian state that, with land swaps, would constitute close to 100 percent of the territory of the West Bank and Gaza prior to the June 1967 war. Olmert also offered to divide Jerusalem, enabling the Palestinians to locate their capital in the eastern half of the city. The only thing he would not agree to was a right of return for Palestinian refugees-for the obvious reason that this would mean the end of the Jewish state.[395]
4) The "Palestinian" Arabs have a long history of targeting the ethnic Maronite Christians. As a result of the Syria-Palestinian crimes in Lebanon, there are charges that they're responsible for the deaths of approximately 100,000 Lebanese and the flight of about a half a million people from the country.[396] One of the highlighted massacres was in Damour, 1976, which proceeded the Sabra Shatila "reprisal"[397] attack by the Christians.[398]
See extensive info on official #PALESTINE ARAB ISLAMIC APARTHEID.
Gulf Arabs
Some two million Asian maids are subjected to physical abuse, beating, sexual harassment, rape in Gulf states, without proper legal cover.[399]
In an extended article about "Arab Racism against Non-Arabs: Slavery in our Times," Pakistani journalist traces the current racism and Arab supremacy against all non-Arabs to the early days of Islam. [400] Saudi Arabia has been especially noted for harsh treatments of South Asians.[401] Amnesty charged on Saudi Arabia that Asian workers continue to suffer behind closed doors.[402]
In one example, the Daily Mail published (Nov. 2010) "Shocking photos of Indonesian maid after Saudi employer hacked off her lips." As activists put it: 'Again and again we hear about slavery-like conditions, torture, sexual abuse and even death, but our government has chosen to ignore it. Why? Because migrant workers generate $7.5billion of dollars (£4.7billion) in foreign exchange every year.'[403]
New York Times' columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about: "gender apartheid," on "the plight of maids in Saudi Arabia," and that "many workers are on death row and don't get a fair trial."[404]
Sri Lankan maids are abused across the Arab middle east.[405]
From some atrocious examples: a maid 'held hostage' for 14 years in Saudi Arabia. Campaigners decry "widespread abuse, and conditions close to slavery. Sexual abuse and physical violence are often reported." One incident, which received widespread publicity, involved a Sri Lankan maid repatriated after having nails hammered into her legs, hands and forehead.[406] From a 2011 report: "Nepali women victims of prostitution and slavery in Arab countries", asserts that "hundreds of women emigrated for work to Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Islamic countries, and have not been heard from for years. Those who succeed in returning home shows signs of physical exhaustion, injuries and are often infected with AIDS."[407] Worth mentioning, that the Saudis "supplied oil to the apartheid regime in South Africa to help it survive an international boycott."[408] The UAE has been accused of slavery of Asians (mainly Pakistanis and Indians), keeping them in horrindes conditions and exploiting them immensely.[409] After an outcry, the government was finally forced to acknowledge and adnmit to the wide 'racism in Dubai.'[410] N. Malik wrote in The Guardian (2011) "Dubai's skyscrapers, stained by the blood of migrant workerson," that "It seems to me a place where the worst of western capitalism and the worst of Gulf Arab racism meet in a horrible vortex."[411] The South Asian slaves under the Arab business elites have been dubbed "The second coming of Saladin."[412] An estimated 10 million Asians work in the Emirates in quasi-slave.[413] F. Ghitis wrote (in 2010): "Foreign women are treated like slaves," citing testimony that "nothing compares to the plight of South Asian women in Saudi Arabia."
Saudi Arabia hosts some eight million foreigners, mostly poor people from Asia and the Middle East, desperate for work. Hundreds of thousands are women employed as domestic workers, living in conditions that are often no better than slavery. Some 400,000 Sri Lankans live there, mostly women working in private homes. Too many of them experience horrific abuse, including beatings, rape and even murder.
Sri Lankan politician Ranjan Ramanayake says he frequently receives pleading calls from relatives of workers in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is the worst, he noted. "It is followed by Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Abu Dhabi. Our mothers, sisters and daughters undergo unspeakable harassment.[414]
Some reported that 'Indian maids tortured, denied food, treated worse than dogs,' in Qatar.[415]
Mr. Yemini on historic Kuwaiti-Arab apartheid against Arab-Palestinians:
In 1991 Palestinians made up 30% of the country's population. Compared to other Arab countries, their situation was reasonable. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In the framework of attempts at compromise which preceded the first Gulf war, Saddam brought up the 'suggestion' of withdrawal from Kuwait in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank. The PLO with Yasser Arafat at its head supported Saddam. That support was the opening shot for one of the worst events in Palestinian history. After the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation began an anti-Palestinian campaign which included persecution, arrests and show trials. The difficult saga ended with the expulsion of 450,000 Palestinians. Some of which, incidentally, had been there since the 1930s and many had no connection to Arafat's support for Saddam. And despite that, they were subject to collective punishment, transfer of proportions similar to the 'Naqba' of 1948, which barely merited a mention in the world media. There are numerous academic papers on the expulsion and fleeing in 1948. There are close to zero papers on the subject of the 'Naqba' of '91.[416]
The Arab-Sunni anti-Shiite oppression in Bahrain, defined as apartheid, is not only culturally and religiously separation,[417] but ethnically[418] and racist as well. Or as some called it "Arab apartheid." New York Times' N. Kristof asked: "Is this Apartheid in Bahrain?"[419] Subsequently there were calls for
How About a Bahraini Apartheid Week? P. Benson asks:
Can you imagine the outrage if Israel treated Israeli Arabs and Palestinians the same way Kristof describes Bahrain's Sunni elite treating Shias?
There's a fear of the rabble, a distrust of full democracy, a sense of entitlement. Apartheid isn't exactly the right metaphor, because there isn't formal separation (although neighborhoods are often either Sunni or Shia), and people routinely have very close friends of the other sect. But how can a system when 70 percent of the population is not eligible for the army be considered fair? How can a system in which the leading cabinet positions are filled by one family be considered fair?
The government talks about "unity" and complains that the opposition is encouraging sectarianism. Please! An American friend was on the roundabout Thursday morning when police attacked. They caught him but when they saw he was American they were friendly and said they were hunting Shia only. My friend said the experience left him feeling icy, as if they were hunting rats. And several people I talked to who were there said that the police used anti-Shia epithets and curses as they were beating prisoners.[420]
New York Times' Anthony Shadid in an (Aug. 2011) overview "After Arab Revolts, Reigns of Uncertainty,"
... Syrian rebels denounce Hezbollah, which prides itself on its resistance to Israel. Bahrain withdrew its ambassador from Damascus as it carried out a crackdown on its Shiite majority that smacks of apartheid.[421]
And on the HuffintonPost S. Cohen wrote: "Bahrain: The Missing 'A' Word"
In all the coverage of the freedom protests in Bahrain, a certain word beginning with the letter 'A' has been strikingly absent.
I don't mean 'autocratic.' Nor 'authoritarian.' Both of those have been invoked, and rightly so.
I refer to the word 'apartheid.' The Afrikaner term for 'separateness,' apartheid prevailed in South Africa from 1948 until 1993, when that country was under white minority rule.
While apartheid as a system was snuffed out in South Africa, it has survived as a descriptor that is deployed, in the main, by the bitterest detractors of Israel, but is arguably more relevant in the case of another Middle Eastern country: Bahrain.
It's always worth recalling what the original model of apartheid involved. In South Africa, 90 percent of the population was composed of non-whites (blacks in the main, but also mixed race and Indian communities) who were disenfranchised and deprived of fundamental human and civil rights.
Through such measures as the Group Areas Act (1950), the Bantu Education Act (1953), the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1953), the Suppression of Communism Act (1950), and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949), the apartheid regime micromanaged the lives of its subjects on the basis of their skin color. Under apartheid, it was the law that determined where blacks could live, what they could study, which seats they could occupy on public transport, what they could say or write publicly, with whom they could share a bed or marry.
It was this reliance on law that made apartheid South Africa peculiar. Discrimination is a feature of most countries, but very few enshrine it within a legal framework.
In Bahrain, where 70 per cent of the population is Shi'a, and power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of the Sunni minority, the constitution speaks of equality -- formally, then, it's very different to apartheid South Africa. Yet when it comes to actual practice, the similarities are striking, as this report from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) makes painfully clear.
Mr. Cohen goes on about the ethnic separation in apartheid Bahrain:
Residency rights, for example, are at least partly determined by ethnic origin. The report discusses "one of Bahrain's largest district, Riffa," which occupies "more than 40 percent of Bahrain land, in which a majority of the members of ruling family reside." Shi'a and some Persian origin Sunnis, the report continues, are prohibited from living there. A Reuters report last October highlighted a related problem: the 53,000 Shi'a who have been denied government housing because of their origin, some for as long as 20 years.
It's a similar story in the labor market. "Employment in government bureaus does not follow a clear and specific standard, but is governed by family and sectarian connections," the BCHR report says, pointing out that the Shi'a majority occupies, at most, 18 percent of the top jobs in government. When it comes to unemployment, 95 percent of those without jobs are Shi'a.
Do these facts about discrimination in Bahrain add up to apartheid? A sober analysis based on the understanding of apartheid as a system, rather than a pejorative term to be thrown at those you don't like, would conclude that the overlap is hardly precise. At the same time, there is no arguing against the claim that Bahrain is a society where inequality is ethnically rooted, and then buttressed by the denial of civic and political freedoms.
He exposes the real agenda of those loud shouters of "apartheid" only to propogate against Israel while being silent where (really) applicable:
Bahrain is not the only Arab country where minorities rule over majorities: Syria is another, as was Iraq under Saddam Hussein. In none of these cases has the word "apartheid" ever been uttered. Those South Africans, such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, who have eagerly franchised the word in the case of Israel have been absolutely silent when it comes to Arab parallels. And believe me, it's not because they are worried about social scientific rigor.[422]
One can catch a glimpse into (tightly closed) racist Saudi Arab society from a Sunday Times article titled "How a British jihadi saw the light." Testimony includes,
Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. My students often used the word "nigger" to describe black people. Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins.[423]
it even stretches to inter-Saudi racism with one tribe singing derogatory odes about another tribe.[424]
Al-Nuwaisser, describes his (2007) book "Sami, an unwanted child, deals with corruption and racism in Saudi Arabia."[425]
In "Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis," John R. Bradley Wrote about racism in Saudi Arabia to its dark skinned citizens
A desirable quarter at the height of the oil-boom years of the 1970s, Al-Ruwais has become one of the last places any Saudi would choose to live (and since Westerners have become the targets of Islamists they, ... though, it merely proved unpleasant, with its crumbling villas and dingy, pot-holed lanes that lead from the main roads to pockets of slum housing, where trash remained uncollected for weeks and sewage trickled down the crushed, rat-infested gutters. Its inhabitants were still mostly Saudis, but almost all of them were not only poor but also black: an early hint of how the endemic racism in Saudi society is not directed exclusively at Third World immigrants. There were other hints, too...[426]
Author R. Loimeier cites:
Many African Muslims who studied in Saudi Arabia did in fact not become Wahhābī but were appalled by many aspects of life in Saudi Arabia , such as Saudi racism toward Africans and the hypocrisy of Saudi lifestyles ( outwardly religious, inwardly Western and materialistic).[427]
Turkey
In 2003, the 'European Armenian Federation' urged EU to Denounce Turkey’s Anti Armenian Apartheid Policies Stating: "The European Commission should be well aware that blaming low level officials for continued human rights abuses and violations is the Turkish Government’s usual alibi in its effort to clean up its image with international organization," After it was unveiled that while the report cites a number of human rights violations related to freedom of speech–rights of minorities–torture–and the lack of constitutional law–it does not highlight the lack of political will to bring about positive change. Further–while the report apparently discusses the hardships of most non-Muslim minorities in Turkey–it refrains from focusing on the ongoing policy of oppression against the Armenian minority in that country.
Furthermore: "In addition to the religious discrimination that all Christian minorities suffer in Turkey–the Armenia’s–who are descendants of the victims of the genocide committed by the Turkish government–are subjected to a distinct policy of racism–an anti-Armenian policy of apartheid," added Tchoboian.
"Their collective rights continue to be violated through threats of confiscation and expropriation of school facilities–churches and community institutions and daily attacks on their freedom of speech–opinion and conscience. Here again–despite the promise of reforms–the government has erected insurmountable obstacles and attributed them to the poor application of the law by "local officials."
Tchoboian cited a directive issued by Turkish Minister of Education Huseyin Celik earlier this year as a flagrant example of the ongoing oppression of the Armenian minority. The April 14–2003–decree mandated that all schools in Turkey–including Armenian schools–sponsor essay competitions and events denying the Armenian Genocide. Turkish teachers who questioned the circular have been arrested and dismissed from their jobs. "This policy was orchestrated by top government leaders–not by local officials," remarked Tchoboian.
The Chairperson of the European Armenian Federation warned that the absence of firm action by European authorities serves to encourage the Turkish authorities to extend with impunity their policy and practices of denial to the university level. The European Parliament’s concerns regarding this issue–as expressed in the Oostlander report–should trigger a response by European executive authorities against Turkey’s racist decrees."[428]
Turkey's Constitution provides a single nationality designation for all Turks and thus does not recognize ethnic groups as national, racial, or ethnic minorities.[429] Greek critic wrote on the Kemalist exclusiveness racist ideology in an article entitled: "Turks: Racist Violence in Turkey. Turks: Racist Practices."[430]
In Muslim Turkey, victims include : Greeks, [some of anti-Greek racism by Muslim Turkey is due to Turkey's ethnic cleansing crimes,[431]] Armenians, Kurds, Jews (For example, on March 2010, A Turkish newspaper reports that police burst into an Istanbul synagogue during recent Sabbath services and demanded worshipers' ID's.[432]) and others.[433] The Kurds are probably hit hardest in racial persecution.[434] The Ottawa Citizen on the "apartheid week": Turkey and other Muslim countries make sure the Kurds remain stateless and dispossessed - and campus activists couldn't care less...[435] There were reports of Turkey using chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels.[436]
Iraqi-Kurdish cinematographer: "Unfortunately today for Kurds in Turkey, in Syria, in Iran, it is very hard to make movies. It's very difficult to work because there is an apartheid against Kurdish [people], there is no equality, there are no human rights, there is no freedom."[437]
It has been mentioned that Turkey's Constitution is against the Kurds and the apartheid constitution is very similar to it.[438] Author A. Manafy: The Kurdish deprivation of their own culture, language, and tradition is incompatible with democratic norms. It reflects an apartheid system that victimizes minorities like Armenians, Kurds, and Shii Muslems [Shiite Muslims].[439] Some have put it: "religious and racial apartheid."[Official journal of the European Communities: Debates of the European Parliament: Issues 433-435 (1993) http://books.google.com/books?&id=WWWJAAAAMAAJ&dq=isolationism]
In a journalist's words: "racial attacks, genocides and the national oppression policy adopted against the Kurdish people in Turkey."[440]
There's an exclusion and a supremacy against Kurds and non-Muslims in Turkey.[441] Kurdish activists called for: sit-ins and demonstrations to end the Turkish version of the Apartheid.[442]
Greeks wrote extensively on Turkey's Aggression, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Apartheid Policy in Cyprus.[443] The quotas on the "resettlement" of Greeks limited to a Turkish Muslim majority has been branded a real apartheid.[444]
Under title "Will the Wall Tumble Down?" written in the Houston Post and appaering in the 'U.S. Government Printing Office Home Page,' (March 1994):
To cross the border, you first show your passport to Greek Cypriot military officials. They will let you by, but only after asking politely that you not go. They point to a hand-painted sign that reads:
Attention!
Beyond this checkpoint is an area of Cyprus still occupied by Turkish troops since the invasion in 1974. The invaders expelled 180,000 Cypriots of Greek origin from their ancestral home and brought over colonists from mainland Turkey to replace them.
Enjoy yourself in this land of racial purity and true apartheid.
Enjoy the sight of our desecrated churches.
Enjoy what remains of our looted heritage and homes.
Below the sign is a painting of Cyprus with a bloody dagger stuck through the heart of Nicosia.[445]
Some spoke out (1994) in the US Governent against Turkey's "apartheid and partition policies" on Cyprus.[446]
A journalist reminds us: "Turkey continues to harass and persecute its Alevis, Kurds, Zoroastrians and other minorities." and asks: How many Christians or Jews, for example, are in its government?[447]
There's wide Islamic religious discrimination[448] against the Alevi minority in Turkey, they have a history of persecution and apartheid, past and present in that country.[449][450]
Iran
Islamic Republic of Iran treats its Arabs as second class citizens.[451] Often, Ahwazi Arabs face Execution in Iran.[452][453]
Ahwaz Human Rights Organization speaking on behalf of Arab-Iranian or Ahwazi Arab [indigenous] minority in Iran: "since 1925 its been dominated and ruled by the Persian ethnic group –thus creating a cultural and a linguistic apartheid."[454]
In 2010, the UN anti-racism panel found Iran discriminating against Kurds, Arabs and other ethnic minorities. The racism body decried Iran's horrific treatment of its subjects.[455]
Indeed the UNPO organization decried (in 2010): "Iran An Unknown Apartheid,"
Iranian representatives plead for international community to address bigotry towards minorities.
UNPO representatives addressed Permanent Missions in the UN on Friday 12 February to decry the situation of minorities within the Islamic Republic of Iran, just days before Iran comes under examination in their first ever Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council.
The event hosted by Interfaith International and UNPO provided a platform for debate and discussion of rights violations with a particular focus on the Baloch, Ahwazi Arab, Azerbaijani Turk and Kurdish minorities.
In reference to the obstacles placed before religious and ethnic minorities in the workplace and to gain access to university, Mr. Nasser Boladai from West Balochistan denounced life for many citizens in Iran as a form of "apartheid about which the world is unaware".[456]
There are charges of the Islamic Republic's racism and apartheid against non-Iranians even in sports.[457]
Filmaker spoke out on Iran's "apartheid against Kurdish [people], there is no equality, there are no human rights, there is no freedom."[458]
In "Iran and the challenge of diversity: Islamic fundamentalism, Aryanist racism, and democratic struggles," author A. Asgharzadeh interrogates the racist construction of Arya/Aria and Aryanism in an Iranian context, arguing that a racialized interpretation of these concepts has given the Indo-European speaking Persian ethnic group an advantage over Iran's non-Persian nationalities and communities. [459]
On Iranian racism, author elaborates: the bogus pro- Palestinian politics of the reigning regime degenerates into an anti-Jewish language. Iranian racism is particularly evident in Tehran, where similar racist negativity is directed at provincial Iranians- the Isfahanis, the Rashtis, the Azaris, the Kurds, the Lors, the Baluchis, the Arabs, or what the Tehranis in moments of unsurpassed whitewashed racism call dehatis, a nasty derogatory term meaning "the peasants." The roots of this Tehrani-based racism is deeply buried in the whitewashed, Eurocentric Iranian bourgeoisie, who grotesquely identify with Europe, dye their hair blond, provincial Iranians.[460] Son of a dark-skinned Iranian tells of Iranian racism in the manner by which his dad was called.[461]
Ahmadinejad was accused of anti-African racism when he called Barack Obama a "house slave."[462]
Iran's Hezbollah
Iranian proxy, [Lebanese based] Hezbollah's TV Al-Manar is termed: 'Beacon of Hatred.'[463][464] Not surprisingly, France, Spain, Germany and the US have all banned al-Manar.[465] 'Der Spiegel' points out in an article titled: "'Wipe Out the Jews': Anti-Semitic Hate Speech in the Name of Islam," that the 'Hamas station', which was founded in 2006, is modeled on the Hezbollah station.[466]
Iran and its Hezbollah Arab terror thugs who aided the Arab-Islamic attackers, murderers of around 3,000 people on 9/11 [2001],[467][468][469][470] were quick to invent 'conspiracy theories' immediately afterwards, [part of a routine] to pin their crimes against humanity on their victims, the Zionists. The venom was spread via its Al-Manar TV.[471] Interesting enough, Al-Qaeda itself refuted it. Osama bin Laden's chief deputy said: "Iran propagated 9/11 theory."[472]
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech delivered in Beirut and aired on Al-Manar TV on September 28, 2001, went on a rant on the Jewish people in general, with Nazi like theories, fusing with radical Islam interpretations.[473] On October 23, 2002 he uttered his genocidal hateful statement: "If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."[474][475][476]
Egypt
From a historic overview on Egypt's ethnic leansing of the indigenous Nubians, forced Arabization and Egyptian racist apartheid policies.
The De-Nubianization Policies in Egypt and the Sudan... the officially explicit and illicit policies aimed at marginalizing the Nubians in both Egypt and the Sudan by, first, driving them away from their historical homelands by systematically impoverishing their region; secondly, re-settling Arab groups in the lands the Nubians leave behind; thirdly, pushing the Nubians into Arabicization through biased educational curricula at the expense of their own languages and culture; fourth, nursing a culture of complicity among the Nubian intellectuals so as to help facilitate these policies... racist and Apartheid-like policy is adopted by the Egyptian government... how the Egyptian government began re-settling them in the Nubian regions which was evacuated four decades ago against the will of its historical people, the Nubians. In doing this the Egyptian government is consciously pushing the Nubians into being completely assimilated and Arabized, a policy pursued by the successive Egyptian governments.[477]
Egypt's blacks suffer racism.[478] Egyptian regime cracked down on African migrants.[479] Egyptian soldiers even killed Darfurians trying to escape into free and democratic state of Israel.[480]
Nubians in Egypt have endured ethnic cleansing[481] and suffer racism.[482]
The Coptic minority, known to be the true native, indigenous Egyptians (pre-dating the Arab-Islamic invaders),[483] have been under severe persecution, especially whenever the Egyptian regime had better relations with the Muslim Brotherhood.[484] Nasser's Arab-Nationalism's policies effected the Copts greatly.[485] The Copts: "We have suffered greatly from racism, sectarianism and this is abhorrent."[486]
British MP Edward Leigh, asked (June, 2000) "to end educational apartheid... and to prevent massacres and killings.."]http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/westminster_hall/2000/jun/14/christians-in-egypt]
Arab-Islamic Egypt has an official 'legalized' apartheid system. Human rights activist E. Bejjani (2011): The first and major failure and setback committed by the "Higher Military Egyptian Council" members was in their stubborn clinging to Article Two in the country's constitution that legalizes discrimination and apartheid. It states verbatim: "Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic is its official language, and the principles of Islamic Sharia are the main source of legislation".[487] Egypt was also accused by Baptists of apartheid against Christians.[488] Others have also described the treatment of its Copts as similar to apartheid.[489][490] Some have put it: "religious and racial apartheid."[Official journal of the European Communities: Debates of the European Parliament: Issues 433-435 (1993) http://books.google.com/books?&id=WWWJAAAAMAAJ&dq=isolationism]
After yet another anti-Christian attack in Egypt (in 2007), activist wrote "Keeping the Copts Subjugated":
..the violent Muslim pogrom in Bimha bears the same features of other anti-Christian pogroms of the past decade. These familiar elements indicate that the security situation for Egypt's indigenous Copts (who are Christian) is growing increasingly tenuous. The tragedy in Bimha takes Egypt another step backwards into religious and ethnic apartheid as it further reinforces Egypt's indigenous Christian Copts not as equal citizens, but as a subjugated people – dhimmis. It also presents Egyptians with yet another precedent which demonstrates that Copts (Egypt's remnant indigenous peoples, the descendants of the Pharaohs, Christians for nearly 2000 years) can be terrorized, robbed and killed with impunity.[491]
In the summer 2010 edition of The Caucus, a political magazine at the University of Ottawa, an elaborated article appeared "Sectarian Violence: Egypt's Version of Apartheid."[492]
After removing H. Mubarak in Egypt in a so-called "Arab spring," (termed also 'Christian Winter'[493]) anti-Christian attacks intensified, Copt activists called (October, 2011): "Please stop religious apartheid in Egypt.
Shame on you Egyptian army and police Beating up viciously Christians peacefully protesting the burning of church in Edfu." And why Egypt doesn't arrest the Mosque's Imam who incites for violence, and the impunity for the Muslim mob attacking church.[494]
Egypt's barring Israelis has been branded an "apartheid" policy.[495]
During celebration of toppling H. Mubarak's regime, a mob with over 200 Arab men in a "wolf pack," brutally attacked a CBS reporter by yelling "Jew!" she was raped multiple times.[496]
Under 'The Arab Apartheid' B. D. Yemini reminds us on the treatment of Arab Palestinians by the Egyptian Arabs:
What happened to the people of the Gaza Strip? How did the Egyptians treat them? Strangely, there are very few items of research relating to those days. But it is a little difficult to hide that not so distant past. The Strip became a closed camp. The exit from Gaza was almost impossible. The Gazans (indigenous and refugees) were subject to strict limitations on employment, education and more. Every evening a curfew was enforced from sunset to sunrise the next day. Only in one field did Egypt help as much as it could: textbooks contained severe incitement against Jews. As early as 1950 Egypt informed the UN that "due to over-population" it could not help the Palestinians by resettling them. That was a suspect excuse. Egypt scuppered a proposal by the UN to re-settle 150,000 refugees in Libya. Even many of the refugees who had run away earlier and were in Egypt proper were forced to move to the giant concentration camp which was being created in the Gaza Strip. In fact, all the proposals for the re-settlement of refugees were brought down by the Arab nations.
Despite the total closure, there are witness statements telling what happened in the Strip in those years. The American journalist Martha Gellhorn visited the refugee camps in 1961. She arrived in the Strip too. It wasn't simple. Gellhorn describes the bureaucratic torture involved in securing an entry visa to Gaza, the days of waiting in Cairo. She also describes the "stark contrast between the pleasantries of the clerks and the anti-Semitic propaganda flowering in Cairo". "The Gaza Strip is not a hole", recounts Gellhorn, "but a big prison. The Government of Egypt is the prison guard". She describes a strict military regime, with all the elite of the Gaza Strip residents expressing devoutly Nasserite views. And so, for instance, "during 13 years (1948-1961) only 300 refugees received temporary exit visas". The only thing the Egyptians provided for the Palestinians was hate propaganda.
This isn't the only witness. In 1966 a Saudi Arabian newspaper published a letter from a resident of the Strip:
"I would be happy if the Strip was conquered by Israel. That way at least we would know that those who abuse our honour, hurt us and torture us – are the Zionist oppressor, Ben Gurion and not the Arab brother whose name is Abdel Nasser. The Jews did not suffer under Hitler as we are suffering under Nasser. In order to go to Cairo or Alexandria or other towns, we have to go through torture."
Radio Jeddah in Saudi Arabia broadcasted the following:
"We are aware of the laws which prevent Palestinians from working in Egypt. We must ask Cairo what is this iron curtain which Abdel Nasser and his band have erected around the strip and the refugees? The military governor in Gaza has forbidden every Arab to travel to Cairo without a military permit, which is valid for only 24 hours. Imagine, Arabs, how Nasser, who claims to be the Arab national pioneer, is behaving towards the miserable Arabs of Gaza, who are starving whilst the military governor and his officers enjoy the riches of the Strip."
Even if we take into account that these are exaggerated descriptions, in a framework of the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Nasser, still we are left with a repressive regime of two decades. And it is worth noting another fact – when Israel got to the Strip the local life expectancy was just 48. After a little more than two decades, life expectancy jumped to 72, and surpassed Egypt. More than allocating points to Israel, this just clarifies the depths in which the Strip was during Egyptian rule.
Refugees from Mandate Palestine also lived in Egypt itself. Many of them did not feel Palestinian and preferred integration. The Egyptians prevented them from achieving that. Apart from a short period of time considered a 'golden era', in some of the years of Nasser's rule, which did not include the Gaza Strip refugees, those in Egypt too suffered restrictions on land purchase, employment in some professions and education (for instance a ban on the establishment of Palestinian schools). Egyptian citizenship law allows citizenship for anyone with an Egyptian father, and was subsequently extended to include Egyptian mothers. But in practice, limitations were placed upon those considered Palestinian. Even an Egyptian court decision to cancel the restrictions did not help. The new regime in Egypt recently promised change. The change, if it does occur, can wipe out years of discrimination, which even reached collective punishment. For instance in 1978 the Egyptian Minister of Culture - Yussuf al Shiba'I - was murdered in Cyprus by an assassin from the Abu Nidal group. In retaliation, the Palestinians suffered a new wave of attacks and the Egyptian Parliament renewed laws putting restrictions on Palestinians in education and employment.[497]
Lebanon
In an exposed "racism on the beaches of Lebanon," it has been revealed the sharp racist and supremacy attitudes by the Gulf Arab and Lebanese-Arab rich towards Asians "inferiors."[498]
In Lebanese apartheid, blacks are not allowed to access swimming pool.[499] From activists' "Anti Racism Movement" in Lebanon (2010)
A group of independent activists organized a direct action on a number of touristic resorts that adopt racist policies towards migrant workers in Lebanon on the basis of color, race, and class.
Some of these resorts had put up signs asking its customers not to bring radio, food and maids to the resort.
After conducting several field researches and verifying the rules and procedures of the resorts, activists went to the resorts identified as the most racist accompanied by an activist of the Madagascari citizenship.
The woman was denied entry by the administration of the resort and no valid reasons were provided.
"We have monitored more than 15 resorts that follow the same traditions and practices of racism against non-whites in Lebanon, reminiscent of the era of apartheid in South Africa, blatant racism in the United States," said the campaign's spokesperson.[500]
The tragedy of an Ethiopian airliner crash in Lebanon, and the racist Lebanese handling of it has highlighted the country's racism.[501]
In 2009, when Lebanon's popular Arab pop singer of white complexion Haifa Wehbe's anti Nubian racist song ("Nubian moinkey") became popular, the attention of Arab racism against Nubians and dark Sudanese surfaced again.[502]
The Arab writer Hazem Saghiyeh who naturally criticizes Israel in atypical blind and prejudicial way [like not recognizing A. Sharon's defense barrier as a factual shield], yet, surprisingly criticized his own country as well, he wrote (in Jan. 2011) on the proposed wall separating Shia from Christians, calling it an “apartheid wall,” that it exposes the divide between these two groups, as part of a larger "apartheid" divide in the Arab-Islamic region.
For the Shia sect, it is worrying that stopping "Shia expansion" is turning into a collective concern among the non-Shia, including Hezbollah's political allies. For the Christian sect, it is worrying that a tendency is growing among them to react to sectarian fear with racial profiling.
What increases the worry for both of these sects' members, and for the Lebanese in general - and for Lebanon itself - is the wide regional climate of banishing the other and forsaking tolerance. This is what we see not only in the crimes committed against Christians in Iraq and Egypt, but also in the growth of the Sunni-Shia struggle across the Islamic world, in the tumultuous conditions in Iraq, in the division of Sudan, and in the potential collapse of Yemen's unity."[503]
Mr. Yemini on historic Lebanese-Arab apartheid against Arab-Palestinians:
In the Gaza Strip the Palestinians only suffered for two decades because of the Egyptian regime. In Lebanon the apartheid continues to this very day. The result is poverty, desolation and high unemployment. Until 1969 there were refugee camps under a harsh military regime in Lebanon. According to Martha Gellhorn's description, most of the refugees lived in a reasonable state. Many even improved their situation compared to the days before the 'Naqba'. But then in 1969 the Cairo Agreement was signed which passed the control of the camps to the refugees themselves. The situation only got worse. Terror factions took control of the camps, which turned them into sites of struggle, mainly violent, between the differing factions.
New research, published in December 2010, presents statistics which make the Gaza Strip look like paradise when compared to Lebanon. Yes, here and there appeared some slight publicity on the subject, but as far as is known, there was no international outcry, and no Turkish or international flotilla.
Unlike in Syria and Jordan, where most of those defined as refugees no longer live in refugee camps, two thirds of the Palestinians in Lebanon live in camps, which are "outposts outside the rule of the state". The most amazing statistic is that despite the fact that around 425,000 are registered with UNWRA as refugees, the research found that only between 260 and 280 thousand Palestinians live in Lebanon. The paradox is that UNWRA gets funding for over 150 thousand people who are not in Lebanon at all. This information alone should have led to a serious investigation by the funding countries (mostly the US and Europe) – but there is no chance that will happen. The question of the Palestinians is laden with so many illusions and lies that another lie makes almost no difference. And so, UNWRA can demand from the international community budgets for 425,000 whilst on its website there appears research showing that this is fiction.
According to the research the refugees suffer from 56% unemployment. It seems that this is the highest figure not only among the Palestinians, but in the entire Arab world. Those who do work are to be found at the bottom of the ladder. Just 6% of those within the work-force have an academic qualification of some kind (compared to 20% in the Lebanese work-force). The result is that 66% of the Palestinians in Lebanon live under the poverty line set at $6 per person per day. That's double the number of Lebanese.
This grim situation is a result of real apartheid. A series of laws in Lebanon limits the right to citizenship, to property and to work within the legal professions, medicine, pharmacy, journalism and more. In August 2010 minimal reform was made to the employment laws but practically, the amendment has not led to any real change. Another rule prevents the entrance of building materials to refugee camps and there are reports of arrests and house demolitions as a result of building in the camps. The partial and limited restrictions which Israel put on the entry of building materials into the Gaza Strip was a result of the firing of rockets at civilian areas. As far as is known, in Lebanon the restriction was not the result of similar firing of rockets at civilian populations. And despite that, again, beyond the dry reports of human rights organisations, from the point of view of 'they are allowed', no serious objections have been recorded, and no "apartheid week" against Lebanon has taken place.[504]
M. R. Cohn wrote: "Not all apartheid is created equal" after thousands have turned out to protest racial discrimination against Palestinians in the apartheid system of Lebanon.
The long-suffering Palestinians face armed soldiers at the gate if they try to leave their camps. They are frozen out of public medical and social services. They are barred from dignified work in dozens of occupations such as engineering, medicine, law and journalism. They cannot own property. Their children are banned from regular schools.
If it looks like apartheid and sounds like apartheid, let's march against it...
Lebanese columnist Rami G. Khouri noted, the treatment of these Palestinians - like "penned-in animals" - must be condemned as a "lingering moral black mark." Writing in the Daily Star of Beirut, Khouri argued that "Lebanon faces a moment akin to ... when South Africans seriously mooted changing their apartheid system in the 1980s.[505]
The treatment of Arab-Palestinians by Arab Lebanese (citing a classic case, where a Palestinian-Arab died because of denial of medical treatment) has been categorized as 'Arab apartheid.'[506]
Syria
In a writer's description on the Syrian Arab Republic: "Assad Apartheid perpetrated by his minority rule against ALL Syrians."[507]
N. Cohen in 'The Guardian' wrote (June 2011): "Face the facts - Syria is an apartheid state"
The UN will never tell you this, but Syria is an apartheid-style state. Members of Assad's Alawite sect make up only 14% of the population, but they control government, much of business and all the forces of coercion. Even the underworld is segregated on confessional lines. The shabbiha crime gangs that run the prostitution and smuggling rackets, and whose members the Assads are letting loose on the civilian population, are Alawite mafias.
I hope that liberals of my generation who beat their chests as they protested against racial apartheid in southern Africa will soon feel as outraged by religious apartheid in the Middle East. The Syrian opposition has as much right to our support as the African National Congress did because it has not targeted Alawites because of their religion. Indeed, it places its hopes on the Alawite-led army mutinying. [508]
Amnesty decried racism in Syria and its unfair trial of Kurdish prisoners of conscience and that "torture of children is totally unacceptable."[509] The Kurds have been exposed to murder, forced assimilation and pure racism by the Syrian government. Indeed all evidence suggests that discrimination is rampant.[510] Writer reminds us (April, 2011) that it is "one of the world's most racist, denying millions of Syrian Kurds full citizenship."[511] Others like the Druze and Jews have also been persecuted by the Syrian Arab regime.[512] Druze decried oppression by Syria.[513][514] There is also Holocaust deniel by the official Syrian regime.[515]
Filmaker spoke out on Syria's "apartheid against Kurdish [people], there is no equality, there are no human rights, there is no freedom."[516]
The Fate of the Kurds
The 1.5 million Kurds, who represent about 12% of the total population do not enjoy any of the rights stipulated by the constitution. For over 50 years they have been subjected to an aggressive Arabisation policy, denied the right to speak or be taught in the Kurdish language or to practice Kurdish traditions. Those who are not members of the reigning Ba'ath Party face discrimination, are denied the rights to freedom of speech and association.As a result of a census in 1962, an estimated 120,000 Kurds were expatriated, thus denying them their citizen's rights. Today around 200,000 stateless Kurds are unable to apply for a passport, register their children to attend school, or to have marriages registered.
Criticism forbidden
Any attempt to criticise the Syrian regime, such as the demonstrations in Damascus on 10 December 2002 and 25 June 2003 is brutally silenced by Syrian security forces. Following these demonstrations many were arrested and some are still in custody today held on vague charges such as "attempting to change the constitution by illegal means" and "spreading false information"
In March 2004 Syrian security forces intervened in a clash between supporters of rival Kurd and Arab football teams in Qamishli, leaving several dead and many injured. In the demonstrations which followed this incident, at least 30 Kurdish civilians were killed, over a 1000 were injured and more than 2500 were arrested. According to the SftP's information, at least five Kurds were tortured to death during imprisonment following the demonstrations. Six Kurds were murdered during their military service.
The Syrian authorities have consistently refused to disclose information on the number or identity of people in detention and have denied human rights organisations access to the country. Of those prisoners who have already been released, many report being tortured while in Syrian custody.
[517]
American Kurds called out: "Dismantle the Syrian Apartheid Let the Kurds Enjoy their Rights."[518] Other Kurds remind us: "that Apartheid didn¹t just melt away on its own."[519]
Kurdish activists explain:
Syria is occupying a part of Kurdistan in which one million Kurds are living who are subject to the most appalling racist apartheid policies of oppression and assimilation. 150,000 of them are even deprived of having passports, being considered as ‘foreigners' with no right, legally, to enter into employment or marriage. Syria does not allow the Kurds or to call their children Kurdish names.
Syria does not allow the Kurds to use their language for education and promote their art and culture, or to have their own legal political organisations. That is despite the fact that the Kurds are Muslims! But being Muslim for Arab racist regimes that use Islam as an Arabising racist ideology, is equivalent to being an Arab - full stop. [520]
In 2009 there was a series of killing of Kurds in Syria.[521] In 2010, 'Kurds in Iran and Syria continue to face oppression: Annual Report.' Syria's estimated 1.7 million Kurds continue to suffer from discrimination, and oppression.[522] Amnesty expressed fears for Kurdish minority activist detained, and that Kurds in Syria suffer discrimination because of their ethnicity; many of them are denied Syrian nationality and therefore do not get equal rights.[523] From a report that year: the "UK Government is concerned for Kurds in Syria," Syria's estimated 1.7 million Kurds continue to suffer from discrimination, lack of political representation, and tight restrictions... [524]
Syria's apartheid policies against Jews:
Syria's Jews
In 1944, after Syria gained independence from France, the new government prohibited Jewish immigration to Palestine, and severely restricted the teaching of Hebrew in Jewish schools. Attacks against Jews escalated, and boycotts were called against their businesses.
When partition was declared in 1947, Arab mobs in Aleppo devastated the 2,500-year-old Jewish community. Scores of Jews were killed and more than 200 homes, shops and synagogues were destroyed. Thousands of Jews illegally fled Syria to go to Israel.
Shortly after, the Syrian government intensified its persecution of the Jewish population. Freedom of movement was severely restricted. Jews who attempted to flee faced either the death penalty or imprisonment at hard labor. Jews were not allowed to work for the government or banks, could not acquire telephones or driver's licenses, and were barred from buying property. Jewish bank accounts were frozen. An airport road was paved over the Jewish cemetery in Damascus; Jewish schools were closed and handed over to Muslims. Syria's attitude toward Jews was reflected in its sheltering of Alois Brunner, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals. Brunner, a chief aide to Adolf Eichmann, served as an adviser to the Assad regime. In 1987-88, the Syrian secret police seized 10 Jews on suspicion of violating travel and emigration laws, planning to escape and having taken unauthorized trips abroad. Several who were released reported being tortured while in custody.[ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/syrianjews.html]
Mr. Yemini on historic Syrian-Arab apartheid against Arab-Palestinians:
In the year 1919 in Jerusalem the first conference of associations was held, the first Arab Palestinian conference. At the conference it was decided that Palestine, which had just come under British conquest, was southern Syria – an integral part of Greater Syria. During the years of the Mandate the immigration from Syria to the British Mandate area increased. For instance, the Al-Horani family, which arrived from the Horan area in Syria, and others. The idea of 'Greater Syria', including mandatory Palestine, was expressed in the growing involvement of the Syrians in both the great Arab revolt and the gangs which arrived from Syria during the war of independence. The refugees, therefore, were not strangers politically, religiously or ethnically. The opposite. Their fate should not been different to that of any other ethnic group which were expelled to a place where they made up the ethnic and cultural majority.
Between 70 and 90 thousand refugees arrived in Syria, the majority from Tzfat, Haifa, Tiberias and Acco. In 1954 they were awarded partial rights, which did not include political rights. Until 1968 they were forbidden to hold property. Syrian law allows any Arab to obtain Syrian citizenship as long as his permanent residence is in Syria and he is capable of supporting himself economically. But the Palestinians are the only ones excluded from the terms this law. Even if they are permanent residents and affluent, the law prevents them from receiving citizenship.
Only thirty percent of those still considered for some reason 'Palestinian refugees in Syria' live in refugee camps. In fact, they should have been considered as Syrians from all points of view a long time ago. They were part of the Arab national identity, they are linked by family connections, they should have been integrated into economic life. Yet despite this, as a result of political brain-washing, they remain in Syria as a foreign body, dreaming endlessly of 'the right of return', and beaten by their inferior situation. Most of them are at the bottom of the career ladder, in service industries (41%) and construction (27%). But there is nothing like the field of education to clarify their situation. 23% do not even get to elementary school and 3% only get academic education.[525]
The Syrian system where its (Alawite) minority rule (oppressively) over a majority, has been compared to an apartheid system.[526]
Jordan
Prof. exposes (in 2009) Jordan: "The Middle East's Apartheid Regime"
...let us put this into perspective. Jordan itself is a pseudo-country sitting on land that properly belongs to the Jews. There is no Jordanian people at all. Jordan is a country composed of Palestinian Arabs with no political rights at all, controlled by a Bedouin ruling elite, which has hegemony over the government and army.
Jordan is as much an apartheid regime as any on earth. Official discrimination against non-Bedouin Arabs is state policy. Jews may not own land in Jordan, and tracts of land once legally purchased by Jews have been stolen from them by the Jordanian government. When Jordan controlled the Old City of Jerusalem it destroyed every single Jewish shrine there and used their stones to build latrines. It tore up gravestones from the Mount of Olives, which has been a respected cemetery for 4000 years, and used them also as building materials. Jordan came into existence as a country when the young Winston Churchill quite literally drew its boundaries on the back of an envelope, drawn so as to accommodate two British petroleum pipelines, in land promised to the Jews under the Balfour Declaration. Instead of Wilsonian national self-determination dictating the emergence of countries, pipeline geography did in the case of Jordan.
Jordan is one of the few countries on earth still ruled by a king, and not a make-pretend ceremonial one, but rather one whose every whim must be obeyed. Moreover, the previous king of Jordan decided to show his devotion to the human rights of Palestinians by massacring tens of thousands of them in the infamous "Black September" of 1970. No one exactly knows how many Palestinian civilians were massacred by the Jordanian ruling class and army, although Yassir Arafat said it was 25,000. The Palestinian terror group "Black September," which carried out the Munich massacre and other atrocities, named itself in memory of this massacre of Palestinians by the Jordanian army. At the time, hundreds of Palestinian terrorists entered Israel and begged to be allowed to be put in Israeli prisons, rather than be returned to Jordan where they faced certain death.
Jordan does not only shoot Palestinians when they ally with Syria and try to topple the Bedouin regime there, as they did in 1970. Palestinian students in Jordan participating in demonstrations against ISRAEL have been mowed down by the Jordanian soldiers. In fact the only country in the Middle East in which students can conduct a spontaneous anti-Israel demonstration against Israel is Israel.
Amnesty International and many others speak out against human rights abuses in Jordan. The treatment of women there is about as bad as it gets anywhere and there are many "honor killings" of women. There is no freedom of the press. Torture is routinely used. One of the more ironic matters is the treatment of homosexuals. Jordanian gays, who face violent persecution, often apply for asylum in Israel.
Jordan of course has a long history of military aggression. It began with the Jordanian invasion of Western Palestine in 1948, when Jordan attempted to annex all of the territory that the UN had tried to partition into Israel and an Arab Palestinian state. Jordan, not Israel, prevented the creation of that Arab Palestinian state. Jordan illegally invaded and held East Jerusalem, including the Old City, starting in 1948 and lasting for nineteen years. It participated in the military aggressions against Israel in 1967 and 1973. The West Bank was taken from Jordan by Israel the same way that Germany lost Alsace and Lorraine, thanks to its losing its own war of aggression.[527]
"The Hashemite Kingdom of Apartheid? " wrote Policy analyst and senior fellow at the 'Center for Liberty in the Middle East.' S. Libdeh (2010)
The rise of radical tribal-based nationalism is leading to increased provocative measures being taken against neighboring countries as well as citizens from other ethnic backgrounds.
In its recently published survey, Freedom House concluded that Jordan is not a “free” country. This startling finding raises serious doubts over the Hashemite regime’s commitment to modernize and build a moderate, peaceful and democratic society.
Jordan is in the midst of a full-scale political and economic crisis due to the King Abdullah II’s inability or unwillingness to build a modern democratic system. Indeed, contrary to the king’s public pronouncements regarding his commitment to political and economic reform, it is clear that the Hashemite regime’s long-term strategy is to acquire permanent status as an “emerging democracy,” without the need to actually deliver on its public commitments for political reform.
In spite of the $6 billion in economic aid that Jordan has received from the US since 1991, the Hashemite regime has been unable to transform the fortunes of the ailing Jordanian economy. Indeed in 2010, Jordan’s deficit doubled to 9 percent of gross domestic product and led to a steep rise in public debt to a staggering $13 billion, or 60% of GDP. Due to the failure and obvious shortcomings of the government’s economic reform program, the king feared that Jordanian nationalists would try to capitalize on widespread public frustration and discontent by applying increased pressure on his fragile regime. In 2009, he dissolved parliament in a thinly disguised attempt to quash any political opposition to his regime.
TRADITIONALLY, JORDANIAN tribes have supported the Hashemite regime, as long as they have benefited from economic patronage from the state. However, when this economic support was subsequently withdrawn – due to the mismanagement of the economy, the tribes considered this a breach of the unwritten agreement it had in place with the state. Consequently, the king has sought to counter this potential conflict with the tribes by maintaining “ethnic cohesion” inside the security/military establishment. This has had the added benefit of enabling the regime to collaborate with the US Army in training troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and, most recently, in Yemen. It has also allowed the regime to secure US military aid.
As a consequence of the above policy, the king has failed to integrate the urban Palestinian-Jordanian majority into the security/military structure. Instead, the king has adopted his grandfather’s 1920s policy by appointing Bani Sakher as the major tribe in control of Jordan’s security affairs. The heads of military, public security as well as the minister of interior now belong to a single tribe that fought other tribes on behalf of the Hashemites before the creation of the Arab Legion.
This policy has exacerbated ethnic tension within the kingdom, and the adoption of a policy of apartheid, clearly demonstrated by the withdrawal of the Jordanian citizenship of more than 2,700 Palestinian-Jordanian citizens. This clearly creates additional challenges for any potential resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and signals a willingness by the Jordanian nationalists to adopt hostile measures against Palestinians and Israelis.
The lack of ethnic diversity in the security establishment has raised concerns that the king may be losing legitimacy in Jordan. Accordingly, the Hashemites are reestablishing kinship ties as a way to preserve his influence in security-related decisions.
But this policy has also put the lives of Jordanians, Americans and even Afghanis at risk. The Khost attack on seven CIA officers last January in Afghanistan was the direct result of the misguided appointment of Prince Ali bin Zeid as the Jordanian case officer, who seemingly failed to convince the Jordanian al-Qaida bomber to cooperate with Jordanian intelligence.
Due to the obvious differences in their social, economic, cultural and ethnic background, the prince was unable to establish and build a relationship of trust with the Jordanian bomber, which would lead to a successful operation. Apparently, the royal family was hungry for a historical victory against al-Qaida, and perhaps huge financial rewards from the US.
AS TRIBALISM flourishes, freedom within Jordanian society will gradually erode. This has led to a weakening of state control that has already resulted in chaos and anarchy erupting in major rural towns. Almost five citizens are killed in Jordan on a weekly basis as a consequence of tribal clashes. The security forces have been unable to maintain order; fortunately, local sheikhs have stepped in to prevent further disturbances.
This is a further example of a weakened state, unable to control actors or impose the rule of law within its own borders – returning back to the Transjordanian norms that characterized the society prior to the establishment of the kingdom. Consequently, the tribes are becoming an increasingly important and active force within the state, which has been greatly assisted with the widespread availability of weapons to citizens.
Jordan’s domestic policies are inconsistent with what is needed to achieve regional stability – vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict. Apparently, the effect of rising tribal-based nationalism is that it is eating into the cohesive force of citizenship and its institutional manifestations. Accompanied by the weakening structure of the state, the emergence of violent non-state actors is becoming evident. The rise of radical Transjordanian nationalism is leading to increased provocative measures being taken against, and engendering hostility toward, neighboring countries – as well as Jordanian citizens from other ethnic backgrounds.
Perhaps it is time for the international community to revise its policies toward the kingdom – taking into consideration its recent adoption of a policy of apartheid and the lack of political and economic reform within the kingdom.[528]
"Jordan, Dr. Peace and Mr. Apartheid," wrote researcher at the University of Bedfordshire, Muder Zahran (2010), that "The world must tell Jordan that peace and integration of its own Palestinians are not privileges it is giving away." Referring to the state as adopting a "well-established apartheid system” that is "no different than that formerly adopted in South Africa, except for the official acknowledgement of it."[529][530]
Jordan has an 'apartheid'[531] law against all Jews. No Jew is allowed to reside in Jordan.[532] Even those who lived there for generations. [533] It also prohibits selling land to Jews.[534] The Jordanian racist law states: "Any man will be a Jordanian subject if he is not Jewish,"[535] which is downright apartheid.[536]
In "moderate" Jordan most viewed Jews unfavorably in a 2009 poll.[537]
The Gypsies suffer great humiliation and Arab racism. They're forced to hide their true identity if they're to be treated equally.[538] Anti 'Jordan's gypsies' racism prevails even at official levels, with the subject of the Bani Murra's very existence considered a taboo."[539]
Under "Once You Go Black: Racism in Jordan," a poster cites a testimony of an African-American that has studied in Jordan. He returned with a list of all the things he hated about Jordan. "The most prominent item on his list was racism." He said, 'he had never been so conscious of his skin color, of being "black," as much as when he was in Jordan.' All the while, Jordanians were so happy to criticize America over racism.[540]
In 2007, bloggers faced off over Jordanian harsh and humiliating treatment of Iraqi travellers.[541]
Mr. Yemini on historic Jordanian-Arab apartheid against Arab-Palestinians:
Precisely like the identification and unity between the Arabs of Jaffa and southern Israel, and the Arabs of Egypt, similar identification exists between the Arabs of the West Bank and the Arabs of Jordan. Thus, for example, the Bedouin of the Majalis (or Majilis) tribe from the al-Karak region are originally from Hebron. During the days of the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Jordan was part of the Damascus district, like other parts of what later came under the auspices of the British mandate. According to the Balfour declaration, the area now called Jordan was supposed to be part of the Jewish national homeland.
The initial distress of the refugees on both sides of the Jordan River, was enormous. For example, Iraqi soldiers controlled the area of Nablus, and there is testimony about "the Iraqi soldiers taking the children of the rich for acts of debauchery and returning the children to their families the next day, the inhabitants are frequently arrested." (in Hebrew) Indeed, Arab solidarity.
It seemed that Jordan treated the refugees differently. Under a 1954 Jordanian law, any refugee who lived in the area of Jordan between 1948 and 1954 was given the right to citizenship. However, that was only the outward façade. Below is a description of the reality under the Jordanian régime in the West Bank:
"We have never forgotten and we will never forget the nature of the régime that degraded our honor and trampled our human feelings. A régime that was built on an inquisition and the boots of the desert people. We lived for a long time under the humiliation of the Arab nationalism and it hurts to say that we had to wait for the Israeli conquest in order to become aware of humane relations with civilians."
Because these things are liable to sound like an ad from a public relations campaign by the occupying force, it should be noted that they were published in the name of critics from the West Bank in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al Hawadith on April 23, 1971.
As in all other Arab countries, Jordan did not do a thing to dismantle the refugee camps. While Israel was absorbing hundreds of thousands of refugees from Europe and the Arab countries in similar camps (transit camps), and undergoing a punishing process of rehabilitation, building new settlements and dismantling the camps, Jordan did exactly the opposite and prevented any process of rehabilitation. During those same two decades, not one institution of higher learning was established in the West Bank. The flowering of higher education began in the 1970s, after the Israelis took control..
Even the citizenship that was given to the refugees was mainly for the sake of appearances. Despite the fact that the Palestinians number over 50% of the inhabitants of Jordan, they hold only 18 seats - out of 110 - in the Jordanian parliament, and only 9 senators out of 55, who are appointed by the king. It should also be recalled that during just one month, September 1970, in one confrontation, Jordan killed many more Palestinians than all the Palestinians who have been hurt in the 43 years of Israeli rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[542]
Sudan
The roots of the genocide in S. Sudan is in Arab racism[543] against the native Africans. The Arab government in Khartoum has been using the janjaweed militias, described as racist supremacist, an "Arab version of the KKK,"[544] who attack with racial epithets, says US government.[545] The Washington Post wrote about "Arab Genocide, Arab Silence."[546] In "War of visions: conflict of identities in the Sudan" Author F. M. Deng writes on the powerful Arab minority that has dominated the African nation:
Sudan has much in common with South Africa under apartheid, although discrimination expressed itself in strikingly different ways.
In South Africa, apartheid excluded non-Whites. In the Sudan, Arabism both excludes, in the sense that it discriminates against those who are not Arabized or Islamized, and includes, in the sense that it fosters assimilation, which condescendingly implies rejection of or disregard for the non-Arab and non- Muslim elements.
Even when successfully accomplished, assimilation elevates one to the status of an adopted or honorary Arab, still lacking full equality with pure or full- fledged Arabs, who often claim to trace their lineage back to the Arabian peninsula and in some cases to the early followers of Muhammad.[547]
The Arabs have been Injecting an ideological and racist definition as to who is "Arab" and who are zuruq, black.[548] As an author on "The horrible, horrible situation in the Sudan region of Darfur" concludes: For years I questioned the motive and intentions of the Sudanese regime and I concluded that it was a racist war. Today, I have been proven right.[549] Activists argue that it is "a matter of survival that the African and non-Muslim people of Southern Sudan must use all the means available to fight against the racist policy of orouba (Arabism or Arab apartheid) and Islamic sectarianism."[550]
The Baqt agreement in Africa:
The Baqt in general was an Arab Muslim’s practice probably during the Islamic expansion which overran many countries including Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Iraq, Egypt, Libya Sudan etc. And during those wars, the Arabs would conquer, occupy and take booties (i.e. slaves, land and movable properties) where they were victorious over their enemies or victims. And where they failed to conquer immediately, they would impose the baqt or the payment in slaves and other valuable properties, plus certain conditions intended to weaken the indigenous socio-economic and political systems and the people at large, so that when the Arab Muslims become strong again they would conquer and colonized them. For the Arab Muslims there would always be no permanent peace with infidels or non Muslims until they surrender and become the dhimmes under the Arab Islamic Apartheid, as the third class citizens in an Islamic State, or if they submit to conversion and assimilation into Arab Islamic culture and religion, yet they would still become third or fourth class citizens because they would be treated as non Asharaf (i.e. non true Arab race or a non relative of the Prophet), non Awalad el Bled or non members of the Brown Arab Muslim Sudanese tribesmen (BRAMS) which is usually consisting of two main prominent Arab nationalities which include Jaaleen, and el Shaageen and the Arabised Danagaleen or Nubians. Indeed the non Arabs Muslim converts are always treated as outsiders within the Arab based Sectarian communities who consider themselves as "Alaharaf" the relatives of the "Prophet" or Awalad el Bled (the children of the Land etc).[551]
Tanzania
Zanzibar - Tanzania which was long ruled by Arab sultans, who imported slaves from the mainland to cultivate the spice trees,[552] has, still, lingering Arab racism and apartheid.[553]
There's wide racial discrimination in Tanzania, especially, Apartheid style of discrimination towards locals has been reported in various tourist hotels, mostly those owned by foreign investors inside wildlife parks.[554]
North Africa
[Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco]
The Berbers are the original indigenous of N. Africa. Conquere by the later arrived Arabs.[555] They suffer great discrimination.[556] "Berbers denounced apartheid" against them in Morocco.[557][558] and in wider North Africa. From a Berber's words: "The Algerian government has subjected my people to a cultural apartheid for 33 years."[559] The 'Amazigh Voice' louds "the cultural apartheid enforced by the North African states on the Amazigh people."[560] Amazigh activists published a (partial) "list of victims of the Moroccan style apartheid."[561] AmazighWorld states the discrimination and violation of human rights in Morocco, "that the Moroccan State practice a policy of apartheid" in blocking and suppressing Amazigh's voices and culture.[562]
An African writes about Arab racism:
Though the population of most North African countries is mixed, it's no secret that in these countries there is a gradation of human valuation that corresponds directly to skin color, with the most privileged status being accorded those perceived rightly or wrongly as being of "pure" Arab stock while those with the darkest skin and curliest hair are located on the lowest rung of the social hierarchy. Arab racism is deeply embedded in the history of North Africa itself and in the Arabic language. The Arab conquest of North Africa and the subsequent conversion and marginalization of the original Berbers and Moors of North Africa and parts of the Sahel were undergirded by a racist ethos. Till this day, the descendants of the dark-skinned Moors, the Berbers, and other non-Arab peoples are confined to the fringes of North African and North-west African society--in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, etc.[563]
ISLAMIC APARTHEID: Iran, S. Arabia, Islamic-Palestine, Turkey, Pakistan, Islamic controlled areas in Africa, etc.
Attention has been brought to Islamic Apartheid against non-Muslims, suffering wide systematic discrimination and subjugation to an inferior status.[564][565][566] The subjugation of non-Muslims to religious apartheid and second class citizenship in their own country.[567]
Writing on "Islam's Apartheid," A. Imani: "Islamic societies shamelessly practice all the sanctioned injustices listed in the U.N. charter on apartheid."[568]
Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights' Dr. Keith Roderick's letter/Petition to the United Nations Against [Islamic] Religious Apartheid:
The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights is an umbrella coalition representing various organizations from the following communities: Arab-Christian, Armenian, Assyrian, Bahai, Buddhist, Copt, Hindu, Humanist Muslim, Ibo, Maronite, Nubian, secular intellectuals, Southern Filipino, Slavic-Christian, Southern Sudanese, Syriac, West African, and women's groups.
We gather to demonstrate our determination to protest the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, as well as women and moderate and secularized Muslims in Islamic lands. We are here also to cry out against the murderous ideology of radical Islamism, which, by dividing humankind into worthy Muslims and inferior "infidels" is wreaking havoc throughout the world.
In the face of growing attacks and oppression of religious and ethnic minorities in Islamic lands, we respectfully make the following two demands upon the appropriate organs of the United Nations:
1. We call upon you today to appoint a Special Rapporteur to investigate the status and conditions of non-Muslim minorities, women, and humanist, moderate Muslims in states ruled by Islamic majorities. Such a rappoteur must investigate the following conditions.
Equality Under Law: What is the status, both in law and in practice, of these groups, and of individuals belonging to these groups? Do the laws in these nations discriminate against religious minorities? Do members of these groups have the same rights to assemble, speak, publish, and associate as those in the majority? Can members of these classes be elected to governmental and representative bodies? Is there a government policy of discriminating against the hiring of members of these classes? Does the government allow or encourage radical anti-minority organizations to abuse, threaten or otherwise oppress minority populations? Do the agencies that enforce the laws represent all groups in society?
Religious rights and freedom: Do members of minority faiths have the right to practice their faiths freely? Do they have the right to proselytize? Do members of the majority faith have the right to choose another faith?
Cultural equality: Are the rights and cultures of national, religious, and ethnic minorities respected?
Teaching of hatred and contempt: What is the view of these classes promoted by the government and the general culture?
2. We call upon the United Nations to condemn the ideology of Jihad-Islamism as a form of religious apartheid, which divides humankind into exalted Muslims and inferior "infidels."
Radical Jihad-Islamism is a supremacist, quasi-racist ideology that is now waging terrorist war worldwide against innocent men, women and children it labels "infidels." This ideology is supporting religious wars against non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslim infidels worldwide. It is seeking to establish Apartheid-like regimes similar to those in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, to subjugate and control "infidels." It legitimizes and extends human rights abuses - including slavery - on a massive scale. It employs a global economic resource (oil) as a weapon against non-Muslim nations in the service of its goals. It is the duty of the United Nations, which came into being as a result of racist Nazism, to condemn and to combat any ideology which defines some part of the human race as inferior.
Radical Jihad-Islamism must be condemned as a form of cultural, racial, religious and ethnic discrimination, and the United Nations should equate it with Colonialism and Imperialism. It should condemn its teaching to any community or school and it should call for a "corrective teaching" to seek to undo the hatred that it has engendered in peoples who have been taught the ideology. Further, the U.N. should condemn all current Jihad wars and call on nations waging such wars to cease violating the rights of ethnic and religious minorities and peoples. Finally, the U.N. should intervene to protect the rights and lives of religious and ethnic minorities and non-Islamist Muslims in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Sudan, and Syria....[569]
J. T. Kuhner puts it "Shariah law - the legal basis of most Islamic states - is a form of religious apartheid, systematically classifying Christians and Jews as third-class citizens. Christophobia and anti-Semitism are rampant in the Muslim world."[570]
P. Chesler testifies: As you know, I was once held captive in Afghanistan as the young bride of a very westernized Afghan Muslim man who I met at college. I therefore learned not to romanticize Third World countries, nor to confuse their tyrannical leaders with liberators. I also learned that Islamic religious and gender apartheid and jihad are indigenous to Muslim lands and not due to any European or American crimes.[571]
From the 'New Republic' (2011) Wierdly, the progressives talk all the time about class, apartheid (in Israel where it doesn't exist) but somehow doesn't see us women as a class and is loathe to speak out about the mistreatment of half the people on the planet.[572]
In Arab-Islamic Africa, is noted for example the racial, and Islamic apartheid in Sudan.[573] Especially in the Middle East, the Islamic system operates a system of racial and religious apartheid,[574]
The most primitive apartheid against non-Muslims is still openly practiced in some Arab countries.[575]
A critic points out to the fact that Middle Easterners including the Palestinian "Muslim Apartheid Targets Christians as well as Jews."[576]
Saudi Arabia's Apartheid is one of the most noted, with its anti non-Muslim policies, or "Religious Apartheid"[577] [578][579][580] often described as a "glaring example of religious apartheid,"[581] for "the Kingdom's embedded rules of religious apartheid," its "systematic discrimination against Christians and Jews, treated either as second-class aliens with no right to worship or banned from stepping foot on Saudi soil altogether,[582] as well as practicing gender apartheid.[583]
Colbert I. King wrote in the WashingtonPost (Dec. 22, 2001) "Saudi Arabia's Apartheid"
...He said he and his wife were amused to read early press reports from Afghanistan about the oppression of women and religious minorities. 'Virtually everything described there was taking place in Saudi Arabia, with the exception that at least the Taliban permitted other religions to exist in their country. This is absolutely forbidden in Saudi Arabia.' .... One of the (still) untold stories, however, is the cooperation of U.S. and other Western companies in enforcing sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms, for instance, maintain strictly segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The men's sections are typically lavish, comfortable and up to Western standards, whereas the women's or families' sections are often run-down, neglected...[584]
S. A. religious apartheid expands even within its own faith. "Only the practice of the Sunni form of Islam is permitted. No public expression of Christianity is allowed."[585]
Washington-based Saudi Institute director, Ali Al- Ahmed, testified before the United States Congress (on October 6, 2004) at an International Relations hearing on religious freedom.
Mr. Ahmed explained that S. Arabia
does not allow religious freedom to its Muslim citizens, even to those who are Wahhabi. It practices a rigid form of control on the interpretation of Islam in every sphere of life... Saudi Arabia is a glaring example of religious apartheid. The religious institutions, judges, religious curriculums, and all religious instructions in the media must conform to the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, adhered to by less than 40% of the population. ... Religious apartheid...is the order of the day in Saudi Arabia. Christian and Jewish symbols are banned from public display.[586]
See: #Egypt for its anti-Copt apartheid [Copts are both, an ethnic and a religious minority].
Jordan's Christian minority is subject to a system of religious discrimination imposed by Islamic courts that oppress this small and shrinking religious minority."[587]
See: #Jordan for its 'official' anti-Jewish apartheid.
Nigeria
Islamic forces who have been ethnic and religious cleansing in that country since the 1940s, through the 1960s, with a 1966 genocide campaign by the Hausa/Fulanis upon the Igbo/Biafrans,[588] have caused a 'more brazen' than Apartheid policies outcome, according to activists.[589]
Lebanon
An election law desinged to be against Christians' votes, instituted in the 1990s,' have promped accusation of Lebanon's anti-Christian apartheid:
The law also stipulated that every Lebanese citizen had to vote in the place where he lived before the civil war started in 1975. Yet approximately 80 percent of the more than 600,000 persons displaced by the war are Christians, according to the Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights in Lebanon. This put thousands of Christians at a serious disadvantage. [...]
According to former army commander Michel Aoun, in exile in France, "The new law establishes the political persecution of Christians and constitutes a law of apartheid."[590]
Arab-Palestinians
It has been noted that "the Palestinian leadership practices both Islamic gender and religious apartheid as well as terrorism."[591]
The Palestinian Authority has long been discriminating against Christians, their human rights abused,[592][593] including land theft.[594] There's a routine of Palestinian denial of religious freedom. "Religious persecution and discrimination of non-Moslems is common."[595] Especially since the time the PA has assumed control over Christian areas in the West Bank, the basic human rights of Christians in these areas have been made increasingly vulnerable,[596] and the case of Beleaguered Christians of the Palestinian-Controlled Areas,[597] has worsened since Y. Arafat's Islamization of Bethlehem.[598]
Arab Christians under Palestinian Authority, live in 'daily fear' and fear of retribution prevents speaking out.[599] However, some Bethlehem Christians break silence on Muslim oppression... After many years... the truth has been revealed. Christians are fleeing every Muslim-majority territory because of the apartheid discrimination encouraged by Muslim sharia law. Land theft works because the testimony of non-Muslims is weighed less in every sharia court in the world.[600] Some call Christians "Endangered Species" in the West Bank and Gaza, following reports on the "human rights of Christians in Palestinian society."[601]
The Palestinian Authority treatment of Christians has been categorized as apartheid.[602]
There's wide gender apartheid in Arab-Palestine,[603] women are under constant violent attacks, linked to discriminatory laws and traditional practices.[604]
The Islamist Hamas de-facto regime in Gaza has been categorized as real apartheid, which "discriminates openly against women, gays, Christians. It permits no dissent, no free speech, and no freedom of religion."[605]
From "Public Diplomacy in the Fight against Radical Islam - Jerusalem Summit"
In addition to... rampant gender apartheid that prevails throughout most Muslim society, there is an additional variant of pernicious and pervasive persecution - on the basis of faith and creed. This discrimination against nearly all non-Muslim faiths is nothing less than what can - and must - be termed creed apartheid.
Pointing to the fact that while The fate of Christians under Palestinian administration has declined, Israel's Arab Christian population grew.
Indeed, under the Palestinian regime, Christians also have to face policies of discrimination and intimidation, which are reducing the Christian population at an alarming rate and obliterating signs and symbols of Judeo-Christian heritage in the Holy Land . Documented research on the persecution of Christians by the Palestinian Authority includes social and economic discrimination; boycott and extortion of Christian businesses; violations of real property rights; crimes against Christian women; incitement by Palestinian Authority against Christians; and failure of the Palestinian security forces to protect Christians. [606]
PA's 'Ahmadi' moderate Muslims, face threats, constant intimidation Their plight's entails also how Palestinian court forcibly divorces 'apostates.' The PA clerics' decision to label them apostates puts them in danger. As the penalty for apostasy in Islam is death. Hence, they're "encouraging the cold-blooded murder of Ahmadis."[607]
"Ahmadi believers living in PA-controlled areas have been beaten and have had their property destroyed... the apostate label means they can be stripped of their rights in court." An example was given of an Ahmadi Muslim from Shechem who was ordered to divorce his wife and give up his property.[608][609] A victim said: "It's like we are still living in the Middle Ages," that they "are deciding whether you are a believer or not. Whether you'll go to heaven or hell - and whether you are an apostate."
Followers of the Islamic Ahmadi Community are shunned by many mainstream Muslims because they recognize a 19th-century cleric as their prophet. A central tenet of Islam is that the Muhammad was the last prophet sent by Allah. Case in point: "The Palestinian court forcibly divorced a Ahmadi couple by "canceling their marriage registration, because they were no longer considered Muslims... That means that the couple have no chance of ever legalizing their marriage in the West Bank."[610][611]
The Ahmadis who are so badly persecuted in pakistan and in Arab-Palestine, enjoy [only] Israel's free and equal society. A Haifa prof. testifies: "The relations between the Haifa Ahmadis and Jews (and Christians and Moslems and Druse and Bahais) is warm and cordial." Futhermore: "Because of the cordial relations between Jews and Ahmadis in Israel, numerous Islamofascist web sites denounce the Ahmadis as Zionist agents."[612]
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, religious minorities: Christians,[613][614] Jewish, and Zoroastrian, in reality of life, are described by a Christian human-rights group as nothing short of "religious apartheid." This apartheid manifests itself in blatant inequities.[615]
In 2011, as Iranian Christian pastor, Yousef Nadarkhani's life was in jeopardy, facing imminent execution, advocate J. Sekulow explained:
one Iranian pastor described the situation as an unwritten “Apartheid” system like that which once governed a South Africa segregated along racial lines.
Even an explicit "Apartheid" system would be preferable for providing regularity, that pastor said. But at present, Iranian Christians "don't know when they are going to start these waves of arrests."[616]
That
Iran's "Constitution makes it clear . . . that Christians have the right to accept their faith," but Christian face "a religious apartheid because the tendency is not to respect the rights of minorities, minorities are not considered citizens, it is worse than apartheid because in apartheid it was written that we have apartheid, but in Iran it is not written . . . but legally we are in apartheid." [617]
As testified in the U.S. Congress (2004):
In Iran, those who believe in the Baha'i faith are forcibly repressed by the Iranian Government. They are denied the right to assemble and elect their religious officials, their property is confiscated and they are denied basic civil and legal rights. More than 200 Baha'is have been killed in Iran since 1989. Christians and Jews likewise face persecution in Iran, including discrimination, imprisonment, and death. One Christian human rights groups describes the treatment of Christians and Jews as "Religious apartheid."[618]
It has a record of suppressing human rights and persecution of religious minorities.[619] The Bahai have also been subject to religious persecution.[620][621] It's armed wing in Lebanon, the Hezbollah used Christians as human shields.[622]
Even in "moderate" Turkey non Muslims are listed as Foreigners[623] Non-Muslims remain second-class.[624]
Yemen's northern rebels al-Houthi, invoked jihad against Christians and Jews (in 2010),[625] and were involved in hijacking Christian girls.[626] They appear to be influenced by Iran.[627] Houthi's Followers' are charged with "cruel apartheid against Yemeni Jews in Sa'ada," senseless harassment and persecution.[628] As a whole, Husayn al-Huthi's lectures mercilessly denigrate Jewish, Christian, and Zionist "conspiracies."[629] In 2011, the UN berated "Yemeni rebels for recruiting child soldiers."[630]
Asian Islamic Apartheid:
Entails religious discrimination and racist policies, actions.
Indonesia has a long bloody history of persecution of Christians, and ethnic cleansing the Chinese.[631]
Activists for minorities' human rights speak out on the plight of Chinese today. The SBKRI (Surat Bukti Kewarganegaraan Republik Indonesia) or the Proof of Indonesian Citizenship is a form of apartheid ( segregation) or state racial discrimination.[632] Author writes about "Social apartheid In Indonesia," social control and efforts to intervene in civil society can be detected in the operation of surveillance systems, such as the obligation to have an identity card (KTP). A KTP requires a birth certificate.[633]
Its apartheid and horrific ethnic cleansing [punishable by death] of the West Papuans were revealed. "It was like apartheid. Indonesia's transmigration policy has resulted in thousands of Indonesians being shipped over to West Papua," says documentary.[634]
The "Social Science Research Network," via Indonesian Institute of Sciences, published (in 2006): "Beyond a Formal Legal Property System: Property Rights on Land, Land Apartheid and Development in Indonesia."
It brings the attention to the facts such as:
The main causes of rural poverty, include: no access to land, due to land apartheid or State's excessive control over land; they have no other skill except to farm, which is unattainable since they have no land; and they definitely have no capital. Take Indonesia as an example. Research has shown that more than 75% of the poor in Indonesia are living in the rural areas, and more than 60% of the Indonesian poor work in the rural agricultural sector...
Land Apartheid in Indonesia: Investment and Corruption
The New Order government of Indonesia under the former President Soeharto (1966-1998), was the longest ruling regime in Indonesian history. It imposed many influential policies. In general, the impact of the New Order economic development 20 has shifted the subsistent economy from an agricultural to a modern economy, characterized by the increase in trade, industry and services. Trade liberalization in the globalization era, in the 1980s and 1990s, has resulted in individuals or groups of people having dominant roles in the Indonesian economy, nationally or locally. As a consequence, land distribution has never been equal.[635]
Malaysia is described as among 'deeply divided societies,' for its sharp racial/ethnic preference. [636][637] One of Indonesia's leading economists put it 50 years of ethnic apartheid.[638] Indian poet who fled Malaysia in 2007 asserted, "It's apartheid!""What is happening [to Indians] in Malaysia... is nothing less than formal apartheid."[639]
Some spoke out (April 2011) against resurging racial supremacy, 'Knocking Malaysia Back To Days Of Apartheid With "1Melayu 1Bumiputera"' On the fate of anyone who is not 'pure' ethnically Malaysian.[640]
Pakistan has been described: the land of religious apartheid and jackboot justice in a report to the UN committee against racial discrimination, by "Asian Centre for Human Rights" Noted is: "The practice and patterns of discrimination against "non-Muslims," as Pakistan is all about appeasing the majority Muslims at the costs of the religious minorities. The religious minorities like the Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus.[641]
UN body accused Pakistani govt of 'religious apartheid.[642]
Author S. Malik
Pakistan has laws, supported by its Constitution and endorsed by its courts that forbid non-Muslim citizens from seeking nation's top jobs, such as, president, prime minister, head of the Senate, army chief, etc. Pakistan's non-Muslim citizens are not listed along with Muslim names, lest the Muslim names get denigrated. They cannot vote for a candidate from their own constituency. They must vote only for non-Muslim candidates running against a few seats reserved in the legislature for the country's all non-Msulims...
It is a perverted system that has its genesis in bigotry and hatred of non- Muslims. It is apartheid, Pakistani style.[643]
Under "Apartheid in Pakistan," the WashingtonPost wrote about the official discrimnatory status and rights that exist in Pakistan: "The separate electorate system for Muslims and non-Muslims remained in place even after Pakistan returned to a democratic form of government." And even about Shia VS Ahmadi: "the systematic persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan... religio-political apartheid directed at Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan." The official discrimnatory status and rights that exist in Pakistan.[644]
In 2010, Agenzia Fides reported that Christians are being "treated like Animals in Pakistan," the persecution of Christians is worsening along with the growing Islamization of Pakistan. The representative of the Pakistani Bishops' Conference called on the United States to raise the issue of human rights violations against Christians "In Pakistan, Christians suffer and see their lives in danger every day. In some areas, believers are treated like animals, in slavery or subjected to harassment, violence, and forced conversions," he said.[645]
Regarding Islamic Gender Apartheid, in the words of a writer/activist: Islam has been the largest practitioner of both religious and gender "apartheid" known to humankind.[646] Across the Arab world, Arab women are victims of Islamic gender apartheid.[647][648] Among those that stand out are: Iran,[649] and Saudi Arabia, the tyrannical kingdom practices gender apartheid to an extreme, in contrast with Israel which is so well equal and mixed.[650]
PALESTINE ARAB ISLAMIC APARTHEID
Exposing the 'real Apartheid,' a writer wrote in: "The Real Apartheid State"
The "Palestine" envisaged by the UN is an apartheid state in the making. Israel Apartheid Week is the time to publicize that fact.
During Israel Apartheid Week, orchestrated on campuses around the globe, the time has come to go on the attack, and to put the shoe on the other foot.
In 1948, Apartheid laws institutionalized racial discrimination in South Africa & denied human rights to 25 million The time has come to go on the attack, and to put the shoe on the other foot. Black citizens of South Africa.
In 1948, the Arab League of Nations applied the Apartheid model to Palestine, and declared that Jews must be denied rights as citizens of Israel, while declaring a total state of war to eradicate the new Jewish entity, a war that continues today.
In 1948, at the directive of the Arab League of Nations, Jordan devastated the vestiges of Jewish life from Judea and Samaria, and burned all schules in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.
In 1948, member states of the Arab League of Nations began to strip the human rights of Jews and to expel entire Jewish communities who had resided in their midst for centuries
In the mid 1960's, The Arab League of Nations spawned the PLO to organize local residents to continue the war to deny Jewish rights the right to live as free citizens in the land of Israel - well before Israel took over Judea, Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem in the defensive war waged by Israel in 1967.
And since its inception in 1994, the newly constituted Palestinian Authority, created by the PLO, has prepared the rudiments of a Palestinian State, modeled on the rules of Apartheid and institutionalized discrimination:
1. The right of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents to return to Arab villages lost in 1948 will be protected by the new Palestinian state.
2. While 20% of Israel's citizens are Arabs, not one Jew will be allowed to live in a Palestinian State
3. Anyone who sells land to a Jew will be liable to the death penalty in the Palestinian State
4. Those who murder Jews are honored on all official Palestinian media outlets.
5. Palestinian Authority maps prepared for the Palestinian State depict all of Palestine under Palestinian rule
6. PA maps of Jerusalem for the Palestinian State once again delete the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem
7. Recent PA documents claim all of Jerusalem for the future Palestinian State.
8. The right of Jewish access to Jewish holy places is to be denied in the new Palestinian State.
9. The Draft Palestinian State Constitution denies juridical status to any religion except for Islam.
10. No system which protects human rights or civil liberties will exist in a Palestinian State
If that is not a formula for a totalitarian apartheid state of Palestine, then what is? [651] [652]
The AJC asks:
which state-Israel or the proposed Palestinian state-more resembles the bone- chilling bigotry of apartheid? While (as Israeli human rights organizations have documented and the Israeli Supreme Court has addressed) there are indeed instances of discrimination against Arabs in Israeli society, Arabs are citizens of Israel with the right to vote and participate in its democracy, and are even elected to the Knesset (Israel's parliament). Israel is one of the few countries in the world where Arabs are allowed to vote, and one of the fewer still where Arab women have this right. Where is the Palestinian willingness to extend similar political rights and protections to Jews who live in settlements that will one day be part of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza (in areas such as Hebron and Shechem [Nablus] where Jews have lived throughout history until they were forced out-many in 1948-only to return after 1967)?[653]
From 'Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East':
The nineteen years of Arab rule of East Jerusalem [1948-1967] and the attendant desecration of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries as well as the inaccessibility of Jewish holy sites during that period has taught Israelis to seriously distrust promises on that score. Mahmoud Abbas' recent statement that no Israelis would be permitted to stay on Palestinian land proves that not much has changed in the Palestinian view of the relationship. It's Palestine that would be a racist, apartheid state, not Israel which has a 20% Arab citizenship and Arab Members of the Knesset, as well as Arab members of the cabinet.[654]
In 2004, as Arab Palestinians pushed the international community to force Israel to evacuate Jews, a writer asked "Creating a Palestinian Apartheid State?" clarifying: "Why does the Palestinian "Peace Plan" call for the expulsion of so many Jews from their homes?"[655] Stan Goodenough (2004): "the establishment of racist, anti-Jewish areas" intended to "be the judenrein State of Palestine."[656]
Already in 1997, author warned of a 'Judenrein / apartheid' vision imposed upon Israel. I have to say that this conception that we have to make the heart of the Jewish homeland a Judenrein of some kind is inimical to peace. I am completely baffled that the world still somehow sees an "apartheid peace" as a prescription for harmony between Israelis and Palestinians.[657]
Under title "Judenrein palestine," R. Neuwirth wrote:
The Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, are a litmus test of Arab intentions. Why can't Jews live in their historic homeland if there really is peace? After all, there are 1.2 million Arabs living as citizens of Israel in the one Jewish country in the world, while there are only a handful of Jews living in any of the 22 Arab countries. In fact, in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, not only is it illegal for Jews to be citizens, they are not even allowed to live there. Therefore, instead of Israel being the "apartheid state" in the region, it is the Arab world that is not only apartheid, but also racist and religiously exclusive.[658]
C. Morse wrote about the plan "supporting the racist and apartheid idea of expelling 200000 Jews from the disputed territories leaving the area Judenrein."[659]
In Y.Z. Bloom's words: "Anyone who asserts that it is illegal for a Jew to live in Judea and Samaria just because he is a Jew, is no better than an advocate of apartheid." (referring to such policies like the Jordanians', Arab-Palestinians', etc.)[660]
Writing in YNet, Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi "Endorsing Palestinian apartheid" asked: "Why does world accept notion of Palestinian state free of Jews?" and decries on "accepting the morality of establishing an apartheid, racist, Palestinian state which openly and proudly states its intention of being Judenrein."[661]
A native of S. Africa defines the Arab-Palestinian regime, "racist, apartheid, Judenrein policy of the PA."[662]
Author David Solway:
We must also bear in mind that Palestinians living in Israel will naturally keep their Israeli citizenship, but the new Palestine would be effectively judenrein, or Jew-free (another reason why Palestine would not be a genuine democracy but a racist and apartheid state)...[ http://books.google.com/books?id=DYXmAAAAIAAJ&q=judenrein]
The Palestinian Authority's prohibition to sell land to non-Muslims[663] created an uproar, and charging of Apartheid practiced by Arab Palestinian leadership/regime[664][665][666][667] came about with surfacing -again- of Arab-Palestinian "Death penalty for those who sell land to Jews."[668] It was branded racist and resembling real apartheid.[669]
In 1996, the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mufti, Ikremah Sabri, issued a fatwa (religious decree), banning the sale of Arab and Muslim property to Jews. Anyone who violated the order was to be killed. Since then, there have been multiple murders and torture the Mufti also forbade Muslims accused of selling land to Jews from being buried in a Muslim cemetery.[670][671] Palestinian Authority's mufti in Jerusalem, Ikremah Sabri, has barred all Muslims accused of selling land to Jews from being buried in a Muslim cemetery.[672] In 2004, Palestinian who allegedly sold land to Jews killed, as PA Mufti of Jerusalem issued a 'fatwa' (religious decree) several years earlier prohibiting Palestinians from selling land to Jews.[673] In 2006 there was a publicized case where a Fatah gunman murdered a Jericho man over home sale.[674]
From JPost's C. Glick (2006):
Since 1994, dozens of Arab Israelis and PA residents have been murdered on suspicion of selling land to Jews. Abu al-Hawa's murder - like those that preceded it - tells us several important things about Palestinian society. It tells us that like the PA today, any successor Palestinian state will be a racist, apartheid state where laws will be promulgated based solely on race and religious origin. Jews will be denied all basic human rights and Arabs who peacefully coexist with Jews will be accused of treason and made targets for murder.[675][676]
In 2009, Palestinian Authority military court sentenced a Hevron Arab to death by hanging for the "crime" of selling land to Jews in Judea and Samaria.[677] From the reaction that its even worse than S. African apartheid: Article: PA: Death penalty for those who sell land to Jews 51. Nothing in South African apartheid came close to this racism. Where is the UN Human Rights Commission?[678] As critics phrased it: "US-Funded Racist Apartheid Government Will Execute Man Who Sold Land To Enemy Religion."[679] In 2010, PA affirmed death penalty for land sales to Jews.[680]
In an article titled: "A Wrong Turn in East Jerusalem," Charles Bybelezer wrote (July, 2011) of real life cases, what happens to a Jew that accidently gets into the Arab "Palestinian" area of East Jerusalem, the raw danger of lynching is imminent. That is Jerusalem we are talking about, the historic capital of Jews:
Prior to 1967, the year Israel liberated Jerusalem from Jordanian apartheid-rule, Jews were not permitted to enter into their illegally occupied biblical capital. Jordan's "No Jews Allowed" policy meant that no Jew had prayed at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall - the last standing remnant of King Solomon's temple - during the previous twenty years.
Today, in East Jerusalem, controlled by Arab Palestinians and determined to be, according to Western powers, the capital of "Palestine," the situation is worse. Under Jordanian authority, Jews were banned from Jerusalem; under Palestinian rule, Jews are welcome, so that they may be summarily executed upon arrival.
And tells the shocking story of a young man that went astray, when his faulty GPS by-mistake navigated him into the Arab area, how his life was immediately threatened. As he was attacked by dozens of 'ordinary' Arabs throwing rocks and cement blocks into his car, he was rescued by a Mr. Darwish (who rushed him out of the Arab village -altogether- fearing his family's safety from the attackers), a civil servant, who, as a result, paid dearly for his political career and labeled a "traitor," for rescuing the innocent Jew[681]
At the horrindes demand by Arab-Palestinian leaders to drive out all Jews from land it sees as part of a future state, Ynet decried "PA's fallacious premises": If Israel – which permits its Arab citizens (citizens!) to elect representatives to the Knesset and provides them with full health care and other rights – is "racist" for insisting that the nation must be recognized as having a Jewish character, what, precisely does this make the PA – which seeks to totally drive out every Jew from the land it envisions to be part of a future state? How long will this intolerable inequity of demands fail to be noted by those who are promoting that "two-state solution"?[682] Another writer decried: "Beware Palestinian apartheid," as the Arab-Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas seeks to adopt racist policy based on ethnic cleansing of Jews.[683]
A writer laments (2011) that: "the price of creating a Muslim Palestinian state is the expulsion - the ethnic cleansing - of all Jews from its proposed territory. In other words, it is even worse for the Jews as a new Arab state called Palestine will be judenrein - the forcible removal of Jewish villages and their inhabitants. And this unthinkable outrage of ethnic cleansing, racism and Arab apartheid will be sanctioned by President Obama and the immoral United Nations under cover of the misnamed peace process."[684]
R. Daniel M. Zucker wrote about free Israel VS apartheid Palestine in an article (July 5, 2011) titled "Palestine vs. Israel: Pinning the 'Apartheid' Label on the Right Donkey"
In recent years, Palestinian propagandists and their international supporters have attempted to brand Israel with the label of "apartheid," the despicable South African policy of racial discrimination that reduced the African non-white population to a decidedly inferior position akin to chattel. In many international circles, this political charlatanism has succeeded in giving the Middle East's one and only democracy a black eye. However, the reality is quite the opposite of what the Palestinians peddle to a very gullible world.
In Israel, contrary to the Palestinians' fictional portrait of the Jewish state, not only are Arabs citizens with equal rights and protections under the law, but Arabic is an official second language. And many Arabs serve in a variety of positions in the government, including Deputy Speaker of the Knesset (Parliament) Majalli Wahabi of the Kadimah Party, as well as officers in the armed forces like Lieutenant Hesham Aborea and police such as Deputy Inspector-General Jamal Hakroush, deputy commander of the traffic division. Arabs are free to live anywhere in Israel, although most choose to live within their own ethnic, cultural, and religious communities. Arab students are welcome in the nation's universities and colleges and serve as professionals in all areas of the national life.
By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has stated that no Jews will be permitted to live in a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Christian Arab community has shrunk drastically in the last eighteen years since the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority took over in the West Bank -- to the point where today, Beit Jalla, once a Christian town outside Jerusalem, is without a Christian population, and Bethlehem, once the most Christian of cities in the Holy Land, is now peopled with a Muslim majority. So, too, do Palestinian Christians face a determined campaign of forced conversion to Islam by the Hamas government of Gaza, which permits only one Jew to reside in Gaza: the five-year captive kidnapped Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit.
So if the term "apartheid" still refers to unequal treatment under the law, forced segregation, or outright exclusion on religious, racial, or ethnic grounds, then it's the Palestinian donkey that should be pinned with the "apartheid" label. Palestine -- where the president and the prime minister hold their offices without benefit of popular national elections, where non-Arabs are prohibited from owning land, and where the sale of land to a Jew is a capital crime.
Of course, the Palestinian BDS movement doesn't want the world to pay attention to any of these facts, and its international supporters will conveniently ignore the evidence, but anyone with a modicum of intelligence and a reasonably open mind will want to seek a Palestinian response to my charges.
And concludes with a call to the leadership of 'Palestinian apartheid': Nabil Sha'ath and Saeb Erekat: the world is awaiting your response, lo sema-hát (if you please), Inshallah.[685]
V. Sharpe calls the attention to: What is also overlooked is that Hamas and Fatah demand that all Jews be ethnically cleansed from, and driven out of, their Jewish towns and villages within Judea and Samaria. In other words, Apartheid: Arab style.[686]
Israel's Prime Minister B. Netanyahu in his address to the United Nations (on Sep. 23, 2011)
The Jewish state of Israel will always protect the rights of all its minorities, including the more than 1 million Arab citizens of Israel. I wish I could say the same thing about a future Palestinian state, for as Palestinian officials made clear the other day — in fact, I think they made it right here in New York - they said the Palestinian state won't allow any Jews in it. They'll be Jew-free - Judenrein. That's ethnic cleansing. There are laws today in Ramallah that make the selling of land to Jews punishable by death. That's racism. And you know which laws this evokes.[687]
Another wave of outrage at "Palestinian" official apartheid and judenrein (ethnic cleansing) nature, came about in Sep. 2011, when Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) ambassador to the U.S., Maen Areikat openly declared that a "Palestine" State should be free of Jews. Elliott Abrams, a former US National Security Council official, said in response that according to such plans, Palestine will be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews. Justfiably, Israel's minsiter Y. Edelstein said: "After an unending de-legitimization campaign and attempts to brand Israel an apartheid state, it appears it is the Palestinians who seek apartheid."[688] The shocking surprising part was also, that he didn't even realize the [real Apartheid] gravity[689] of his (statement and) stand. Israeli foreign minsiter called for embassies to protest PA Apartheid State[690]. (The notorious anti-Israel "Israeli" paper Haaretz sanitized Areikat's No Jews Remark.[691]) Areikat's declaration means of course: It would not just an "apartheid" state - it would be a state whose very basis would be the ethnic cleansing of every single Jewish man, woman and child...[692]
Appropriately called a "racist Palestine state."[693][694][695]
Arab Islamic apartheid against Christians Vs the only free State -in the region- Israel
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where the Christian population is thriving instead of disappearing. Between 1948 and 1998, Israel's Christians grew fourfold, from 34,000 to 130,000.[696]
Eli E. Hertz: "Only in Israel Does Freedom of Religion Flourish." He quotes: "Moslems have enjoyed, under Israeli control, the very freedom which Jews were denied during Jordanian occupation." Judge, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, 1968, He elaborates: "In Israel, both Jews and non-Jews are free to practice their faiths freely and openly on individual and institutional levels. That contrasts sharply with neighboring Arab states, where intolerance is the norm and the number of non-Muslims is constantly shrinking. The Palestinian Authority's conduct - including the destruction of Jewish sites and violations of the holiness and neutrality of Christian ones - raises serious doubts as to whether the PA can be a trusted custodian of sacred sites in the Holy Land - Jewish or Christian."[697]
Philadelphia Daily News' C. M. Flowers wrote (at the heels of the so-called "Arab spring," Sep. 2011): "The very real persecution of Christians in the Arab world"
If the "Arab Spring" bathed the Middle East in some much-needed sunlight, there's at least one group that sees ominous clouds on the not-so-distant horizon. That would be the region's embattled and apprehensive Christians, who've lived a kind of double life for many decades.
While nominally citizens of the countries they inhabit, most non-Muslims, the majority of whom are Christian, are treated as second-class members of society because so many governments in that part of the world adhere to sharia, and anyone familiar with the Islamic legal system knows that it codifies discrimination.
For example, while Christians are free (and in some cases pressured) to convert to Islam, Muslims are barred from converting to Christianity. In a notorious case now in the headlines, Yusuf Naderkhani, a Christian pastor, has been sentenced to death in Iran for refusing to renounce his faith, to which he'd converted as a teen.
...an Egyptian Christian who petitioned the government to allow his daughters to receive a Christian education was forced into hiding after receiving death threats when his request was made public.
So Christians in the Middle East can be forgiven if they don't embrace the Arab Spring with as much fervor as their Muslim brothers and sisters because - to put it bluntly - the devil they know is at least more predictable than the devil they don't - which is, without a doubt, Islamic fundamentalism.
And in many parts of the Middle East, that's the only form of Islam there is, despite what you hear from organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations.
She goes on in explaining how Christians are effected when Arab-Islamic countries under "secular" tyrants are toppled.
While Christians were as oppressed as the next citizen in countries when secular tyrants like Hosni Mubarak, Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein ruled the roost, at least they weren't prey to the sectarian hostility rampant in other places such as Iran and Afghanistan, hotbeds of jihadism.
It's true that Egyptian Christians were always treated poorly by the government, but so was the Islamic Brotherhood, which was crushed into submission by the iron will of Mubarak and his military junta. Christians were merely as persecuted - or as tolerated - as any other group that the government didn't like.
But now, as the tyrants topple like dominoes, Christians have good reason to worry that they will be unique and tragic victims of this Arab awakening.
To its great and unexpected credit, the New York Times actually publicized that fear this week in a front-page, above-the-fold article about Syrian Christians who are ambivalent about the campaign to overthrow Hafez al-Assad.
The reason for this ambivalence is simple: Like Mubarak and Hussein, Assad continues the proud tradition of secular despotism, persecuting those who wear the cross, the hijab and the kippah with equal fervor. Those who say religion is the root of all evil in an attempt to maintain the devout wall between church and state conveniently overlook secular societies such as Syria and Baathist Iraq that terrorized their citizens in a religious vacuum.
However, they would be right about one thing: Godless regimes generally treat all victims equally, whereas those founded on a specific creed play favorites. And while it's hard to find very many nations where Christianity is the official state religion, and fewer still where they persecute nonbelievers, there's really only one country in the Middle East that provides equal rights to all its citizens, of whatever creed: Israel.
In fact, if you speak to Israeli Arabs, they will tell you that, while they may disagree with government policy in Palestine, they're not afraid to bow toward Mecca in the streets of Jerusalem, or attend Christian services in Bethlehem. In short, they're not forced to live their faith in the shadows.
That's clearly not the case in much of the Arab world, and Syrian Christians know it. So do their Lebanese Maronite friends, who've spent the last decade watching with increasing anxiety as Hezbollah and its Islamist members have infiltrated Beirut, making it difficult even... be seen going into a Catholic church...[698]
ARAB-ISLAMIC BIGOTRY [ANTI-SEMITISM] IN THE WEST
As the Wall Street Journal points out (2009): "Europe Reimports Jew Hatred." Police arrests Muslims targeting Jews. That The Islamist variation of Jew hatred is now being reimported to Europe.[699] Even such liberal outlets as the BBC were forced to admit to the [new] anti-Semitism in Europe. Part of the problem is the Middle East situation, which is not as simple to understand as people like to think. For example, in Arabic you don't talk about Israelis you talk about "the Jew" or "Yahud".[700] That Anti-Semitism 'on rise in Europe' (2004), with increased anti-Jewish attacks.[701][702]
Those -unfortunately- supporting Arab-Islamic apartheid systems, racist pan-Arabism and intolerant pan-Islamism
Regarding the radical left -- its calling others "racists," while routinely, supporting: the tyranny and racist Apartheid Arab-Islamic ruling systems of the majority oppressing minorities; of race based pan-Arabism ["Palestinian" nationalism is also its product]; intolerant rejectionist pan-Islamism; the Turkish and Iranian oppression and discrimination; Sudan genocide; Arab-Muslim crime upon Jews, especially since the mass expulsion; the Arab Spring with its violent anti-Christian, and openly anti-Jewish -- D. Greenfield expanded (Oct. 2011) on its "worst crime in the Middle East is its craven love for tyranny, for grand empires built on race and religion." Detailing:
The Middle East's Arab-Muslim majority at the expense of its minorities. It has supported the majority's terrorism, atrocities, ethnic cleansing and repression of the region's minorities. Very rarely has it raised a voice in their support, and when it has done so, it was in muted tones completely different from their vigorous defenses of the nationalism of the Arab Muslim majority.
...obsessed with the Arab Spring, which rewards the ambitions of Arabist and Islamist activists at the expense of Coptic, African, and other minorities. It is dementedly fixated on statehood for the Arab Muslims of Israel, (better known by their local Palestinian brand), but has little to say about the Kurds in Turkey or the Azeri in Iran. The million Jewish refugees and the vanishing Christians of the region never come up in conversation. They certainly don't get their own protest rallies or flotillas.
The Africans of Sudan could have used a flotilla, or an entire UN organization dedicated to their welfare, which the Arab Muslims who had failed to wipe out the region's Jewish minority are the beneficiaries of. But they had to make do with third tier aid.
Unlike the Arab nationalists and Islamists of Libya, the French, English and American air force did not come to their rescue. It came to the rescue of the Libyans who showed their gratitude in the time honored way of the Arab majority by massacring the African minority. All under the beaming smiles of the selective humanitarians of the left. But what's a little genocide between friends?
...Pan-Arabism, a race based nationalism, in line with the Soviet Union's expansionist foreign policy. Pan-Arabism's socialism made it easy for the left to ignore its overt racism along with the admiration of many of its leading lights for Nazi Germany. The same left which refused to see the Gulags and the ethnic cleansing under the red flag, turned an equally blind eye to the contradiction of condemning Zionism for its ethnic basis, while supporting Pan-Arabism, which was ethnically based.
Under Zionism, Israel retained a sizable Arab minority. The Pan-Arabists, however, drove their Jews out with mob violence, political repression, prisons and public executions. The left's criticisms of Zionism are rendered moot by their own support for Pan-Arabism, and their own longstanding hostility to Jewish national identity, insisting that socialism demands that Jews assimilate into the dominant race, whether in Russia or Western Europe. In the Middle East and North Africa, Arabization has led to repression of non-Arab minorities and the destruction of other cultures through the insistence on unity through race.
As the sun of Pan-Arabism sets, the left has turned its attention to Pan-Islamism with equal enthusiasm. While Pan-Arabism allowed Christian Arabs some representation, Pan-Islamism excludes based on religion. Having endorsed a racial tyranny, the left has fallen so low that it now champions majority theocracies.
...support for Kurdish nationalism has faded as Turkey has gone from a secular ally of the Western powers, to an Islamist tyranny dreaming of empire. This perverse twist of affairs has the left abandoning the national struggles of an oppressed people when their rulers align themselves more closely with the bigoted regional majority.
... in Egypt, where Mubarak's excessive tolerance for minorities, led the left to endorse the Pan-Arabist and Pan-Islamist calls for his overthrow. And in Tunisia, where a government tolerant of minorities has been replaced by the Islamists. ...support of racial and theocratic rule ...policy which endorses racial and theocratic rule and works to bring it about is a true crime and blot on the region.
It is no coincidence that the one country in the region that the left hates above all else, is neither Arab nor Muslim. Just as it is no coincidence that the Arab Spring replaces regimes tolerant of minorities with Islamists and Arabists. The left's true regional agenda is the racist agenda of its Arab members. The Arab Socialists and the Islamists who have defined its regional positions have turned the left into a vehicle for their racial and theocratic agendas. ...which is racist. It is the left which backs theocracies and always supports the majority's oppression of the minority... backs theocracies and always supports the majority's oppression of the minority.
The idiots in their Keffiyahs eager to give everyone a lesson on the Middle East think the Assyrians vanished in ancient times, have no idea who the Circassians are, or the Arab Gypsies, think the Zoroastrians are a traveling circus, and couldn't begin to tell you anything about the Druze, the Bahai or the Ahmadis except that American foreign policy or Israel are probably to blame...
Pan-Arabists and their rejection of Turkish reforms... repression of minorities and the ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide of the region's native inhabitants by their Arab Muslim conquerors. ...the nationalism of medieval conquerors and the resurgence of their colonial descendants. The only two nations with any historical roots in the region are Israel and Persia. In North Africa, where the Arab Spring has burned fiercest, the left is cheering the resurgence of an Arab Pretoria, racist regimes turning into even more racist theocracies run by the great-great-grands of the men who invaded the region and destroyed much of its history and culture.
The Arab Spring, with its purges of Coptic Christians and Africans, its outpouring of hostility toward Jews, is as perverse as if the left had suddenly decided that Africa needed proper Boer rule. It's the senseless behavior of racist idiots and totalitarian hypocrites who think that if they call you a 'racist' first then they win the argument.
The left has endorsed Arab and Islamic rule over the Middle East, which means that it is in absolutely no position to criticize anyone or anything. It will talk your ear off about Gaza or Fallujah, but it won't have anything to say about Turkish chemical weapons raids into Kurdish areas of Iraq. The tens of thousands of political prisoners in Turkish jails, some there for no other crime than the use of the Kurdish language, don't exist for the left. Erdogan's casual threat to ethnically cleanse the Armenians again doesn't stir their interest.
...picked Pan-Islamists over secularists in Iran and Turkey. It picked racialist fascists in Egypt, Iraq and Syria and their local Palestinian militias. It backed Islamist and Arabist revolts again in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. And after backing every totalitarian majoritarian regime that wasn't too closely aligned to the United States their one great enemy is the region's only democratic state.
The left's worst crime in the Middle East is its craven love for tyranny, for grand empires built on race and religion, over the national and political rights of the minority. These Apartheid states are all they care about. Their greatest effort has been set not on resolving the stateless problems of the Kurdish minority, on the national borders of Armenia or ending the Turkish occupation and settlement of Cyprus but on adding yet another Arab-Muslim state to the region.
Palestine, the cynical project of Pan-Arabist and Pan-Islamist thugs, is the great obsession of the left. Because if there's one thing that the Middle East doesn't have enough of, it's totalitarian regimes built on Arab and Islamist identity. And the one thing it has too much of is democratic state with a non-Arab and non-Muslim minority. And that one thing is what they are committed to destroying.[703][704]
CONFLICT = INTOLERANCE!
Authors, historians explain the motive and true cause of the Arab-Israel conflict as pure intolerance (of the "other"),[705] [706][707][708][709][710][711][712][713][714][715][716] Arab racism and Islamic bigotry, dating the Judeophobia to the founder of the conflict[717] the Mufti Haj amin al-Husseini, known for his open vile sermons, calling [already in the 1920s] to "Kill the Jews wherever they are." And later on A. Hitler's ally (despite the Nazi leader's utter contempt for the Arab race as "monkeys"[718]). [Responsible for having a hand in founding Arab Nazi parties. [719]] That Muslim Judeophobia is not-as is commonly claimed-a reaction to the Mideast conflict but one of its main "root causes." It has been fueling Arab rejection of a Jewish state long before Israel's creation.[720] As a journalist has put it: "Arab racism must go," and that "There will be no peace around here before Arabs view Jews as human beings." [721]
Richard Kraus wrote (in 2003) "The Roots of Anti-Semitism"
It is a matter of basic logic that cause must chronologically precede effect: that which occurs today cannot have been caused by an event that will not occur until tomorrow. Arab anti-Jewish bigotry cannot have been caused by Israeli policies, or even by Zionism more generally, for the simple reason that Arab anti-Jewish bigotry long predates the development of political Zionism.
One of the incidents inspired by this bigotry was the massacre of the Jewish community in Basra in 1776, in what is now southern Iraq. In 1785, Ali Burza Pasha led a pogrom against the Jewish community in what is now Libya, killing hundreds. In the city of Algiers in 1805, several hundred Jews were murdered during what was termed the "Black Sabbath" massacre. Algiers was the site of major anti-Jewish pogroms again in 1815 and 1830. One of the most historically important instances of anti-Jewish violence of the nineteenth century occurred in Damascus, now the capital of Syria, in 1840.
It was the Damascus blood libel in which the Jewish community was falsely accused of ritual murder; several members of the community were arrested and tortured for confessions, during which one of the torture victims died. Subsequently, 60 Jewish children were seized and purposefully starved so as to extract confessions from their parents. This incident was so important because it inspired Moses Hess to write The Revival of Israel: Rome and Jerusalem, which first argued for a restoration of Jewish national self-determination; even more than Theodor Herzl's book The Jewish State, Rome and Jerusalem marked the beginning of modern political Zionism.
It should also be noted that the bloody anti-Jewish pogroms that occurred in the Arab world during this period of time took place against a backdrop of daily, institutionalized oppression. In nineteenth century Europe, Jews were finally being released from the ghettos in which they had been forced to live since the Middle Ages. In Arabic-speaking North Africa, Jews were being herded into ghettos, called mellahin, which were first instituted in Morocco in 1808 before being copied by the other countries.
Of course, anti-Jewish bigotry did not decrease with the advent of the Zionist movement, although it reached a level of truly genocidal viciousness long before the state of Israel was declared in 1948. Anti-semitism thus existed long before there was a refugee problem, and certainly long before the occupation of the territories following the 1967 war. As early as 1921, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the first leader of the Palestinian national movement (and, incidentally, Yasser Arafat's uncle), incited a pogrom in Jaffa in which 43 Jews were murdered. In 1929, there were further Arab pogroms against the Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Safed, and Hebron in which 133 were killed and 399 were wounded; the survivors of the community in Hebron were forced to flee.
Al-Husseini also helped incite the series of pogroms which lasted from 1936 to 1939, in which hundreds more Jews were killed. Once the Second World War began, al-Husseini, seeing Nazi Germany as a natural ally, traveled to Berlin to meet with Hitler and plan for the extension of the Final Solution to the Jewish community in the mandate. According to the German minutes of the meeting, al-Husseini thanked Hitler "for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches. The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely ... the Jews."
In the end, of course, the Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps was defeated by the British at Alamein, and the Holocaust thus did not reach the mandate. The Mufti spent the remainder of the war contributing to Nazi atrocities by recruiting for the SS amongst the Muslim population of the Balkans.
Given the long history of anti-Jewish hatred among Arabs, and anti-Jewish violence by certain Arab segments, it is not surprising that the Arab world reacted violently to the idea of Jewish self-determination. Nor is it all that strange that Azzam Pasha, a secretary of the Arab League, responded to a last-ditch peace effort by the Jewish Agency in 1947 by saying, "The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz [one of the Jewish Agency representatives], that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic." Nor is it surprising that, at the beginning of the 1948 war, the same Azzam Pasha declared that "this will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
Arab violence against Jews has been going on long before there was an occupation, long before there was a refugee problem -- indeed, long before there was a political Zionist movement. That does not mean it has to go on forever. No one is born a bigot. Indeed, all the Arab dictatorships spend a tremendous amount of effort on propaganda intended to foster and maintain anti-Jewish bigotry. For example, one Palestinian Authority ninth-grade textbook contains the passage, "treachery and disloyalty are character traits of the Jews and therefore one should beware of them." If the Arab governments were to halt this stream of anti-Jewish propaganda, the Arab-Israeli war would end. If Arab society were to undertake a serious moral reckoning with its history, there would be real and enduring peace. As long, however, as the world keeps blaming the victims, this war will not end. [722]
ARAB ISLAMIC HYPOCRISY
On the sheer hypocrisy, the FLAME organization, under "Apartheid in the Arab Middle East" asks: How can the U.N. turn a blind eye to hateful, state-sponsored discrimination against people because of their race, ethnicity, religion and gender?
While apartheid-the legally-sanctioned practice of segregation, denial of civil rights and persecution because of race, ethnicity, religion or gender-has been eliminated in South Africa, where the term originated, it continues to be practiced in many parts of the world, particularly in the Arab Middle East and Iran. Why does the United Nations Human Rights Council continue to attack free, democratic Israel, yet refuse to condemn these true crimes against humanity.[723]
Seraphic Secret wrote on: 'Progressives Copy Arab Muslim Playbook of Lies'
One of the ironclad laws of the Muslim world in relation to Israel/Jews is this simple formulation:
Whatever atrocity the Muslims accuse Israel of committing, is, in fact, being perpetrated by Muslims.
Item: The Muslim world and its enablers on the left accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. Of course over a million Arab Muslim, Christian and Druze are citizens of Israel. There are Arab members of the Knesset and an Arab on the Israeli supreme court. There are Arab officers in the IDF. Israeli society, open and democratic, bears zero relationship to the South African apartheid state to which it is being compared.
In contrast, the Arab Muslim world is effectively an apartheid system. Jews are all but gone from the Arab Muslim world, expelled over the past sixty years, the wealth and property of the 800,000 Arab Jewish refugees stolen or taken in, er, taxes. And now Christians have been targeted for elimination from all Arab Muslim states.
The Palestinian Authority has publicly announced that any future Palestinian State will be judenrein, an apartheid state.
Item: The Arab Muslim world, like clockwork, accuses Israel of perpetrating a holocaust against the Palestinians.
If such a charge were true, the Israelis must be the most inept genociders in the history of the universe. For how is it that Gaza, a terrorist state, and an easy target, has not been flattened by the IAF and turned into a nice big parking lot.
Of course, the Arab Muslims were allies of Hitler in World War II. There were even Muslim SS soldiers. Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was led, by Heinrich Himmler, on a guided tour of Auschwitz for a first-hand lesson on how to murder Jews on an industrial scale.
The Hamas covenant calls for the annihilation of the Jewish State and the murder of every Jew on the face of the earth.
Which brings us to liberal progressives and their ghoulish charge that a conservative climate of hate is responsible for the Tucson massacre.
The above formulation-in effect, blood libels-applies to liberal progressives, for they have adopted the Arab Muslim tactic of committing acts which they attribute to others.[724]
J. Hanin wrote: "Meet the REAL Apartheid States in the Middle East,"
For years, those protesting Israel have claimed that Israel is an apartheid state. Yet, anyone comparing Israel to its neighbors would walk away shaking their heads. Let's look at the facts so we can put this poppycock to rest.
Israel allows freedom of speech, religion, voting and sexual orientation... It has more college graduates per capita than any country in the Middle East (this is significant since Israel is immediately surrounded by 22 Arab countries that are 640 times bigger than the Jewish State). It produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation: 109 per 10,000 people. Its citizens hold more patents per person than do citizens of any other nation. If you use a computer, cell phone, text messaging or voice mail, you're likely using technology first developed in Israel... Fast forward to Arab countries. Arab countries don't allow freedom of speech, religion, voting & sexual orientation. Saudi Arabia arrests women for driving. Egypt conducts "virginity checks[725] on female protesters." Libya is accused of raping and libeling women.[726] Iran hangs homosexuals[727] on a regular basis and has earned the top slot for world leader in child executions.[728] Afghanistan is known for marrying and beating child brides.[729] Palestinians have assassinated those suspected of helping Israel.[730]
Maps in Arab countries have inevitably omitted Israel off their maps while inciting hatred against Jews and Israelis. The BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) campaign is a result of Palestinian Authority's failed effort to isolate the Jewish State both economically, politically and socially. Mourning Israel's existence via Nakba Day[731] is more of this harnessed incitement. Israel? Besides making progress, seeking peace and offering a whole host of human rights, it's known and hugely criticized for defending itself and its citizens.[732]
Goal of diverting attention from the real racism, apartheid, practiced by Arab and Muslim worlds
Already in 1987 Y. Z. Blum exposed who and what is behind the "apartheid" campaign:
Most regrettably, many of the countries represented here today, although pretending to be among the most outspoken critics of racism, have cynically exploited that issue to serve their own nefarious partisan objectives, that have nothing whatsoever to do with the eradication of racism. On the contrary, these pretentious critics represent regimes that, themselves, have come to exemplify the worst evils of discrimination, intolerance and oppression. We must never lose sight of the fact that many, if not most, of the states that orchestrate and lead the verbal offensive against Israel, while ostensibly addressing the problem of apartheid, have ruthlessly trampled underfoot their own minorities and have enslaved their peoples under cruel dictatorships. Widespread imprisonment without trial, disappearances of alleged political opponents, degradation and torture, summary executions and wholesale butchery have become their hallmarks.
Among the countries represented on the Special Committee Against Apartheid we note, for example, Syria. The brutal policies of Syria's ruling Alawite minority have claimed thousands of victims and in 1982 culminated in the horrifying massacre of between 10,000 and 25,000 people and the annihilation of whole families at Hama; the orphaning of an estimated 20000 of that town's children, and the widespread devastation of the town's historic quarter. The savage character of the Syrian regime was also pointed out recently in a special report of Amnesty International that described not only the atrocities committed by Syrian forces in Hama, but also cited overwhelming evidence showing that over the years thousands of people have been harassed, arbitrarily arrested, horribly tortured and even summarily executed by Syrian security forces.
Algeria, another member of the special committee, is noted for its oppression of the native Berbers, who are denied the right to separate cultural expression...
Outside the special committee, but very outspoken nevertheless, are such countries as Libya and Iraq. The fanaticism and extremely oppressive character of Libya's regime has become notorious. Indeed, the hysteria that marks the religious intolerance of Libya's dictator has recently reached a higher pitch as Colonel Khaddafi has increasingly taken to openly inciting against people of other faiths, particularly Christians - as, for eaxmple in his speech of 1 September 1983 in the anniversary of his coup. Iraq, too, has become infamous for its own brand of bloody suppression of human liberties and the cruel persecution of its Kurdish and Assyrian minorities.
The author concludes about the Arab goal of diverting attention of the real racism, practiced by Arabs of course, past and present.
In conducting their cynical campaign against Israel in the context of apartheid, Arab states and their allies conveniently manoeuvre attention away from their own central role in the history of racism against black Africans . For centuries, the slave trade in Africa was dominated by Arab traders and in certain Arab countries today slavery still exists.
Arab brutalization of black Africans was recalled in the 17 February 1973 issue of Ghana's Weekly Spectator, which wrote that, during Ghana's struggle for independence , Arab merchants "constituted themselves into a volunteer force and with batons cudgelled down freedom fighters in the streets of Accra in open daylight." Khaddafi's calls for a jihad - a holy war - against Christianity in Africa led the black African Archbishop of Abidjan to raise the question in the Milan newspaper Avenire (19 June 1974) whether this might mean a return to the days when this might mean a return to the days when eighty thousand Africans a year were enslaved by the "Arab colonialists." Arab economic domination led Joseph Nyerere, the brother of Tanzania's president, to write that. . . Arabs, our former slave masters, are not prepared to abandon the rider-and-horse relationship. We have not forgotten that they used to drive us like herds of cattle and sell us as slaves. (Zambia Daily Mail, 21 June 1974).[733]
M. Steyn exposes the hypocrisy:
As Jonathan Tobin points out, the official goal of the Middle East "peace process" is a "two-state solution", in one of which Muslims live alongside Jews and have voting rights and representation in the legislature, while in the other there are no Jews at all and, as in "moderate" Jordan, to sell your house to a Jew is a crime punishable by death. There goes the neighborhood, right? When the western campus left holds its annual "Israeli Apartheid Week", presumably it's in philosophical support of the notion that you don't need to run an "apartheid" system if you just get rid of everyone who's not like you.[734]
I. Mansdorf
What anti-Israel activists have learned to do is ignore history as well as Arab racism and apartheid, and instead speak to the world in the language of human rights to gain legitimacy for their cause and to strip that legitimacy from Israel. Notwithstanding the hypocrisy and dishonesty of these activists, Israel is now seen by many often naive and uninformed young idealists as an uncaring bully who denies Palestinian Arabs freedom and independence, "rights" that today few disagree with.[735]
CLARITY THROUGH POLITICAL CLOUDS, WORRIED ISRAELIS VS RACIST ARABS
There's a great need to dispel clouds of politically charged rhetoric that often causes confusion.
A writer explains how "Israelis aren't 'racist' - they're worried."[736] Yet, Prof. Plaut under title: "The True Face Of Israeli Racism" exposes the Arab racism and anti-Jewish Arab apartheid, so often ignored. Highlighting the sheer contrast bewteen Israeli Jews' acceptance of Arabs VS harsh treatment by Israeli Arabs towards Jews, citing an example of an Arab town "Ibillin" near Haifa:
The Arabs there do not like the idea of their town being polluted by the presence of a Jew. I mean, one Jew and there goes the neighborhood. Arabs who sell property to Jews have similarly been threatened and attacked. And of course the moderates from the Palestinian Authority routinely torture and execute Arabs who sell to Jews.
...the reality is that, by and large, Israeli Arabs can live in just about any Jewish area in the country, while Jews cannot move into any Arab town, village or neighborhood. Jews cannot move into the Arab areas because they will be murdered if they move there. Every Israeli understands these unwritten "rules of the game."
In fact, Jews often risk their lives just passing through Arab areas, as a group of four Jewish Hebrew University students discovered during a recent weekend when they were almost lynched after making a wrong turn into an Arab neighborhood next to the campus.
Arabs from (Arab) Nazareth routinely buy housing in (Jewish) Upper Nazareth, but Jews from Upper Nazareth never purchase property in (Arab) Nazareth, knowing they'd be killed if they did. During the pogroms by Galilee Arabs in the summer of 2000, Arabs invaded Upper Nazareth and attacked Jews there. The Jews of Upper Nazareth did not attack Arabs in Nazareth. So who are the racists there?
More generally, the new party line of the radical Left is that, yes, Arabs must be permitted to live anywhere they want among Israeli Jews, but no, Jews must be prevented from ever moving into areas the Left regards as "Arab" - i.e., places where Jews do not belong. Hebrew University's tenured leftists and their jihadi fellow travelers have been leading the marches in Jerusalem to prevent Jews from moving into neighborhoods inside Jerusalem regarded by the Left as areas where Jews are regarded as "intruders."
Many parts of the Galilee today have Arab majorities. The Jews in Carmiel and Safed, to name but two towns, feel they are under demographic siege. Much of the local opposition to Arabs moving into those towns is based on the fact that violence and hostilities have broken out whenever significant numbers of Arabs moved to neighborhoods there. After all, we are in the middle of a war and the local Arabs, by and large, openly identify with the country's enemies.
The anti-Israel Left sees "racism" in calls to restrict Arabs moving into the Jewish towns of the Galilee, but has never expressed an iota of criticism about the violent threats that prevent Jews from moving into Arab areas. Those folks have had nothing to say about the plight of young Halevi. That's not racism, you see.
The Left also is completely silent about the violent attacks by Arabs against right-wing Jewish protesters who hold marches in some Arab towns, like Umm al-Fahm, the seat of the Israeli Arab pro-jihad Islamofascist movement (a movement that openly identifies with the Hamas). After all, those Jewish marchers are violating the anti-Jewish sensitivities of the local Arabs...
It is true that threats against Jews, which effectively prevent Jews from living in Arab areas in the Galilee and Negev and elsewhere, are not formal and officially proclaimed. Nevertheless, everyone in the country understands the threats of violence that operate against Jews seeking to live in Arab areas.
Again, the leftist knee-jerk response to Jewish "invasions" of areas where "Jews do not belong" has been to demand that the Jews be evicted. Arabs routinely move into many Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa and there have been virtually no incidents of violence against them. Meanwhile the Left keeps insisting that any peace deal with the Palestinian Authority must involve the complete eviction of all Jews living in the West Bank. Arabs will be free to live in Israel after any such "peace deal," but Jews must be prohibited from living in what could become "Palestinian areas."
Thus, the Prof. asks: "So who are the real racists? Where is the real apartheid?"[737]
S. J. Frantzman in an article: "Racism: The reality whose name we do not speak," laments how Arab racism against Jews inside Israel is ignored or simply defined by a "politically correctness of a: "resistance," "authentic," "spontaneous," "hooliganism" or "nationalism.", citing his own testimony of Arabs' attacks on innocent Jews passing by.
I was witness to the "hooliganism." Walking to a bus stop across from the Hebrew University, I saw four Arab youths walking in the middle of the street. Every time a car driven by Jews passed, they would jump in front of it, make menacing gestures, laugh and then let it pass. The same day a 57-year-old Jew was stabbed in the Old City by two 20-year-old Arabs who, according to police, went there to stab a Jew.
In mid-October in the village of Deir al-Assad in the Galilee, a Jewish woman on leave from the IDF drove into the neighborhood with her Jewish friends looking for a bakery. She was immediately sexually harassed – what the police described as "teased" – by young Arab men. While attempting to leave, a stone was thrown through the car window, fracturing her skull. The police subsequently arrested an Arab man "on suspicion that the [he] was driving the car at the time of the incident and was involved in the assault."
The police concluded that "there is no evidence indicating the assault was motivated by anything other than hooliganism." The mayor of the village condemned the attack "and underscored the good relations between" its residents and the Jews in nearby Karmiel.
Of course it's not the only story in the news regarding hooliganism and racism. On October 8 Arab children gathered in Silwan for what had become a daily event. Lookouts were posted to watch for cars driven by Jews. When they arrived, the children threw stones at them. On that day, for some reason, a number of cameramen were invited to watch the ritual and good footage resulted. An accident resulted in which a Jewish driver, David Be'eri, struck two of the children.
Of course this rock throwing takes place against a backdrop of tensions in east Jerusalem between Jews wishing to live there and Arabs who see their neighborhoods as being invaded by settlers. The "hooliganism" is a daily occurrence, whether it's in the Negev or Route 65 that runs through Umm el-Fahm.
In Jerusalem the Jewish victim of the stoning is called a "settler."
But what is more interesting is a third term that crops up from time to time: "nationalist motives." In 2007 French-Jewish immigrant Julian Soufir "decided to murder an Arab."
He lured taxi driver Taysir Karaki to his apartment in Tel Aviv, slit his throat and left his body in the apartment.
The head of the Yarkon District police investigation unit "suspected that there was a nationalistic motive behind the murder."
MK Ahmed Tibi noted that an "atmosphere of incitement, hatred of Arabs and escalating racism in the country are fertile soil for this crime."
On August 15, 2009, six Arab men from Jaljulya and their Jewish girlfriends, one of whom was a soldier and another a minor from Petah Tikva, went to Tel Baruch beach, north of Tel Aviv. Arik Karp, his wife and daughter were out for a stroll. One of the Arabs harassed them, "baiting them by asking the father to fix him up with one of the women."
Then two others came and assaulted the Jewish women, who managed to escape. The Arabs then beat Arik Karp, whose dead body was found later on the beach, purchased more alcohol and went to a forest where they lit a fire and danced through the night. The case against them is ongoing more than a year later.
There was no outcry about racism in the Karp murder.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned what he called "domestic terrorism."
In the end it is all semantics. There are no "nationalist" motives. There is no "hooliganism."
There is only racism.
The one deciding factor in each case was race.
Had Arik Karp been Khalid Musa or Taysir Karaki been Ben Cohen they would be alive today, and had David Be'eri or the Jews from Karmiel been Arabs entering an Arab neighborhood no one would have harassed them. In many communities here the evils of the American Old South are alive and well, and the police seem to distort the nature of the crimes in the name of "quiet."
Tibi is right, there is escalating murderous racism, and a lot of it is in his own community.
Until we address the truth rather than covering it over with semantics and "coexistence" initiatives, the racism will only grow. Those who put themselves in charge of talking about racism rarely witness its manifestations, and those who know it firsthand will never accept the pie-in-the-sky slogans about ending it.
Is there one positive note to this whole story? When the Arab youths on Mount Scopus were harassing Jewish drivers, they were approached by a woman who shouted at them that they should be ashamed: "You are the reason people say terrible things about Arabs!" The woman was Arab. [738]
REALITY VS "APARTHEID" SLUR / LIE / PROPAGANDA
Israel's open and democratic character, and its scrupulous protection of the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims, rebut the charge of exclusivity. Moreover, anyone - Jew or non-Jew, Israeli, American, or Saudi, black, white, yellow or purple - can be a Zionist. Israel's population entails all colors, races equal under the law.[739]
From the fighters against hatred on the 'apartheid lie': The truth is that unlike apartheid South Africa, Israel is a democratic state. Its 20% Arab minority enjoys all the political, economic and religious rights and freedoms of citizenship, including electing members of their choice to the Knesset (Parliament). Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have standing before Israel's Supreme Court. In contrast, no Jew may own property in Jordan, no Christian or Jew can visit Islam's holiest sites in Saudi Arabia.[740]
Yoram Ettinger asks about the slanderous claim of so-called "apartheid" in Israel: "Did you know that Arabs prefer Israeli ID?"
Three sisters of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, married Israeli Arabs and live in Israel's Negev city of Tel Sheva. Two are widows and the son of the third serves in the IDF...
J Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who delivers anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist sermons, retains his Israeli ID card. Here are a few more: Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO, Muhammad Abu-Tir of Hamas and Jibril Rajoub's wife...
150,000 non-Israeli Arabs, mostly from Judea and Samaria, married Israeli Arabs and received Israeli ID cards between 1993 and 2003.
Israeli Arabs vehemently oppose any settlement which would exchange land between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This would transform them into Palestinian subjects, denying them Israeli citizenship.
According to an opinion poll conducted by The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion headed by Nabil Kukali of Beit Sakhur, a sizeable number of Jerusalem Arabs prefer to remain under Israel's sovereignty.
Since 1967, Jerusalem Arabs within Israel's municipal lines have been permanent Israeli residents and are Israeli ID card holders. They freely work and travel throughout Israel and benefit from Israeli's health care system, retirement plans, social security, unemployment, disability and child allowances. They can vote in Jerusalem's municipal elections. According to the January 2011 poll, which was conducted by Palestinians in Arab neighborhoods far from any Jewish presence, 40% of Jerusalem Arabs would relocate to an area inside Israel if their current neighborhood were to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. Only 27% would prefer to remain in the neighborhood under Palestinian Authority.[741]
An author gets a good laugh, albeit a somewhat bitter one at "Israeli Apartheid Week" [as he dubbs it "Israeli Pogrom Week"].
...the reason I'm laughing these days is not because it's Purim season, but because the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people around the world are hosting, as they have for the past seven years, something called "Israel Apartheid Week." This international phenomenon consists of a series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe. The aim of International apartheid Week, according to the group's website, is "to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement."
So while in reality, this is no laughing matter, I can't help but to ridicule the absurdity of the claims that Israel is an Apartheid State on par with White South Africa. Anyone who has been to Israel, and I'm sure the majority of the group's organizers have not, would come to realize in a very short time how utterly preposterous those claims are.
Let's start by using the capital city of Jerusalem as the ultimate proof of this fallacy. I take my wife to the mall and Arabs are shopping in the same stores as Jews. I take my kids to the zoo and Arabs are there with their families as well. The movies – it's the same story. Restaurants, cafes, gas stations, public restrooms more and more Arabs are sighted. Wow! I'm amazed! There are Arabs everywhere I go.
In all of Jerusalem's hospitals Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses work side by side treating – you guessed it, Arab patients!! Not only Arabs from the area, but from all over Israel including Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank"). In fact, even during Israel's military Operation in Gaza a few years back, Arabs who needed special treatment were given care in Israeli medical clinics near the border. True Hamas did everything in their power to prevent their fellow Arabs from accepting treatment, but "Apartheid" Israel was still on hand to treat our ENEMIES and their families nonetheless.
The most transparent example of why this myth is bogus can be found in the halls of government and military. There are currently 14 Arab (and Druze) members of Israel's Knesset or Parliament elected to represent their own constituency in all parts of the country. Within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Beduin Arabs play a key role, often serving as trackers as part of the Desert Reconnaissance Brigade usually in Southern regions of the country.
Does this sound like Apartheid to you?
It doesn't to me, hence the sarcastic laughter. In reality the "Apartheid Week BDS" group is an organization of anti-Zionists whose goal is to first delegitimize and ultimately destroy the State of Israel. There is nothing noble, sincere, or factual in their critiques or actions when it comes to the events surrounding what should be really dubbed "Israel Pogrom Week," where Israel bashers and haters come to spew their Anti-Semitic rhetoric while they are disguised as pro-Arab left-wing humanitarians.
Why don't the Apartheid folks ask the Arab living in Israel if they would rather be living in Israel (with civil rights, healthcare and education benefits, insurance – and I could go on and on), or in Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or any other country whose name I'm sure will not be mentioned this week by these phony saints. The answers they receive might be surprising to them, but not to me.[742]
After simply [naturally] laughing the "apartheid" slur off, Danielle Kubes responded to the slanderous propaganda in order to clarify the facts to others:
The hypocrisy of Israel Apartheid Week
I laughed the first time I heard Israel called an apartheid state. The statement is so hyperbolic and absurd that it should not even require refutation. But since many students fail to grasp the full complexity of Middle Eastern issues and never bother to check the facts, I'm writing to clarify that Israel is not an apartheid state and saying it is only hinders constructive dialogue; people shut down when they hear emotive words bearing negative connotations. So calling Israel an apartheid state merely attracts attention and masks the real issues plaguing the Israel-Palestine conflict.
First off, most people don't realize that Israel is extremely multicultural. Downtown Tel-Aviv you'll find Black Christian Sudanese drinking coffee alongside Thai women shouting Hebrew, beside religious Jewish men wearing tall black hats who dart their eyes to the ground as scantily-clad young Israeli women saunter by with their Ethiopian boyfriends to buy soda from Arab-Israeli vendors. To assume Israel has a single ethnic identity, or that its goal is such, is a joke. True, Israel was founded primarily as a Jewish state - but not to the exclusion of others. The purpose was to ensure that Jews always have a safe place to go whenever they face persecution, certainly not because Israel seeks an entirely Jewish population run according to Biblical laws. Israel could not create a single identity even if it tried because Jews are too diverse in race, observance and opinion.
Moreover, every citizen of Israel's democracy has exactly the same rights. Arab Israelis - who make up roughly one fifth of the country's six million people - vote, worship whomever they want, volunteer for the army and even make up roughly one-tenth of parliament. Sure, prejudice and discrimination exists in Israel. And in Canada. And in every country in the world. To be an apartheid state, the discrimination must be sanctioned and enforced by the government on the basis of race. Israel's government often condemns prejudiced individuals and constantly denounces extremists. It cannot be held responsible for the actions of racist individuals.
But what about the checkpoints, fences and separate roads the government placed in the West Bank? Are they proof the government is inherently racist against Palestinians? Or did Israel create them to protect its citizens from a very real terrorism threat funded and encouraged by Iran and Syria? Security, not racism, is the motivation behind Israel's policies in the West Bank.
Separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians exist because tensions are so intense that an Israeli found on Palestinian property is likely to be assaulted or killed, and vice versa.
Racism didn't fuel the recent offensive in Gaza either; Israel's government was taking military action against the nearly 3,500 rockets it says have been launched against Israel from the Gaza Strip since Israeli forces withdrew from the region in August 2005. Feel free to criticize Israel's defence policies, but don't be fooled into thinking the core of the conflict is institutional racism. Not only is there little evidence for that, but it also oversimplifies the conflict thereby drawing attention away from the real issues at hand such as water rights, demographic issues and extremism.
And what about the actions of Israel's neighbours? Why didn't people protest when Lebanon's army killed hundreds of Palestinians in 2007 while fighting militants in a refugee camp? And why don't people cry out when Syrian homosexuals have to flee into Israel to escape death? Perhaps Canadians don't care when Arabs kill other Arabs. We must take care not to apply a different standard to Israel, which possibly has the best human rights record in the region.[743]
Author D. Prager, in a piece based on raw facts, clearly lays out the 'lie' of apartheid and shows the 'genocide' goal of the lie (Aug. 2011):
Israel has nothing in common with an apartheid state, but few people know enough about Israel — or about apartheid South Africa — to refute the libel. So let's respond.
First, what is an apartheid state? And, does Israel fit that definition?
From 1948 to 1994, South Africa, the country that came up with this term, had an official policy that declared blacks second-class citizens in every aspect of that nation's life. Among many other prohibitions on the country's blacks, they could not vote; could not hold political office; were forced to reside in certain locations; could not marry whites; and couldn't even use the same public restrooms as whites.
Not one of those restrictions applies to Arabs living in Israel.
One and a half million Arabs live in Israel, constituting about 20 percent of the country's population. They have the same rights as all other Israeli citizens. They can vote, and they do. They can serve in the Israeli parliament, and they do. They can own property, businesses, and work in professions alongside other Israelis, and they do. They can be judges, and they are. Here's one telling example: It was an Arab judge on Israel's supreme court who sentenced the former president of Israel, a Jew, to jail on a rape charge.
Some other examples of Arabs in Israeli life: Reda Mansour was the youngest ambassador in Israel's history, and is now Consul General at Israel's Atlanta Consulate; Walid Badir is an international soccer star on Israel's national team, and captain of one of Tel Aviv's major teams; Rana Raslan is a former Miss Israel; Ishmael Khaldi was until recently the deputy consul of Israel in San Francisco; Khaled Abu Toameh is a major journalist with the Jerusalem Post; Ghaleb Majadele was until recently a minister in the Israeli Government. They are all Israeli Arabs. Not one is a Jew.
Arabs in Israel live freer lives than Arabs living anywhere in the Arab world. No Arab in any Arab country has the civil rights and personal liberty that Arabs in Israel have.
Now one might counter, “Yes, Palestinians who live inside Israel have all these rights, but what about the Palestinians who live in what are known as the occupied territories? Aren't they treated differently?”
Yes, of course, they are — they are not citizens of Israel. They are governed by either the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) or by Hamas. The control Israel has over these people's lives is largely manifested when they want to enter Israel. Then they are subjected to long lines and strict searches because Israel must weed out potential terrorists.
Otherwise, Israel has little control over the day-to-day life of Palestinians, and was prepared to have no control in 2000 when it agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state to which it gave 97 percent of the land it had conquered in the 1967 War. The Palestinian response was to unleash an intifada of terror against Israeli civilians.
And what about the security wall that divides Israel and the West Bank? Is that an example of apartheid?
That this is even raised as an issue is remarkable. One might as well mention the security fence between the United States and Mexico an example of apartheid. There is no difference between the American wall at its southern border and the Israeli wall on its eastern border. Both barriers have been built to keep unwanted people from entering the country.
Israel built its security wall in order to keep terrorists from entering Israel and murdering its citizens. What appears to bother those who work to delegitimize Israel by calling it an apartheid state is that the barrier has worked. The wall separating Israel from the West Bank has probably been the most successful terrorism-prevention program ever enacted.
So, then, why is Israel called an apartheid state?
Beause by comparing the freest, most equitable country in the Middle East to the former South Africa, those who seek Israel's demise hope they can persuade uninformed people that Israel doesn't deserve to exist just as apartheid South Africa didn't deserve to exist.
Yet, the people who know better than anyone else what a lie the apartheid accusation is are Israel's Arabs - which is why they prefer to live in the Jewish state than in any Arab state.
There are lies, and then there are loathsome lies. “Israel is an apartheid state” is in the latter category. Its only aim is to hasten the extermination of Israel. [744]
In April 2011, in a brave act, black student leaders slammed 'apartheid' characterization.
Letter says "decency, justice and hope compel us to demand immediate cessation to deliberate misappropriation of words."
...African-American student leaders from a variety of historically black colleges and universities took out full page ads in numerous American college newspapers Thursday, displaying an "Open Letter to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)," to convey that they were offended by SJP's use of the term "apartheid" at recent Israel Apartheid Week events at campuses across the country...
"The Students for Justice in Palestine's labeling of Israel, an extremely diverse and vibrant country, as an apartheid state is not only false, but offensive," Vanguard President Michael Hayes told The Jerusalem Post. "Additionally, this rhetoric does absolutely nothing to help Israel-Palestine negotiations or relations. We feel this type of action serves to hinder the peace process domestically and abroad, and have made it our priority to take a stand to shift the tide of understanding."
The Letter also reads:
"Your organization's campaign against Israel is spreading misinformation about its policies, fostering bias in the media and jeopardizing prospects for a timely resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such irresponsibility is a blemish on your efforts."
The letter continues to state that "[p]laying the ‘apartheid card' is a calculated attempt to conjure up images associated with the racist South African regimes of the 20th century," and calls the strategy "as transparent as it is base."
"Beyond that, it is highly objectionable to those who know the truth about the Israelis' record on human rights and how it so clearly contrasts with South Africa's," the letter reads, noting that under apartheid, black South Africans had no rights in a country in which they were the majority of the population.
Saying that the analogy manipulates rather than informs, the letter requests SJP to "immediately stop referring to Israel as an apartheid society and to acknowledge that the Arab minority in Israel enjoys full citizenship with voting rights and representation in the government."
"Decency, justice, and the hope of peace and reconciliation in the Middle East compel us to demand an immediate cessation to the deliberate misappropriation of words and of the flagrant mischaracterizations of Israel," the letter concludes. "Your compliance with this request will be viewed as a responsible and appropriate first step toward raising the level of discourse."[745]
From Israeli Arab (Bedouin), Ishmael Khaldi, the deputy consul general of Israel for the Pacific Northwest:
Lost in the blur of slogans
Last year, at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to "dialogue" with some of the organizers of these events. My perspective is unique, both as the vice consul for Israel in San Francisco, and as a Bedouin and the highest-ranking Muslim representing the Israel in the United States. I was born into a Bedouin tribe in Northern Israel, one of 11 children, and began life as shepherd living in our family tent. I went on to serve in the Israeli border police, and later earned a master's degree in political science from Tel Aviv University before joining the Israel Foreign Ministry.
I am a proud Israeli – along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deals honestly. By any yardstick you choose – educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation – Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East
So, I would like to share the following with organizers of Israel Apartheid week, for those of them who are open to dialogue and not blinded by a hateful ideology:
You are part of the problem, not part of the solution: If you are really idealistic and committed to a better world, stop with the false rhetoric. We need moderate people to come together in good faith to help find the path to relieve the human suffering on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Vilification and false labeling is a blind alley that is unjust and takes us nowhere.
You deny Israel the fundamental right of every society to defend itself: You condemn Israel for building a security barrier to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and for striking at buildings from which missiles are launched at its cities – but you never offer an alternative. Aren't you practicing yourself a deep form of racism by denying an entire society the right to defend itself?
Your criticism is willfully hypocritical: Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage – you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available.
You are betraying the moderate Muslims and Jews who are working to achieve peace: Your radicalism is undermining the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. We are working hard to move toward a peace agreement that recognizes the legitimate rights of both Israel and the Palestinian people, and you are tearing down by falsely vilifying one side.
To the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week I would like to say:
If Israel were an apartheid state, I would not have been appointed here, nor would I have chosen to take upon myself this duty. There are many Arabs, both within Israel and in the Palestinian territories who have taken great courage to walk the path of peace. You should stand with us, rather than against us.[746]
From CIFWatch:
On CiF Watch and the fight against anti-Semitism
Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany have been codified as anti-Semitic by the EU working definition of anti-Semitism.
When you compare Israel to Nazi Germany you're saying, in effect, that, like Nazi Germany, Israel is morally beyond the pale and therefore has no moral legitimacy and no right to exist. It's a way for those who seek her destruction to morally and politically justify their stance. Moreover, being asked to respond to such a hideous charge is not unlike asking the US to respond to charges by Iran that America is the great Satan.
In other words, such a charge against Israel is not a morally or intellectually serious argument, and it really shouldn't be dignified as if it's a serious charge. It's simply abuse. The fact is that, by any measure (such as the annual country reports which are published by the highly reputable human rights monitoring organization, Freedom House), Israel is, by far, the nation with the best human rights record in the Middle East.
As far as the Apartheid slur, again, the main point of such a charge is to morally delegitimize Israel. The fact is that Israel's Arab citizens enjoy full civil rights (in housing, education, voting, etc.) which South Africa's blacks were denied. There are Arab Israelis in every sector of Israeli societyand their rights are protected by an independent judiciary.
In fact there is a Christian Arab on the Supreme Court, and Arab parties in the Knesset. In South Africa under Apartheid, Blacks weren't permitted to live in White neighborhoods, go to White schools, or even date (or marry) Whites. There is no policy in Israel which even approaches such prohibitions.
The related charge that Israel "ethnically cleanses" its Palestinian/Arab/ethnic minority population are easily contradicted by population growth of every major religious/ethnic minority, both in Israel proper, and in the disputed territories.[747]
Michael Weingberg wrote:
'Israel and the Apartheid Slur'
(and on IAW's uncredible accusations)...as a Jew, and an Israeli, I do not wish a return to apartheid, in practice, but rather to closer examine this loaded, grossly distorted, and extremely misunderstood term. Apartheid bears no resemblance to the reality of day-to-day life in Israel...
These efforts to demonize a nation of survivors, from the biblical to modern era, are baffling and reckless. Israel assists in countless life-saving rescue missions and disaster relief operations locally and worldwide. We care for neighbors and strangers by saving lives of the injured or sick such as in recently devastated Haiti, refuge for thousands of African refugees fleeing horrific conflict. At the cost of precious lives, Israel's best intentions and expertise are often refused as did the Iranian government after a catastrophic 2003 earthquake or grossly manipulated via horrific and unsubstantiated slander such as accusations against Jewish surgeons of harvesting organs of dead or injured Haitians. Such baseless and libelous accusations are dangerous to Jewish and non-Jewish lives, alike...
I live amongst people of all nationalities, colors, creeds, religions, sexual preference, and political affiliation. On any given day a multitude of languages can be heard spoken on the streets: Farsi, English, Thai, French, German, Finnish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew. Together we share government offices, waiting rooms, hospitals, shops, eateries, holy sites, pharmacies, medical facilities, zoos, malls, grocery stores, post offices, universities, workplaces, and neighborhoods. We serve and share roles as varied as doctors, nurses, surgeons, mechanics, rail-workers, clerks, soldiers, elected officials, lawyers, journalists, and taxi drivers. We are an integrated society...
When Israel does not actively prevent or defend against provocation, murder and massacre people will die. This includes civilians within Israel and civilians within areas under PLO or Hamas auspices. The precedent above defies logic and justice and renders survival of Israel impossible...[748]
Mike Fegelman of HR wrote (July 2011): 'Vicious slur' demonizes Israel
Re: "Groups divided over Israeli apartheid"
Drawing an analogy between Israel and apartheid is not only ill-informed, inflammatory and without any factual or logical basis, it is also a vicious slur employed by those who seek to demonize and deligitimize the right of the Jewish state to exist.
In making this comparison, these activists seek to paint Israel, the paragon of openness, tolerance and human rights, as a racist and criminal pariah state that commits crimes against humanity.
Consider this if you will: An Arab (Salim Joubran) serves on the Israeli Supreme Court, the former Miss Israel (Rana Rasian) is Arab, the captain of Israeli soccer team Hapolel Tel Aviv (Walid Badir) is Arab, the former deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset (Majalil Wahabi) is Druze.
Israel has accepted thousands of African refugees fleeing for their lives and welcomed thousands of Ethiopian immigrants. Jews and Arabs sing and dance together in Israel, swim in the Dead Sea, shop together and are educated at the same schools.
This farcical comparison should be unequivocally rebuked and condemned by the media..[749]
From a review on "Lettera a un amico antisionista" by Pierluigi Battista (Rizzoli, Jan 1 2011, 119 pages)[750]
Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend explores the fact that European and American élites are being contaminated by a bias against Israel regardless of logic or historical fact. The narrative of the intelligentsia, burdened down with studies and statistics, promotes the idea that it would be better if the State of Israel never existed. That it ought not to exist and that it will be destroyed. Demolishing this intellectual perversion of ant Zionist hatred in five blistering chapters, Battista reveals anti-Zionism for what it really is: Anti-Semitism.
In general, opinion shapers in the media, academia and the world of cinema are fostering a public opinion based upon silent agreement; a climate that delegitimizes Israel's right to exist, libels it with the 'apartheid' slur and accuses it of war crimes. In the words of a previous French ambassador to London: "that shitty little country." This warped mindset indulges in the most outrageous double standards that absolve the worst dictators while denying Israel's right to life.
Battista shows how the United Nations and the European Union operate in a fever swamp of lies and deception. These and other multinational organizations protect the violators of human rights while ignoring human rights abuses in places like China, Chechnya and Sudan. Yet they criticize Israeli checkpoints that deter terrorist attacks by using pornographic adjectives like "Nazi".
Battista assails this mindset on two fronts, (a) by pointing out the correspondences between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and (b) by highlighting the maniacal obsession that Robert Wistrich calls the lethal obsession. Battista demonstrates so convincingly that this obsession is rooted in anti-Semitism.
But there's more to it, as the author explains. Israel is being judged by an ideological system that emerged during the Cold War, in which the poor are automatically "good" whilst westerners are automatically "evil colonialists." This system of judgment has a logical flaw at its core: the double standard. There are millions of displaced persons around the world whose plight is ignored. Just consider the Uighurs, Darfur, Tibet, Kirghizstan and the cruelty that characterized the so-called "Arab Spring."
Battista identifies the sources of the masked anti-Semitism by denouncing this double standard in a series of debates with prominent figures like Sergio Romano, Barbara Spinelli, Tom Segev and the late Edward Said. He makes it clear by analogy. Specific governments are criticized all the time but one seldom encounters blanket criticism of for example Italy or Sweden as a whole, whilst their right to exist is never questioned.
And this is the theme of Battista's work, presented in lucid arguments and with moral clarity: that the despicable questioning of Israel's right to exist derives from the mental virus of anti-Semitism.
The reviewer also recommends the works of Robin Shepherd, Neill Lochery and Denis MacShane.[751]
In an OpEd, Yonatan Silverman explains in simple show of facts the obvious: "Israel no apartheid state."
And that vis-a-vis the situation in the West Bank "apartheid comparisons are ludicrous!"
The difference between Israel and apartheid South Africa can be highlighted at a very human level: Jewish and Arab babies are born in the same delivery room, with the same facilities, attended by the same doctors and nurses, with the mothers recovering in adjoining beds in the same ward.' (Benjamin Pogrund)
Global anti-Israel activists have adopted a baseless but malicious mantra for attacking Israel, claiming that the Jewish state is an apartheid state. The roots of this campaign go back to the racist Durban conference, an anti-racism event that turned into an unrestrained orgy of vicious anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment.
As long as occupation persists, democracy within Green Line won't make a difference
The people who call Israel an apartheid state seek to draw a parallel between the vile racism and injustice which apartheid represented in South Africa and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank since 1967. But this parallel does not exist in reality. It is a vicious canard and an exaggerated appeal to emotion aimed at producing a deeply flawed and distorted comparison.
The ultimate purpose of portraying Israel as an apartheid state is to set in motion a process whereby the Jewish state will be slapped with the same harsh sanctions as South Africa, which eventually forced the apartheid regime to surrender and abolish its racist social system. The idea is that similar sanctions will also bring Israel to its knees and force it to withdraw from the West Bank. Yet as noted, this campaign is premised on a groundless, malicious fallacy.
Apartheid (apart-ness) in South Africa featured legal racial segregation that deprived non-white residents of the country of rights, while enabling the white minority to maintain its rule and superiority in virtually every area of life.
Public services in apartheid South Africa were segregated, with white citizens enjoying highly developed facilities compared to vastly inferior services for non-whites. In fact, blatantly racist legislation classified South Africans into different racial groups based on their ethnicity and skin color.
Now let's turn our attention back to the Middle East. Indeed, Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank want the occupation to end; moreover, we can concede that a situation whereby one nation occupies another is indeed a recipe for disaster, as inequality and injustice inevitably creep in on some occasions. However, such occasional inequality is not the same as apartheid.
Moreover, Israel's conduct and the acts it undertakes in the West Bank are largely motivated by security concerns, rather than racial bias. As such, these moves are not fixed or entrenched in legislation; they are mitigated when the security situation is calm. On a broader level, Israeli society is based on equality and freedom for all citizens, including Arabs, by law, further highlighting the non-racial basis for the Jewish state's actions in Judea and Samaria.
Until such time as a viable Palestinian government can rule the West Bank, following negotiations, Israel has no choice but to maintain its occupation in order to curb the terror threats against it. Yet Israel's presence in the West Bank is not premised on a hateful, pervasive racist model as the one previously employed by South Africa. Rather, it is an imperfect political and military arrangement that shall prevail until the Palestinians can govern themselves.[752]
Jerusalem Watchman under "There's no apartheid here," listed a long detailed "prohibitions" and "limitations" in the "what if" scenario, if the 'apartheid propaganda' were to have had any shred of truth.
And starts off with vital clarifications:
The charge is that Israel's treatment of the Palestinian Arabs is similar to White South Africa's treatment of South African black citizens (which included full-blood "Africans," mixed-race "coloreds" and the descendants of immigrant Asian laborers).
The whole argument collapses right there, because the Palestinian Arabs have never been Israeli citizens. Nor did/do they have any national history as "Palestinians" – neither in Israel nor anywhere else. They are Arabs – their country of origin is Arabia.
(There's extensive information on early massive Arab immigration -contributing to the bulk of Arab-Palestinian population today- that unlike Jewish immigration, it has not been subject to limitation, nor control by the British.[753][754][755][756][757])
For starters, then, it is fallacious to compare Israel's relationship with the Palestinian Arabs in any area to the apartheid governments' relationships with their black South African citizens.
Let us then turn to the Israel's Arab citizens. Most are also Palestinian Arabs, but unlike the majority of their people – who remain stateless – they were willing to take citizenship and be integrated into the country of Israel.
Israeli Arabs comprise a little over 1.5 million of Israel's 7.7 million citizens – approximately 20 percent of the population. They are, therefore, a minority.
They live in 15 towns and cities, mostly in and around the Galilee. They have full voting rights. Five Arab political parties are represented in the Knesset; there are 14 Arab members of Knesset, one has attained to a ministerial portfolio, one is a former and another is a current deputy Knesset Speaker.
Israeli Arabs enjoy complete freedom in their country. They can live, study, work and travel where they please. They have national health coverage and enjoy the same benefits as their fellow, Jewish, citizens.
What they do not have to do, is serve in the IDF (although some Druze and some Bedouin choose to do so and have served with distinction; even laying down their lives.)
The majority of Israel's Arabs identify their nationality as "Palestinian." Many, including some of the parliamentarians, openly support the PLO goal to destroy Jewish Israel and replace it with a Muslim Palestine.
Looking through a list of the above-mentioned "Apartheid Laws," we see how it could be for Israel's Arabs were the Jewish state an apartheid state:
- Arabs would be required to be classified and registered in accordance with a racial classification (Population Registration Act).
- Arabs would be forced by law to live in Arabs-only residential areas and work in Arabs-only business areas (Group Areas Act).
- Arabs would have their names systematically removed from the voters' roll until they were all deprived of their voting rights (Separate Representation of Voters Act).
- By law, Arabs would be deported from wherever they lived in Israel and forcefully settled in designated Arab-only areas (Bantu Authorities Act).
- Arabs would be evicted and have their homes destroyed if they tried to remain in "Jews-only" areas (Prevention of Illegal Squatters Act).
- Arabs-only areas would be transformed into fully-fledged independent Arab homelands (Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act).
- A denaturalization law would change the status of the inhabitants of the Arabstans (Arab homelands) stripping them of their Israeli citizenship and all its privileges and benefits (Black Homeland Citizenship Act).
- Most developed urban areas in Israel (all the established and economically-thriving cities and towns) would be deemed "Jewish," and Arabs wanting to be in those areas would have to live in "compounds" and carry permits called "passes" on them at all times (Native Laws Amendment Act).
- The Arab population would be required to carry these pass books with them whenever outside their compounds or designated areas. Any Jew, even a child, could ask an Arab to produce his or her pass. Failure to produce a pass would result in the person being arrested (Pass Laws).
- Once Arabs-only areas are modernized and developed, Arabs would be moved out and the area declared a Jews-only area (Group Areas Development Act).
- Arabs would be deprived of the right to appeal to courts of law by means of an interdict or any legal process (Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) Act).
- Arabs would be restricted to studying in Arab-only institutions. None of Israel's schools or universities would be allowed to enroll Arab students (Bantu Education Act). The ruling political party in Israel would declare, that it viewed education as a key element in its plan to create a completely segregated society. Emulating the words of South Africa's "father of apartheid Hendrik Verwoerd, an Israeli prime minister would declare: "There is no place for the Arab in the Israeli community above the level of certain forms of labor … What is the use of teaching the Arab child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd. Education must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live."
- Arabs would be allowed training in skilled labor, but would be restricted as to where they were allowed to work (Bantu Building Workers Act).
- Public places and services like beaches, playing parks, national parks, buses and trains, restaurants and hotels, theaters and cinemas etc would be segregated, with Jews getting the best and most well-equipped places and Arabs banned from entering or using those facilities. (Reservation of Separate Amenities Act).
- Arabs could be labeled "communists" – a criminal offense – for doing anything that promoted disorder and disturbances or encouraged feelings of hostility between Arabs and Jews (Suppression of Communism Act).
- Any Arab suspected of involvement in terrorism-broadly defined as anything that might "endanger the maintenance of law and order"-could be detained for a 60-day period (which could be renewed) without trial and on the authority of a senior Jewish police officer. There would be no requirement to release information on who was being held, making it possible for people so detained to simply "disappear." (Terrorism Act)
- Jews and Arabs would be prohibited by law from intermarriage. – (Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act).
- It would be illegal for an Arab man to even show romantic interest in a Jewish woman; or for a Jewish boy to indicate an interest in an Arab girl (Immorality Amendment Act).
The writer adds that:
- Also, to qualify as citizens of a state like the South African apartheid state, Israel's Arabs would have to comprise the vast majority of the population, and would be kept under the cruel and exploitative thumb of a minority Jewish population.
South Africa's blacks were mostly Christian and animist. Very, very few were Muslim. Except for a radical fringe group, they never called for the Whites to be driven into the sea. Israel's Arabs are 99 percent Muslim, and their avowed goal is to turn Israel into an Islamic country called Palestine.
They won't succeed, thank the Lord, but if they did, we can be sure there would be no "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" here; just Shari'a show trials and public executions.
I could go on and on about just how miserable daily life would be for Arabs if Israel was run by an apartheid regime. The truth is that these Arabs enjoy an incalculably higher standard of living than any of their fellow Arabs in the states around Israel.
To suggest that Arabs in Israel live lives in any way comparable to the miserable existence endured by black South Africans is to do a terrible injustice both to Israel and to apartheid's victims.
Apartheid week: a fiction enthusiastically embraced by those ignorant of history, and died-in-the-wool Hebraphobes. And concludes:They do not merit attention, just scorn and perhaps pity. Perhaps.[758]
Irshad Manji asks:
In a state practicing apartheid, would Arab Muslim legislators wield veto power over anything? At only 20 percent of the population, would Arabs even be eligible for election if they squirmed under the thumb of apartheid?[759]
In an article titled: "One Day in the Life of an Israeli Hospital" Prof. Plaut describes the beautiful rainbow variety of ethnicities and religions working harmoniously side by side. All in face of the "apartheid" propagandists who do not engage in debate but in defamation.
The Bash-Israel Lobby has now become a large choir of totalitarian chanting about supposed Israeli "apartheid." Western campuses are filled with the hate fests of "Israel Apartheid Week." Friends of Israel attempt to engage the bigots in debate, attempt to challenge their claims. Statistics are ladled out. Facts are cited, documentation is presented. But the libels about Israeli "Apartheid" are notoriously resistant to facts and truth, like mutant bacteria that resist antibiotics. Anyone who knows anything at all about the Middle East understands that Israel is the only country in the region that is not an apartheid regime...[760]
M. Davison calls the attention on the emotionally-charged propaganda "buzzword" to find out what the term "Apartheid" actually means before they carry their protest signs to their demonstrations.
Apartheid IS: A deliberate government policy of social, political, economic, educational and physical separation and discrimination between the people of a single country based solely on race, such as existed in South Africa.
Apartheid IS NOT: A situation in which two people of the same race, for example two SEMITIC peoples, are at war.
Apartheid IS NOT: A situation in which one of these nations, having lost its own state in an attempt to destroy the state of the other, finds itself conquered by the nation it had tried to destroy.
Apartheid IS NOT: A situation in which this conquered nation, having been granted partial autonomy which they did nothing to earn, continues to attempt to kill members of the conquering nation, driving their own economy into ruin because they use their children as suicide bombers and human shields rather than sending them to schools built for them at foreign expense, and which they also use as military bases.
Apartheid IS NOT: A situation in which the conquering nation undertakes measures to separate its members from those of the other nation (a separation based entirely on ideology since no racial difference between the two nations exists at all) in order to keep the members of its nation safe while still continuing to assist the hostile nation economically.
And finally, it IS NOT Apartheid when the conquering nation undertakes this method of self-defense, which still leaves its citizens vulnerable to a large extent, only because they find the much more effective method of expelling the hostile nation from the conquered territory morally reprehensible.
Now, to believe that "Israel is an Apartheid state", you have to believe the following:
1) That Islam and Judaism are races, not religions.
2) That the entire area of Palestine as defined by the League of Nations, including Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and Jordan is a single national entity.
3) That the self-declared Palestinians are legitimate citizens of the State of Israel (which, by their own admission, they are not and do not wish to be).
4) That the state of Israel, or indeed any state, does not have the right to defend and protect its citizens from belligerent actions by foreign entities.
IF you can believe these four points, you can believe any fallacy presented to you, as long as it suits your own prejudices. If that's the case, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you… cheap!
And calls to remember these facts the next time one wishes to demonize Israel with the buzzword.[761]
W. Reich points to a 'first' in global occurrences, Israel's 2005 eviction of its own Jewish citizens, to be given to Arabs... (for the sake of a chance of peace), as he writes about a boycott of Haifa's university:
In reality, there's simply no comparison between South Africa and Israel. During its apartheid era, South Africa was run by a small white minority that oppressed its black majority. Israel, on the other hand, is 80% Jewish and gives its Arab minority full civil rights, including the right to vote and to be members of the country's parliament. It also welcomes its Arab citizens into its universities. In fact, the student body of one of the universities being boycotted, Haifa, is 20% Arab - the same percentage as in the general Israeli population. Moreover, Israel is about to do something in Gaza that no country has ever done before: Totally and even forcibly extract and evict its citizens from homes and land in which they've lived for decades. And it's prepared, as it was at Camp David in 2000, to withdraw from nearly all of the West Bank.[762]
TheRealJerusalemStreets posted (in 2011) photos from reality life in Israel, where Jews and Arabs have equal access anywhere, where Arab women have more rights than in Arab countries.
Saudi Arabia bans protests, Turkey locks up journalists, Iran and Libya kill their opponents. Egypt and Syria have also been killing protesters and the audacity, a new flotilla is being planned to protest against Israel's policies.
Haneen Zoabi, a 41-year old Arab woman is an elected member of the Israeli Knesset and has led anti-Israel protests.
Israeli apartheid?
Her actions would never be tolerated in any of the surrounding countries, but Zoabi's anti-government pieces are routinely published in main stream Jerusalem newspapers.[763]
JanSuzanne Krasner wrote (Oct, 2011): "Israeli Democracy vs. Arab Apartheid,"
It is a falsehood to say that Israel is an apartheid state. This indictment, made by Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly in his speeches, is an Orwellian distortion of the truth, but it has been extremely effective in the public relations war of words that plays out in the United Nations, on the international stage, in the media, and on college campuses every day.
This is a grave and toxic travesty that needs to be made right. In light of the "Arab Spring" spreading seeds of sharia law throughout the Middle East, Western civilization needs to see the truth. Americans are being hijacked by propaganda against Israel...and not defending Israel's right to be a Jewish state will lead to our own eventual downfall.
The analogy of Israel to South African apartheid commands a response. Because of its catchy, slick word combination and its connotations that evoke vivid images of human unfairness and suffering, it has became a fashionable narrative for the media and international community's discourse. But it is not factual, and it is very deceptive.
Labeling Israel "apartheid" is meant to provoke worldwide criticism and elicit human rights-based anger that sanctions demonstrations, boycotts, and the denigration of Jewish morals. This finger-pointing is an intentional attack on Israel. It condones terror in the guise of "freedom-fighters," encourages prosecution of Israeli officials in foreign courts, promotes laws against Israeli goods, and supports boycotts of stores selling Israeli products. It sees the advantage of kidnapping soldiers, allows the destruction of Jewish artifacts and religious sites, and tries to exclude Jews from their legitimate claim to their historic homeland.
Factually speaking, apartheid was the policy of the South African government as a way of dealing with the white and non-white social, political and economic issues up until 1992. It was the official policy that established and maintained racial segregation and racial discrimination. The South African non-whites could not vote, and they had to carry a "Pass Book," or they risked being jailed or deported. By contrast, all citizens of Israel have equal voting rights. Arabs have eleven representatives in Israel's Knesset, including an Arab on the Israeli Supreme Court. Every citizen must carry an identity card, along with all legal residents.
In addition, non-white South Africans were kept from a wide range of jobs. They had no free elementary through high school education; mixed sexual relationships were restricted and segregated; hospital and ambulance services were segregated; they could not use most public amenities; sports were segregated; and public facilities were labeled for correct racial usage. Non-whites could not enter a building through the main entrance, be a member of a union, or participate in a strike. That is apartheid, and Israel is not an apartheid state.
Although many pro-Palestinian organizations are aware that the Israel-apartheid analogy is inaccurate, this rhetoric is continually used to condemn and isolate Israel. Just visit Israel to see the truth...Israeli Arabs shopping at Jerusalem's Mamila Mall, enjoying Tel Aviv beaches, enrolled in the universities, getting hospital care, going on school trips to the zoos, and having free access to public places.
One of the more outspoken defenders of Israel is Benjamin Pogrund, a Jew born in Cape Town, now living in Israel. Pogrund lived under apartheid, and as an anti-apartheid activist, he took grave risks by reporting the injustices against blacks. He often comments that the comparison of Israel to South African apartheid "greatly minimizes the oppression and misery caused by apartheid and is debasing to its victims."
In his rebuttal, Pogrund argues that "Israel is not unique in declaring itself a state for a specific people."
Everyone knows that Egypt is for Egyptians, Ireland is for Irishmen, France for Frenchmen, Italy is for Italians, Serbia for Serbs, China for the Chinese, Iran for the Persians...and the list goes on.
"Apartheid"-supporters substantiate their stance by claiming that Israel discriminates against Israeli Arabs by barring them from buying land.
The facts regarding land ownership are clarified by Mitchell Bard, the executive director of the non-profit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and a foreign policy analyst who frequently lectures on U.S.-ME policy:
In the early part of the century, the Jewish National Fund was established by the <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/wzo.html">World Zionist Congress</a> to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. This land, and that acquired after Israel's War of Independence, was taken over by the government. Of the total area of Israel, 92% belongs to the State and is managed by the Land Management Authority. It is not for sale to anyone, Jew or Arab. The remaining 8% of the territory is privately owned. The Arab Waqf (the Muslim charitable endowment), for example, owns land that is for the express use and benefit of Muslim Arabs. Government land can be leased by anyone, regardless of race, religion or sex. All Arab citizens of Israel are eligible to lease government land.
The reality is that both Arabs and Jews build homes illegally throughout Israel. And the fact is that the number of illegal Arab homes scheduled for demolition is miniscule compared to Jewish homes that must adhere scrupulously to the rules for fear of condemnation. (Please check Bard's point-by-pointrebuttal.)
The problems in Israel's Arab communities are much like conditions others face in various places in the world, but Arabs don't point a finger at those places. Only Israel is labeled and attacked as "apartheid." Arabs need only to look at their neighboring countries in the Middle East to find real apartheid. Does anyone honestly believe that Muslim women do not suffer from apartheid in countries with sharia law? Or that Christians and Jews in some Arab nations are being attacked and killed purely because of their religion? More pointedly, both Jordan and Saudi Arabia do not allow Jews to live there, and Saudi Arabia doesn't even let Jews visit.
There are many "no-class" citizens in the world that Arabs don't care to talk about. One must believe that Abbas just doesn't recognize "apartheid" as he declares that the State of Palestine will be "Judenrein" -- a Jewish-free state. Instead, the label of "apartheid" is stuck on Israel, keeping eyes focused away from the intolerance and bigotry that the PLO and Hamas preach.
Recently, I took issue with "Students for Justice in Palestine" (SJP), an on-campus pro-Palestinian organization that orchestrated the first National Anti-Israel Conference at Columbia University to "educate" students for participation in "Israel Apartheid Week 2012" on university campuses.
The SJP supports the Apartheid Movement, the Gaza Freedom Movement that tried to break the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, the BDS movement against Israeli goods, and a One-State Solution with the "Right of Return." There can be no doubt that SJP, hiding behind the veil of human rights activism, supports the end of a Jewish state while "freedom-fighting" terrorists try to accomplish the same goal through violence.
One question needs to be asked of all those who accuse Israel of being an apartheid state: if Israel gave up all the land rights, forfeited all of the natural resources, and agreed to a One-State Solution with the "Right of Return," would the Jews be able to live in peaceful coexistence with their Arab neighbors? The answer to this question determines the fate of the Jewish people and whether peace is ever attainable. [764]
One of those that denounced the lie of "apartheid," is the Arab Druze MK Majallie Whbee,[765] who exposed its falshood. In fact, this Arab was an 'acting President'[766][767][768] of the Jewish State. (In 2007, Majadele was the second Israeli Arab to serve in the Cabinet. Salah Tarif, a Druse leader, served nine months as a minister without portfolio before resigning in January 2002 because of a corruption investigation against him.[769]) A simple historic fact, Which explodes right in the faces of the "apartheid" accusers. An article of note is: "Israel's Arab president" (2007):
Majallie Whbee Israel's first non-Jewish President has rubbished claims that the Jewish state is an apartheid country.
Speaking to TJ, Arab Kadima Knesset member Majallie Whbee said his ascent to the position proved that those who draw such a parallel with the former South African regime were ignoring the facts on the ground.
And saying he was proud of being an Israeli citizen, the Druze MK also spoke of his wish to show the world that Israel is a democratic country with equal rights.
Whbee will serve as ceremonial President until next Tuesday, while acting president Dalia Itzik is in America. Itzik took over the position from Moshe Katsav...[770]
And R. Sacks asks: "The anti-Israel campaign raises the question: Does academic freedom exist on campus?"
You have only to visit an Israeli hospital to see how people of all faiths and ethnicities are treated alike. All have the vote. All can attend universities. All can be elected to the Knesset. A Druse Arab, Majallie Whbee, briefly served as president after Moshe Katsav's resignation while acting head of state Dalia Itzik was out of the country. A Christian Arab, George Karra, headed the panel of judges that found Katsav guilty. Are any of these conceivable in an apartheid state?
Israel is one of the most religiously diverse societies in the world.
Only under Israeli rule have all three Abrahamic religions enjoyed unrestricted access to their holy sites in Jerusalem. It is the only place where an Arab Muslim can freely criticize the government on national television. Israel is not perfect, but its ethnic and religious minorities have greater rights – vigilantly defended in the courts – than anywhere else in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, in December 2010 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared: "We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won't agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.'
If this vision of a judenrein Palestine is not apartheid, what is? As soon as the anti-apartheid campaigners start working against Palestinian racism, the intimidation and murder of Christians throughout the Middle East, and the brutal denial of human rights that is leading to civil protests in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, then they will have earned the right to be taken seriously. Until then, they should be seen for what they are - political pawns in a very dangerous game. [771]
A blogger wrote:
The Little Known Story of Israel’s Arab President
“In Israel, the Arab minority makes up 20% of the country, and receives equal civil and political rights. About 12% of the Knesset (the Israeli Legislative Branch) is made up of non-Jewish Arabs, including Ayoob Kara (Likud) and Hamad Adar(Yisrael Beiteinu), both of which serve in right-wing nationalist parties. The Israeli-Arab minority has achieved what most perceive as the unachievable: Few people know this, but the Jewish majority in the State of Israel entrusted Majalli Wahabi, a non-Jewish Arab to temporarily lead the country as acting President in 2007.”
I didn’t know that there were non-Jewish Arabs in the right-wing parties. I mean, Yisrael Beiteinu? That’s about as right-wing and nationalist as you can get.
I also didn’t know that Israel once had a non-Jewish Arab temporarily serving as President. That’s really incredible. [772]
Anti-Israel ardent critic R. Goldstone: "Apartheid" is a lie, a slander!
Richard J. Goldstone, is a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court, who led the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict of 2008-9. He was quick to "accuse" Israel of "war crimes" in its (2008-9) anti-Terror operation ('Cast Lead'). But retracted it after learning the facts.[773] In 2011 (Oct.) he wrote an Op Ed in the New York Times: "Israel and the Apartheid Slander."
The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.
Of course, the Palestinian people have national aspirations and human rights that all must respect. But those who conflate the situations in Israel and the West Bank and liken both to the old South Africa do a disservice to all who hope for justice and peace.
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence. Even some Israeli Arabs, because they are citizens of Israel, have at times come under suspicion from other Arabs as a result of that longstanding enmity.
The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony. [774]
J. B. Pollack explains the context and timely importance of the Op Ed article:
Goldstone’s article anticipates the forthcoming “Russell Tribunal on Palestine,” to be held in South Africa. Named after the hearings held in the 1960s by philosopher Bertrand Russell in the United Kingdom to protest the Vietnam War, the Russell Tribunal will bring the emotive symbolism of apartheid to a make-believe judicial process whose outcome is already predetermined.
The chair of the panel, anti-war activist Terry Crawford-Browne, has already called for international boycotts of Israel. One of the star witnesses is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who conducted a reign of terror in South Africa’s black townships in the 1980s. Another is former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney, who recently busied herself with propaganda for Muammar Gaddafi.
Despite the panel’s obvious lack of credibility, it will no doubt be touted by western leftists and third world governments as the basis for a renewed push at the United Nations to isolate Israel and promote unilateral Palestinian statehood. Goldstone’s op-ed is a timely rejoinder and the beginning of what appears to be sincere penance for the damage done by his slanderous report on the Gaza conflict of 2008-9.[775]
'Discriminations' in perspective
Ben Dror Yemini in "Take A Look in the Mirror" wrote about apartheid in the entire Arab world and about vast discrimination in Europe that surpasses by far any discrimination in Israel.
First, it should be stated that all Arab countries conduct an official apartheid regime. The Kurds in Syria are under a violent military regime. Not that anyone in Syria actually has rights, but the Kurds have much less. The Coptic worshippers in Egypt suffer from incitement, protests, hateful sermons and terror attacks.
In Lebanon, discrimination against Palestinians is official. Apartheid there is just a matter of fact. They are not allowed to open their own businesses, certain professions are forbidden to them according to law, and they can only dream about voting rights. They've been there for sixty years, and under the pretense that they are "refugees," apartheid there is rendered official.
Has anyone ever heard of Apartheid Week against Lebanon or Syria? Don't make them laugh. Regimes of atrocity get an exemption. It is the supporters of these benighted regimes that are the financers and activists in Apartheid Week against Israel. There are truly no limits.
And in Israel, only in Israel, as the demonization campaign is gearing up, an Arab judge heads the panel that convicted the president of the Jewish state. Not that there are no problems in Israel. Not that everything is perfect. Not that the attempt to reconcile between a Jewish and democratic state is free of contradictions. But all these problems pale when compared to what transpires in Arab and Muslim states, and also when compared to what transpires in Europe itself. Yes, Europe.
All comparative research indicates that the condition of the Muslim minority in Europe is worse than that of the Muslim minority in Israel. In Great Britain, for example, three of four children of Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent are below the poverty line. In Belgium, the majority of Turks and Moroccans are below the poverty line. The employment level of Muslim women in all these countries is extremely low.
...But there is no country clean of discrimination, just as there is no perfect democracy.
Apartheid essentially means a different law for different groups. This is the precise story of the free world, of the media, academia and "human rights" organizations such as the Human Rights Council. In Israel there is indeed an infringement of human and minority rights, but this is a minor infringement, not only in compassion to Muslim or Arab state, but even in comparison to Europe... Israel provides the Bedouins with far more rights than Europe does to the Gypsies.
But they sure know how to preach. Thus, Apartheid Week should be called by its true name. Not merely impudence and hypocrisy week, but also the week of apartheid against Israel.[776]
Worldwide preferences for one group over another and singling out Israel who does not discriminate on the basis of "race"
Many already spoke against the racist labeling of racism upon the Multi-racial, multi-religious state of Israel,[777] a truly melting pot of all races.[778] This unjust of singling out Israel, when practically every nation in the world has some kind of similar favoritism in its immigration policy: ethnic Germans, for example who have lived, even for generations outside Germany, have a "right of return" to Germany; English-speaking people are favored to enter England, and in the Netherlands, only those ethnically Dutch are able to become Dutch citizens, etc. As for the representation of Judaism in the public square: one glance at the flags of Norway, Sweden, or Denmark demonstrates that many liberal countries proclaim themselves officially and openly as "Christian." Britain has crosses in its flag. Saudi Arabia has a crescent on its flag, (many Arab nations are called Arab Republic) and is very (totalitarian) Islamic; so is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Pakistan was born out of the idea to be a home specifically for (Indian) Muslims, just as Israel came about to be a home for Jews (and saving from persecution). Many countries, do even greater promotion of some kind of religion: Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, like in: Burma, Thailand.
It's completely false to state that Israel is the only country "based on" religion or ethnicity. Christmas is on the official calendar of most Christian countries, and in Poland & in Ireland on many subjects, the Church has the final word. If Israel is racist, so are the above (and other) nations mentioned. Moreover, given this widespread preference for ethnicities and religions other than Judaism around the globe, it is hard for many Jews to find a home outside of Israel. And concludes: Someone who proclaims Israel to be basically racist is essentially just saying that they think the ethnic and religious identity of Jews doesn't matter - while the ethnic and religious identity of Germans, Anglicans, Indian Muslims, etc. all do matter. And that is anti-Semitism: the racist hatred of or contempt for Jews.[779]
There's a long detailed list of countries with policy in preference of one ethnicity over the other, across the board. Yet, as a pundit points to Arab-Islamic hypocrisy: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Djibouti, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen won't allow those holding an Israeli passport into their countries but that doesn't seem to put anyone off. (Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen won't even allow those with an Israeli stamp on their passport to enter.) A law that at its most malicious simply requires everyone else to follow standard naturalization procedures before welcoming them as a citizen does not seem worthy of mobilizing anti-apartheid campaigns.[780]
Decrying the "Palestinian" falsification and hypocritical propganda, E. Abrams (2011) in "Sari Nusseibeh and Palestinian Moderation," Nowhere does Nusseibeh state or imply that for a Muslim majority country to say "Islam is the religion of the state" and "Sharia is the basis of our laws" might lead to theocracy or apartheid.[781]
The [unlimited] rights of Arabs VS the [limited] rights of Jews to reside in the region
It should be noted that the Arabs have permanent residency rights in Israel. They can live and work wherever they want in Israel, including the Golan Heights, and enjoy all rights except voting and having IL passport. These rights are reserved to full citizens only. Furthermore, East Jerusalem is not deemed an occupied territory by the US and several other Western countries, although they consider it a disputed territory. (By law, segregation is forbidden. That is the key. The fact that there are 'encountering problems' by: A Hispanic coming to an 'all white neighborhood' or a white [Caucasian] American moving to a predominantly black neighborhood are just facts of life. The same applies between Druze VS Arab-Islamic, between Christian-Arabs VS Muslims in Israel/Palestine, etc.) The sad part is, the pro-Arab anti-Jewish discrimination in the region: "As for the settlements, the current fashionable view is that Arabs have the right to live anywhere in the old Palestine Mandate--Israel, West Bank, Jordan–but Jews have only the disputed right to live in Israel proper. The West Bank area is to be ethnically cleansed of Jews, and their settlements used for Arab refugees."[782]
Harry W. Webber wrote about common knowledge in Israel of the reality favoring Arabs over Jews:
So, is there any apartheid in Israel? Yes, there is. While Arabs are allowed, as citizens, to purchase houses wherever they please (there are Arab minorities in the predominately Jewish cities of Acre, Ramle, Jaffa, Carmiel, Safed and Netanya, there is not one single Jew living in any Arab town or village in the entire country! Believe it or not! And the reason is simple. Any Jew moving into an Arab town is assured that his house will be set afire the very same night. This is exactly the fate of several Jews who bought houses in the Druze village of Peki'in. Their houses were destroyed, they barely survived, a riot ensured, the locals kidnapped a policewoman for several hours till calm was finally returned to the village. And all this in a village famous for its hospitality to Jews -- as long as they remain guests and not residents. That is the apartheid in Israel!
Anyone visiting Israel knows all this to be true. What is also true is that in Judea and Samaria, the heart of ancient Israel -- where the Hebrew prophets lived and where the Jewish patriarchs travelled the length and breadth of the land -- the local Arabs decided after the Six-Day War that it would be nice to be called "Palestinians", and as such, demand that "Palestine" -- Judea and Samaria -- be granted statehood. That no one saw them as a separate people before 1967 is irrelevant. That they have no unique national history, religion or customs is also irrelevant. That only two countries ever recognized the territory as belonging to Jordan or to any other Arab state is also irrelevant. The new "Palestinian" dogma became: the Jews conquered the land, therefore, we, the new Palestinians want it back (but you never had it in the first place!) to set up another enemy to Israel -- on the east.
In those disputed lands -- for over forty years -- Arabs have committed murder and theft on a massive scale against Jews. As a result, the Israelis had to set up checkposts and roadblocks to control the traffic of weapons and the free movement of terrorists. Andin order to protect the lives of Jews who decided to live in the homeland of their forefathers, the Army had to set up separate roads -- for Jews and for Arabs. This was done only after hundreds of Israelis were attacked in drive-by shootings at the hands of Arabs terrorists.
Arab cities and towns in Judea and Samaria have complete local autonomy -- without a Jew ever entering their outskirts. In fact, if a Jewish driver ever mistakenly enters an Arab town in Judea and Samaria, he is immediately bombarded by rocks, and is in danger of being lynched. Just such a fate befell two Army reservists a decade ago as they got lost and entered Ramallah. No one can ever forget the blood- drenched hands of the "proud" killers of these two men as they waved to the cheering crowd. On the other hand, Arabs enter Jewish towns and cities in the most casual, care-free and confident manner one can imagine. The contrast between the two situations is admittedly grating to many Jews.
Apartheid you say? Yes, there is apartheid. Arabs want Judea and Samaria to be "Judenrein" -- "clean" of all Jews. Most of them believe that Jews have no right to live in the only place on earth that G-d has declared to be theirs -- and only theirs. Not only do they want Jews out of Judea and Samaria, they also want them out of Haifa, Tel Aviv, Netanya and Jerusalem. In South Africa's apartheid, the whites tolerated the blacks, permitted them to live, only apart. The Arabs are much worse. They want to eliminate all the Jews of Israel -- from the hills of Judea and Samaria to the white sands of the Mediterranean Sea. Is that apartheid? No! That is a wish for genocide, and the promoters of that policy can only be described as "Palestinazis!"[783]
The anti-Terror fence
Despite the overwhelming life saving results of the shield/fence, which has proved to limit the entrance of intruders bent on wreaking havoc, committing massacres. The Arabist ugly propaganda, always shrewd in abusing imagery, attempts to -conveniently- use the fence as a symbolic "separation." The fence, is exactly that, a de-fence, "Saving Lives: Israel's Security Fence."[784][785][786] Basically "the fence is doing exactly what it was designed to do, save lives. It promotes peace."[787] As testified in Congress it is "a mechanism for peace. On a trip to Israel last year, I had the opportunity to view the security fence, firsthand."[788]
Fact: the fence which anti-Israel forces prefer calling the "wall," is not between Arab VS Jew. There are Arabs on both sides, it's between Israeli ID holders (Arab or Jew) and "Palestinian" ID holders (happen to be of Arab origin). The security concerns come from [Arabs, by in large] holding "Palestinian" ID - naturally, the perpertrators of deadly attacks. So it would be more fair to say it's a border safety zone. In other words, it's guarding Israeli citizens, Arab or Jew.
The Law of Return - designed to be a refuge for Jews [of any color], who have a past/present history of persecution
The 'Law of Return' is precisely a protection of Jews the very victim of racism. It's the antithesis of racism,[789] and calling it "racist" is denying the reality of discrimination against Jews past/present. This sort of labeling is Holocaust denial or Holocaust trivialization.[790] Indeed, thousands of lives have been saved, and Jewish communities rescued from isolation and persecution, because of the availability of immigration and the Law of Return.' "There is nothing discriminatory about Israel's Law of Return. It has enabled Israel to fulfill a humanitarian mission by offering a home to Jews from around the world."[791]
Many countries employ religious or ethno-religious symbols on their flag.[792] In fact To single out Jewish self-determination for condemnation is itself a form of racism, asserts noted civil rights lawyer. In his words: "My definition of anti-Semitism... is taking a trait that is universal and singling out only Israel for exhibiting that trait."[793]
In contrast of what's described as: almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in many Arab states (and excluding Jews from their own law of return" in 1954), In Israel, however, Non-Jews are also eligible to become Israeli citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage.[794]
At best, the 'Law of Return' can be described as a form of 'affirmative action' for Jews.[795] Yet, far from discriminating against Arabs, Israeli land policy, in some cases, favours Arabs, under the guise of affirmative action.[796]
Democracy & equality
A writer elaborating on Arab apartheid [VS the Apartheid slur on Israel]:
There are Arab parties in the Israeli Parliament; full Arab voting rights. Arabs are welcome as both physicians and patients in Israeli hospitals, and as both teachers and students in Israeli schools. The only national institution from which they are exempted is the military, so that, if necessary, they should not be required to fight against their own brothers. Israel is clearly not an apartheid state.
Attempts, therefore, to compare Israel, to white South Africa are at best uninformed; at worst, maliciously dishonest and anti-Semitic.
The irony is that in Israel, despite problems in Israel as in any other country, Arabs enjoy more rights, freedoms and liberties than do their neighbors in any number of Middle East countries currently fighting for these very same privileges.[797]
Muslim Arab Israeli journalist K. A. Toameh: "Israel is not an apartheid state... Israel is a free and open democratic country. I enjoy living here and I would rather live as a second class citizen in Israel, even though I'm not, than a first class citizen in any Arab country."[798]
From A. Isseroff about one of the chief propagating-lies of the "apartheid" myths:
A staple lie of the "Apartheid Israel" myth makers is that Israeli Arabs or Muslims do not serve in the IDF, and therefore are not admitted to Israeli society. This is a particularly diabolical sort of lie, since it takes advantage of a feature of Israeli democracy. Military service is voluntary for Israeli Arabs, so that nobody would be forced to fight against their own kin. Many Israeli Arabs and Muslims serve in the IDF. Many Israeli Arabs do not serve because they hate the state. Nonetheless, they are not prosecuted. If those who do not serve feel that they are discriminated against because they did not serve, it is their own responsibility. Israeli Arabs have a radical political leadership that does not represent their interests, and calls on the Palestinian authority to halt peace negotiations with Israel, for example.[799]
Classical sad irony is that some Israeli Arabs like Ahmed Tibi [currently holding high position in the Israeli democratic parliament "Knesset"] who like all Israeli Arabs enjoy rights and freedoms in Israel they wouldn't find anywhere else in the Middle East, dare propagate lies and accuse the democratic Jewish state of having so-called 'racist' and 'fascist' policies, while never backing up his ridiculous epithets with facts. [800] Typically, this hypocritical Arab leader himself has been accused of being a racist,[801] and in 1997 he said: "Whoever sells his house to Jews, has sold his soul to Satan..." [802]
The fact that Israeli law equalizes between all races/religions, provides equal right to all,[803] proves thet Israel is Jewish and democratic. "The Jewish character of the state does not permit Israel to discriminate between its citizens. In Israel Jews and non-Jews are citizens with equal rights and responsibilities."[804]
We must bare in mind, though Israel may have certain respect for Jewish holidays, its legal system is not Jewish, but secular. The basic laws of the State of Israel dates to the Ottoman and British mandates. marriage laws rely on the respective community's court (Jewish, Muslim or Christian).[805][806]
As to some differences in standards of living that might appear between some Arab and Jewish communities (despite preferential treatments the Israeli system provides):
we must remember that discrepancies between the sectors are not always the result of discrimination. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the Christian Arab minority (comprising only 9 percent of the Israeli Arab population).14 Although they are identical in ethnicity, language, and nationality to Muslim Arabs, the Christians boast remarkable achievements: Their child mortality rate is comparable to that of Denmark, and the percentage of students accepted into university is higher than that of the Jewish population.15 Hence, the state cannot be held entirely responsible for the privations of its Muslim Arab minority. Ideological differences and lifestyle choices must also be taken into account.
Furthermore, any difference between the Jewish and Arab communities must be viewed in the larger context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Because of the ongoing war between the Jewish state and its neighbors, Israeli Arabs do not serve in the army. They therefore do not undergo the socioeconomic equalization effected by military service, and do not enjoy its many benefits, including the vocational and leadership training the IDF provides to its recruits. Should the Israeli-Arab conflict one day be resolved, full equality may become a more feasible goal.[807]
From the differences between Zionism and Arab nationalism: "most Israelis have accepted the partition of the land since 1993, while Baathism, for example, wants all the lands between Syria and Iran as one Arab Ummah, with no national rights for non-Arab nations living there centuries before the Arab conquest."[808]
Israel's harassement of the Jewish right shows again that only security concerns dictate its policies
Routinely, in certain regions, while Arabs are left untouched, the Jewish right wingers are getting harassed.[809] In one example, in the historic Jewish city of Hebron, "IDF unit straddles the Jewish neighborhoods, the resident decry: "policeman harass and intimidate us." The residents are all religious and hold strongly right-wing views."[810]
The right wing politician "Avigdor Lieberman was being harassed by the Justice Ministry," [811] A settler youth was even harassed by the police for exposing Top police official who kept persecuting right wing Jews. Even framing them.[812] Especially since Y. Rabin, there has been an era of "persecution of the Israeli right wing."[813]
Conclusion: Officials' anxiety towards the Jewish right might be exaggerated, it probably is and it cannot be justified to be a routine. But the fact remains that only safety of its citizens dictates its policies, vis-a-vis Jew, Arab or anyone else.
General facts VS myths/distortions deliberately spread around - 'apartheid lies'
The Arab-Islamic invention of the "apartheid" comparison, analogy, the apartheid lie[814] was debunked.[815] "For Israel, apartheid epithet is undeserved." [816] "Calling Israel's occupation 'apartheid' is not only wrong but thoughtless. The labeling is wrong because the situations are entirely different." says a writer: Apartheid in South Africa, from 1948 until 1994, was a unique system of racial separation and discrimination, institutionalized by law and custom in every aspect of everyday life, imposed by the white minority and based on a belief in white racial superiority. Skin color decreed inferior status from birth until death for blacks, Asians and "mixed-race" coloreds. In contrast, West Bank oppression is not based on a predetermined racist ideology. It stems rather from historical factors such as Jordan's attack during the 1967 war..., economic... and security claims...[817]
It is strange to label Israel "Apartheid" when:
1. Omar Barghouti, a leading advocate of boycotting Israel and a resident of Ramallah is also a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University.
2. Haifa University is 25% Arab and the Hebrew University is 10% Arab, and yes, they attend the same classes and use the same washrooms.
3. Arabs vote and have representation in the Israeli parliament and there are Arab Israeli diplomats and an Arab member of the Israeli Supreme Court.
4. An Israeli Arab is captain of the HaPoel Tel Aviv soccer team.
5. Tens of thousands of Black Jews from Ethiopia and Brown Jews from India have all been welcomed into Israel.
6. An Arab Israeli young woman singer represented Israel at the 2009 Eurovision song contest.
7. Rona Raslan, an Arab, is the former "Miss Israel".
8. Druse Arabs (who support the state of Israel) have served as ambassadors, army officers, even as Deputy Prime Minister.
9. Thousands of non-Jewish black African refugees make a long trek through Egypt on foot and try to immigrate to the Jewish state because they would rather live there than in Africa.
10. There are discriminatory laws against Palestinians in Lebanon and Jordan and few Israeli Arabs would want to trade Israeli citizenship for Jordanian or Egyptian.
11. The Palestinian Authority has said that any Arabs who sell land to Jews should be put to death, (and have in fact put some to death), but when a far-right wing Israeli radical-Zionist Rabbi told his followers not to sell land to Arabs, there was a national outcry and wave of condemnation against him. (As well as leading Israeli orthodox rabbis have denounced it.[818])
12. Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority has said that no Israeli Jew should be allowed to live in a future Palestinian State on the West Bank, but he will not sign a peace treaty unless Israel accepts about a million Palestinians.[819]
Adopting the infamous methods of Nazi propagandist Goebbels: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, it becomes the truth." The Arab world has refined this strategy to an art form, with none more skilled than Palestinian Authority leaders and their supporters. As lies become "truth," there are people of sincere convictions who accept them...[820]
Apartheid myths is simply poisonous.[821][822]
It's a Campaign to Delegitimize Israel with the False Charge of Apartheid.[823][824] Some have called (JPost, Aug. 2009): Treat the apartheid slur - the "A-word" - like the "N-word"[825][826] The Apartheid Propaganda[827] is also used to justify Palestinian terrorist attacks, this rhetoric is a form of The New Anti-Semitism.[828] Thus, the "Israel Apartheid" Lie - The "apartheid" slur is just another way for Israel's enemies to try to delegitimize and undermine the Jewish state by comparing its self-defense measures to something derogatory.[829] Obama, was criticized in an article titled: "Obama Silent on PA Racism" for being silent on Arab Palestinian propaganda that uses such hype, routinely.[830]
B. Wajsman wrote "The Israel Apartheid Lies" -
A response to hate ["Israel Apartheid Week, Islamist apologists"] (2009)
"Israel is not South Africa" ~Prof.Edward Said, author of "Orientalism"
"The false equation of Zionism with racism is simply an Arab ploy to take the focus off of the real enemies of humanity. Zionism is a healthy form of nationalism." - Edward H. Brown, Jr., former chief United Nations representative for the Congress of Racial Equality.
...These propaganda campaigns are the psychological and intellectual germ warfare of the naked aggression of hate. And they debase our public discourse. Witness Canadian Arab Federation president Khaled Mouammar calling Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney a "professional #####" for his support of Israel. These campaigns have already wiped out much of the historical and institutional memories of many in one generation of citizens in the free world, and are well on the way to infecting another, younger, generation.
The Islamist propaganda blitz in this new World War creates an enormous challenge for those still dedicated to the fate of freedom in the world. For the propagandists are engaged in an effort to destroy the legitimacy of one specific nation, a sister democracy, that is the free world's frontline guardian against the spread of theocratic tyranny. And for only one reason. That reason was eloquently expressed by Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff when he recently wrote, "Israel Apartheid Week singles out one state, its citizens and its supporters for condemnation and exclusion, and it targets institutions and individuals because of what and who they are—Israeli and Jewish."
Freedom of expression
Perhaps one of the most eloquent testaments to the fact that Israel may be many things (and one can disagree with it on many policies) but an apartheid state it is not, is that Jamal Zahalka, an Israeli Arab Muslim Member of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, has travelled freely, and frequently, in the west pronouncing on the "myth" of Israeli democracy. Zahalka is not just any ordinary MK. He is a member of the Balad Party.
Balad was founded by Azmi Bishara, also a member of Israel's parliament, who started his political life as a communist. On the 8 of February 2004 the High Court sitting in Nazareth found that members of Balad were "…guilty of having put in place a Hezbollah proxy terrorist cell inside Israel in order to carry out suicide bombings…" Bishara himself declared in Beirut's "L'Orient-le-jour" on the 13th of June 2001 that, "I do not consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization."
Despite this, Balad has not been banned in Israel nor have its members, like Zahalka, been stopped from traveling. Indeed, Israeli diplomats in the various cities he has spoken in could not criticize him because Israeli protocol demands respect for a Member of the Knesset. Meanwhile Jews still cannot obtain visas to most Muslim countries. One more thing. Zahalka obtained his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in pharmacology at Hebrew University. Hebrew University's student body is some 25% Arab.
Political participation
Zahalka is not a rare case. There are about a dozen Arab Muslim members of the Knesset. They represent several Arab political parties including two who expressly support terrorism. Those two had been disqualified by Israel's election authority but re-instated by order of the Israeli Supreme Court.
In fact Israeli Arabs, overwhelmingly Muslim, turn out to vote in greater percentage numbers than North Americans do. Arabs serve in the diplomatic corps with no glass ceiling. Israel's Ambassador to Finland is Arab. It was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who appointed the first Israeli Arab, Salah Tarif, to the Cabinet. In May 2004 Salim Jubran was appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel.
Though making up some 18% of Israel's population, 22% of the membership of the Israeli Labour Party that ruled Israel for most of its existence was Arab as of May 2005.
Civil rights
Arabic is an official language in Israel, even posted on all road signs which is more than we can say for English in Quebec. More than 300,000 Arab children attend primary and secondary schools in Israel. In 1948 there was only one Arab high school in Israel. Today there are hundreds. There is of course one "discrimination" in relation to Arabs in Israel. They are not obligated to perform military service though there are many, - particularly Bedouin, Druze and Circassians - who volunteer.
Though discrimination in employment and social services is outlawed, there are certainly many cases of individual prejudice. But a 2000 study published in the Jerusalem Post shows just how close the living standards are between Arabs and Jews in Israel. Unemployment among Jews stood at 6.8%; among Arabs it was 10.4%. The average Jewish household had 1.80 persons for every room; the average Arab household 2.30 persons for every room. Life expectancy for Jews averaged 75; for Arabs 73.
One of the big issues in every year's Israel Apartheid Week is that the Jewish National Fund and Israeli government agencies control most of the land in Israel and won't sell to Arabs. Well the fact is that those lands aren't sold to anyone. They are leased. And there are no religious or ethnic restrictions whatever on who can lease it. A reality affirmed in an Israeli Supreme Court judgment written by Chief Justice Aharon Barak.
The "wall"
The real story of "apartheid" is on the flip side. The "Waqf", the Muslim Religious Authority, has the protection of Israeli law to possess land and the Waqf – with no Israeli interference - has openly issued proclamations that its lands are strictly reserved for sale or lease to Arab Muslims only. In fact the Palestinian Authority has from its inception enforced the Jordanian law in place since the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank that no land be sold or leased to anyone other than Arab residents of the West Bank on pain of death.
"Apartheid" week has of course railed against the security wall calling it an "apartheid" wall. Speakers at various events always point to the World Court decision demanding that Israel change the route of the wall. What is always neglected is that the Israeli Supreme Court demanded the same thing months before the World Court and the Israeli government complied. And has complied with several other route changes demanded by courts. I am not the strongest advocate for a security wall as a permanent solution to anything, but let's keep in mind that most of it hugs the 1967 border. And Israel has special cause for concern. When the Palestinian Authority was organized it was Israel that supplied 150,000 arms for the PA's militia only to see many of those arms used against Israel's citizens by both Fatah and Hamas factions, in addition to the suicide terrorist attacks. And finally, one last thing. Where in the Arab world would you ever see the Supreme Court ruling against its government and the government complying?
The justice system
Another big lie of Israel Apartheid Weeks is that Israel has created in the West Bank a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This is the classic half-truth. Residents of the West Bank can choose the legal jurisdiction they want to have recourse to. Including religious courts if they like. Part of the reason West Bank Arabs choose Israeli justice is the abject failure of the Palestinian Authority in implementing not only a constitution, but a functioning court system with legislation it can act on. What legislation there is, is nothing but a remnant of the Jordanian occupation from 1947-1967.
A December 2002 study by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research of residents of the West Bank and Gaza showed just how mistrustful they are of Palestinian justice. To the question "How would you evaluate the state of democracy and human rights in the Palestinian Authority?" 19.1% said good; 28.4% said satisfactory; and 50.5% said bad. When that question was asked of these same residents about Israel 65.5% said good; 11.9% said satisfactory; and only 17% said bad.
Land and international law
The fact is that whatever one may think of the occupation, aside from the settlement policies which are objectionable in far too many instances, Israel is exercising the same rights in international law as France and the United States did after the Second World War of holding onto territory acquired in its own defense after surviving an aggressive attack until peace is achieved. And under Israeli occupation, Palestinians have the highest percentage of university students; the lowest infant mortality and the longest life expectancy of any front-line Arab state. All that due to the assistance from the Israeli social service infrastructure.
The intellectual godfather of Palestinian nationalism Edward Said once wrote that "Israel is not South Africa" As Irshad Manji has pointed out, he could have stated nothing less since an Israeli publishing house translated his seminal work "Orientalism" into Hebrew. Israel is not so much the Jewish state as a state of Jews. The only preferential legislation that exists is the "Law of Return" that gives a Jew automatic citizenship while other prospective immigrants must wait three years. That law reflects the reality of a world that butchered millions of Jews and no country would take any in. Including Canada with its infamous "none is too many" policy. Israel was a haven for many Vietnamese boatpeople when Saigon fell, but there was no haven for the Jews of Europe.
The real facts on the ground
Had the early socialist Zionists had their way there would have been a secular bi-national state. But even before Hitler, the Palestinian Muslim Arabs' religious and political leader Haj Amin al-Husseini of Jerusalem encouraged the wanton slaughter of Jews in Palestine under the British mandate, particularly in the years 1929-1940. He spent the years between 1941 and 1945 as Hitler's personal guest in Berlin broadcasting Nazi propaganda in Arabic and helping raise two Muslim divisions for the SS. He was to be tried at Nuremberg as a war criminal, but with the help of the French and British got back to his home and continued his bloodlust even after Israel became the only nation to recognize the Arab state of Palestine by accepting the UN's partition plan. Al-Husseini's frontline Arab cousins' response was to invade Palestine and hold the West Bank and Gaza prisoner for twenty years. His nephew Feisal was a member of Arafat's inner circle.
Concluding that: These are the facts on the ground. Facts that the Palestinians must reconcile with their history if they are ever to achieve maturity as a people and as a nation. [831][832]
A few simple historic & present facts about wonderful Israel VS Arab nations/Arab-Palestinians
From material published in Sun News:
- Israel is a multi-ethnic Jewish democracy, with a thriving Christian population and 20 percent Arab population, all free citizens. Since 9/11, Muslims slaughtered "infidels" in 7,500 deadly, ethnic-cleansing jihad attacks.
Islamic states, China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, are apartheid, with severe domination over their citizens, torture, beheadings, amputations, honor killings; death to women, homosexuals, apostates, and rioters who oppose dictatorships.
- When Israel became a state in 1948, seven Arab nations attacked for the entire Mandate. 160,000 Arabs who stayed, became Israel's million citizens. Those who followed Arab orders became political pawns to acquire Israel. Acceptance of peace would have meant two states, no refugees, no Nakba.
- 10,000 Jews became refugees of the Mandate; 950,000 Jews fled Arab persecution, absorbed by Israel and France. No pawns.
- Arabs are still killing Israelis, using its citizens as shields. Israel's care to target military is confirmed; so is their right to self-defense.
- Israel is first worldwide in rescue missions and humanitarian aid to all nations — Haiti, Turkey, Greece, Ethiopia, etc. Innovations and achievements in science, medicine and literature reap Nobel prizes. Israel leads in humanitarian programs and healthcare to needy countries, and leads in hi-tech and biomedical innovation, research and development. Israel conducts courses annually for emerging nations, helping in desert agriculture, water management, emergency and disaster medicine. The Koran commands Islamic charity to Islamic countries only.
- When Israel administered the "territories," they became the 4th-fastest growing economy in the 1970s, rising per-capita income, plunged unemployment, plunged infant mortality. Israel ended the "occupation"; the areas are run by terrorist Hamas and Fatah. Israeli "settlements" (housing developments) were built in undeveloped, uninhabited areas and are perfectly legal.
There is no greater ally to the US than Israel, a bulwark for democracy.[833]
Material published in 2006 in 'Humane Israel'
Beautiful Compassionate Humane Kind Zionism / Israel VS Evil, Racist Arabism, Islamism Kindness, Tolerance, multi racial, multi color cosmopolitan open, free & democratic: Zionism - Israel Vs. Racist, fascist, totalitarian, ethnic cleansing, cruel, oppressive: Arabism, Islamism
Zionism - Israel has established a Multi-racial Multi Colored Cosmopolitan society, not only Israeli Arabs are integrated but all colors from black through Latino Chinese, (Vietnamese that have been rescued when no one wanted them) to the whitest of whites are all part of the same Israeli system.
Arabism, Islamism - fascism & racism not only persecutes minorities in all Arab & Muslims countries, be the Kurds in Arab countries or in Iran, Chinese under Indonesian Muslims, any non Muslim in Saudi Arabia, the Christians (copts.com) in Egypt, or Christians & Druze ethnic groups in in Lebanon, Kurds and Druze in Syrian dictatorship, or the Berbers ethnic group in Morocco, Algeria, etc. or the native Africans on Arab controlled countries such as Egypt (on Nubian native Egyptians), etc. but the horrific racist bloody Arabization even invaded foreign countries such as Sudan, Chad where they (Janjaveed Arabs) carry out that most cruel genocide and slavery, the largest human calamity since WW2.
Zionism - Israel has rescued around 900,000 Jews from Muslim countries that escaped persecution and integrated them into the cosmopolitan multi racial Israeli society. Arabism & Islamism has led the Arabs (now known as Arab Palestinians) in 1948 to evacuate the holy land with fake stories of "massacres" (instead of telling the truth about BATTLES!) promises of "victory" in ethnic cleansing out the land of the Jews, now not only did not integrate them in all those camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, etc. but even persecutes them (you do not want to be a "Palestinian" in viciously racist Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc... Just ask anyone that works/worked there), does not let any Israeli attempt to improve their conditions, so they can so terribly [continue to] use their Arab "Palestinian" brothers as weapons in their fascistic anti Israel campaign.
Zionism - Israel has a beautiful democratic society, where not only Arab women where the FIRST ever to vote, but Arabs, Muslims are not only represented in all branches of government equally, in some cases at preferred status because of Israel's affirmative action system.
Arabism, Islamism, in most moderate Arab Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, fascism is that strong that Jews in GENERAL are not even allowed to enter, not only Israelis... (in moderate Indonesia & Malaysia, you can't enter with an Israeli passport). Not to mention 'Judenrein" 'Palestine', with its totally ethnic cleansing reality and even officially charter, especially Hamas'.
Zionism - Israel that is forced to fight Arab Muslim terrorists who target civilians by the masses in their genocide campaign, try to do it most humanely possible, be the huge sacrifice in the norm of announcing before an anti terror action, Israel pays dearly in pursuing after 'Palestinian' terrorists, so did she paid so dearly in Lebanon, as Arab Islamic Hezbollah terrorists that -- like 'Palestinian' Hamas -- used civilians as shields got away, ONLY because of Israel's concern for non combatants.
Arabism, Islamism, let alone their intentional targeting of non combatant Israelis, Americans, British, Iraqis, Australians, Spaniards, etc. but their cruelty on their owns is so great, as they are the only ones interested in Arab civilian casualties so they can play the "victim", which is why they cause their brothers & sisters to die. They prefer [dead] kids above all, thus, they shoot out of most crowded civilian places and prepare their cameras to capture the fallen Arabs. the bloodier the image, the "better."
Zionism - Israel. Impressive open and free press (13 languages) for all kinds of opinion. Furthermore, it actually has (one of the) most self-criticism systems, even by any Western criteria. Some criticize Israel from within even though it really fights for its survival, but the super-morality critics -apparently- want even better terms.
Arabism, Islamism, let alone most Arab Muslim countries are total totalitarian, any criticism can cost your torture and death, but even if you are in a supposedly 'democratic' moderate Lebanon and write something against a foreign invader & its occupation, like brutal Syria, you are in much chances of getting shot dead (see assassinations by Syria/Hezbollah).
Zionism - Israel a true and open society. A free humane island in the middle east. Its prisons are under tight scrutiny, to make sure its humane, if there would be any rare case where it isn't, it would be immediately publicized, dealt with and fixed. Its Arab citizens enjoy even more rights than Israeli Jews, since they do not have the obligation to serve in Israeli army, yet, have all the benefits nevertheless. It not only aids foreign nations but even its Arab enemies, from treating for free, wounded "Palestinian" kids (that were sent by Arab adults for violence, as in Hadassa hospital, for eaxmple), to foreign Arab Muslim nations, see: http://israaid.org.il/ , http://israel21c.org/
Arabism, Islamism, is not only oppressing its own people, torturing its prisoners and you will never even know/hear about it from the tightly closed nations. The terrible treatment of women & honor killing is standard all over Islamo Arab world, especially in "Palestine." The vast crimes against humanity in the oppressive Arab Muslim world is [almost] not published, precisely because of its totalitarianism. Asides from being oppressive regimes including the "moderate" ones, on their entire population, on the non Muslims the second class - "dhimmis," but Arabism & Islamism even exports its wahabbi totalitarian & rapid anti-west hatred philosophy outside its borders, oppresses, enslaves, mass rapes, commits genocide on the Africans in Sudan and Chad. So is radical fanatical Islamic Republic of Iran & its Mehdi (Mahdi) army instigating, arming, fighting & mass murder internationally, including in Lebanon, Iraq & among 'Palestinians'.[834]
From a critic of Israel on the falsehood of "apartheid"
A harsh critic of Israel, South African born, editor of various publications, Benjamin Pogrund, explained [Sep. 23, 2011] why some S. Africans "condemn" Israel (and Zionism)... He cites the dark side of historic joint violence-training of some S. Africans with Arab-Palestinians. And despite of his strong chastising what he calls Israel's "occupation," [he gives some brief historic skeches, how Israel got to that point though], he clarifies, however, how that vilification of Zionism and Israel is not true, no matter how many times its repeated.
I was born and grew up in South Africa, spent most of my life here immersed in the racial travails of the country, and now live in Israel, in Jerusalem, where I have been involved with pursuing dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. I am closely linked to both countries, in heart and mind.
Coming here now, I believe that I can understand why so many South Africans condemn Israel and favor Palestinians. Among ANC members, and especially Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans, there is the history of shared military training with Palestinians during the apartheid era. Going beyond that, the basis of the struggle against white domination and apartheid was to oppose ethnicity and tribalism. The goal was a single, united, non-racial South Africa and that is what we have.
Israel seems to run counter to this. I read and hear it being condemned as an apartheid and racist state. It is even said to be worse than apartheid. Its founding ideology, Zionist, is rejected as racism. It is pilloried as colonialist, as a pitiless oppressor of Palestinians, denying them fundamental human rights and killing them en masse whenever it wants to, and guilty even of genocide.
But merely to believe these charges doesn't necessarily mean they are true. Saying them repeatedly doesn't make them true. Yelling slogans that Israel is apartheid and Zionism is racism doesn't make any of it true. And they are not true.
I have no doubt that many critics of Israel speak out of sincere belief. But I find a great lack of knowledge in South Africa about the present and the past in the Middle East, and this leads to misunderstandings. It also opens the way to manipulation: there are people here who are not only ignorant but also malevolent; it is depressing to read their distortions about Israel, and even more to find that they have an audience.
It is worth recalling the basics of the conflict …
One, Britain, with its Balfour Declaration in 1917, promised Jews a national home in what was called Palestine, with due regard to the rights of Arab inhabitants. Five years later, despite Jewish opposition, Britain hived off 77 percent of Palestine and created an Arab state – today's Jordan. Britain spent nearly 30 years trying to bring together Jews and Arabs in Palestine. It failed, and ended up hated by both sides. It threw the problem to the United Nations General Assembly which investigated, decided there was no chance of Jews and Arabs living together, and voted for partition: a state for Jews and a state for Arabs.
Two, Jews accepted the UN decision, Arabs refused. Arabs attacked and killed Jews, and Arab armies invaded. The Jews fought back, won, and in the process added another 20 percent to the land allocated by the UN.
Three, this was victory for Zionism. It has been the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, as valid and successful as the liberation movements which emerged in Europe during the 19th century and the liberation movements in Africa and Asia during the 20th century.
The aim of Zionism was to create a state for Jews, giving freedom and a haven after centuries of persecution. It has achieved that in Israel where a Jewish majority rules.
No one objects to Saudi Arabia having only Muslims as citizens. No one objects to Pakistan declaring itself an Islamic state as do many other Muslim states. In Africa, does Ghana or a host of other countries, easily allow whites as citizens? They are all ethnic states. Israel is also an essentially ethnic state. Is it any less valid? Why is it singled out for condemnation?
Four, a consequence of Israel's war for survival in 1948 was that about 750,000 Arabs fled the country. Many left because they were frightened as war approached or swirled around them; many were expelled by the Israeli armed forces. No doubt they meant to return home when the fighting ended. But the victorious Israelis did not allow that: they feared a fifth column in their midst and they also followed the example of the previous year when India and Pakistan had split: in those countries, communal violence spawned 13 million refugees who left their homes and never returned; their properties were seized.
In the refugee tragedy created by the new Israel the UN gave Palestinians a unique international status which has never been done for anyone else: not only were the original 750,000 ranked as refugees but also their descendants so the number spread around the world is now about 4.5 million, and growing by the day. More than 60 years later, Palestinian refugees remain in limbo. Many hundreds of thousands are denied elementary rights in host countries, such as in Lebanon. Refugees have suffered for too long and their plight must be ended. It needs international coordination. Israel must share in that because it is part of the problem.
Five, there is, however, not the slightest chance that the refugees will be able to return to their original homes. The oft-declared "right of return" is a false hope, a bit of propaganda theatre used cynically by those who want to see Israel destroyed. It is a cover for their true intentions – the destruction of Israel - and too many others go along with it because they do not realize what it means. It's a non-starter for the simple reason that the return of Palestinians en masse would end the Jewish majority and hence the Jewish state – which is the purpose for which Israel was created, by Jews and the United Nations.
Six, the 176,000 Arabs who remained in 1948 have flourished and now number some 1.3 million. So much for the wicked accusation that Israel practises genocide. They have the vote and elect Members of Knesset (Parliament), both Arabs and Jews. Every South African, remembering apartheid, will know the significance of that. They have full civil rights. Every South African will know what that means. They have equal health benefits: the same hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses. Every South African will know that was inconceivable under apartheid. The equality shows in the two basic reflectors of national health, the infant mortality rate and life expectancy: vast improvements over the years have closed gaps between Jews and Arabs; both enjoy levels of health among the best in the world.
Education is complicated. I haven't read anything in South Africa which shows any understanding of it, only ranting that Israel discriminates against Arabs. It starts with separate schools – an inheritance from the Ottoman era 100 years ago and the British mandate. A system was set in place which Israel has maintained and is now very difficult to get away from because Arab children study in Arabic and Jewish children in Hebrew. Any child is free to go to other schools but very, very few do so because of language. There are also deep divisions among Jews, with separate schools for secular and religious, and still more separation among different streams of the religious.
In funding, public schools receive a "basket" of teaching hours based on student numbers – regardless of religion, ethnicity or anything else. The government pays each year. Then parents and local municipalities put in cash, for more teachers or piano lessons, or whatever, and differences grow between wealthy and poorer areas. Arabs towns are poorer and have lower tax collection rates and the lesser resources show up in the schools and in results. But nothing is straightforward: an Arab Christian school, with mainly Muslim students, regularly scores the highest matriculation results; the worst current achiever is a Jewish ultra-Orthodox school. There are also private and Jewish ultra-Orthodox schools: they receive government funding calculated somewhat differently but also based on student numbers plus the extent to which the schools adopt the core curriculum set by the government.
In religion, the right of each group to administer its own affairs is also inherited from the past. This too is complicated. Take the Jews: a Jew cannot marry a Christian or a Muslim. That seems like discrimination akin to apartheid's prohibitions in the Mixed Marriages Act. But it isn't. Instead, the situation is that Orthodox rabbis control Jewish marriage: they will marry any Jew to any Jew as long as he/she is Jewish from birth or has undergone an Orthodox conversion. Those who want to avoid the rabbinate can fly one hour to Cyprus and marry there in a civil ceremony; they return to Israel and the marriage is recognized in law. Among Muslims, Islam allows only Muslim-to-Muslim marriage – so a non-Muslim partner must first convert to Islam. Christians can be married in the churches, but some Orthodox churches will not marry a couple in which one partner is Protestant.
Land is much misunderstood and false accusations are made. It is, once again, a complex issue shaped by past practices. The basic picture is that 93 percent of the land in Israel is owned by the state and anyone can buy or rent it. But 13 percent of the 93 percent is restricted for Jewish use only. This is land owned by the Jewish National Fund, set up at the start of the last century to buy land for Jews. The fund's success provided a basis for the UN's decision to create a Jewish state. In recent years several Arab families have sought to buy into Jewish communities living on JNF land and have been rejected. The issue has been before the Supreme Court: some argue that the JNF's charter is inviolate and the land must remain Jewish forever; others insist that the charter must be changed to open the land to everyone.
...There is a great deal of consciousness about the gaps between Arabs and Jews. A range of NGOs work for change. Interestingly, the current government, although right-wing, has pledged huge amounts of money to upgrade Arab existence and also pushes national service so that Arab young men and women can work in hospitals and community centres in lieu of army service and earn the benefits of non-combat soldiers.
So the picture of the Israeli Arab community is a mixed one. Discrimination yes, but also some closeness with, for example, an Arab judge on the Supreme Court, and senior doctors and university teachers throughout the country. Theatres, cinemas, parks, beaches are open to everyone.
The extent of separation in schools and housing does, unfortunately, breed and perpetuate division. Social discrimination is one result. But none of this is remotely like the institutionalized racist laws and restrictions of apartheid South Africa. Anyone who levels that accusation against Israel has either forgotten what apartheid was, or does not know Israel, or is inventing it.
This is Israel within the 1948/49 borders. The story is very different when it comes to the West Bank. It is linked with Israel but is separate from it. The story again starts with history: in 1967, in making pre-emptive strikes against Egypt and Syria, Israel sent a message to Jordan's King Hussein on the eastern border: stay out of this, we have no quarrel with you. But Hussein believed the great lies that Egypt was feeding him – that it had destroyed Israel's air force whereas the opposite was true – and attacked. To general astonishment, the Israeli army defeated Jordan, evicting it from Jerusalem and the West Bank which it had seized in 1948.
At first, Israel was interested in exchanging land for peace. Remember, it was still in a state of war with the Arab countries it had defeated 19 years earlier and they did not recognise its existence. The Arab League met in Khartoum and issued a statement on 1 September 1967: No peace with Israel, no recognition, no negotiations...
Jewish settlement began and has grown...
I am among the many Israelis who oppose the occupation and who believe that we must get out of there. Nothing about occupation is pleasant... The fundamental point is that it is an occupation. Accusing Israel of practising apartheid on the West Bank is inappropriate and irrelevant. The charge confuses and distracts. Occupation is wrong and evil in itself. It does not need to be embellished or exaggerated. The roads built to carry only cars with Israeli yellow and black number plates – the Palestinian green and white are barred – are an expensive, heavy-handed response to drive-by shootings and have nothing to do with apartheid. The security barrier – part wall but mainly fences and ditches – was originally planned for security, to keep out suicide bombers from getting into Israel, but the purpose has been twisted to enable land grabs from Palestinians. That is exploitative and damaging. But it has nothing to do with apartheid.
To say that Israeli behavior is even worse than apartheid is even more misleading for the simple reason that the comparison is invalid. There was never in South Africa resistance in the form of suicide bombers, drive-by shootings and wholesale terror attacks, and there was thus never any call for the military responses that Israel resorts to.
The Bantustan analogy which some draw is equally faulty: apartheid Bantustans were meant as reservoirs of labour, to keep blacks penned in them so that they could be hauled into "white" South Africa when needed. The West Bank with its barrier and checkpoints is the exact opposite: Israel doesn't want Palestinian workers; it wants to keep them out.
Intentionality, or the lack of it, is a vital element: the white rulers in South Africa deliberately set about driving segregation and discrimination into every nook and cranny of society; that is not Israel. The checkpoints and separate roads and the rest are not ideological goals but are a consequence of occupation and resistance to it. End the occupation, and they will end.
So why do so many put such effort into trying to attach the apartheid tag to the occupation, with so many incessant and emotive references to apartheid roads, the apartheid wall, apartheid checkpoints and the rest? This is where we get back to the beginning: yell apartheid again and again and again and some people will believe it, or at least that is the hope and aim of the shouters.
There is an underlying, more convoluted, purpose: if Israel can be declared guilty of apartheid – and the United Nations definition is so broad that it can be pulled and stretched any way you want – then the country can be declared as much a pariah state as was apartheid South Africa and hence open to international sanctions, from trade and oil to being driven out of every possible world activity. What is clear and certain is that the ultimate purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel is wide open to criticisms. It is as imperfect as any other country, and carries more burdens than many. But it is not the racist, cruel monster that some people depict. I believe it is time for South Africans to take a fresh look at the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians: to be aware of the machinations of critics, to ask about their motivation and their ultimate goal. The question must be asked: why is so much hatred directed at that tiny country?
Ending the occupation will not in itself bring peace. But it is crucial to getting there. Jews and Arabs must settle their differences between themselves, through negotiation. The way forward is known: two states, with a Palestinian state living alongside the Jewish state and Jerusalem as the shared capital. But it's a troubled path to get there and South Africa is uniquely placed, with its experience in resolving bitter division and conflict, to give intelligent advice and guidance. But always remember: Israel/Palestine is not South Africa: there is a different history, different peoples, different cultures, different religious determinants, and different aspirations. Offer help, but please be wise, careful and modest.[835]
In, Haaretz, which known to be very the anti-Israel,[836][837][838][839][840][841][842] (and was even linked to a spy scandal,[843]) Benjamin Pogrund wrote [in May 2, 2008]: "Catastrophic, but not apartheid" noting that Israel's situation is not unique. And says: "Calling Israel's occupation 'apartheid' is not only wrong but thoughtless - because it ignores what is happening in the world, and especially the imminence of the Durban Review Conference." He goes on by saying:
The labeling is wrong because the situations are entirely different. Apartheid in South Africa, from 1948 until 1994, was a unique system of racial separation and discrimination, institutionalized by law and custom in every aspect of everyday life, imposed by the white minority and based on a belief in white racial superiority. Skin color decreed inferior status from birth until death for blacks, Asians and "mixed-race" coloreds. In contrast, West Bank oppression is not based on a predetermined racist ideology. It stems rather from historical factors such as Jordan's attack during the 1967 war and the resulting Israeli conquest of the West Bank. From that, the settlement movement has developed...[844]
Issue: "land" or mass murder?
M. Phillips advises: "Israel's advocates all too often fail to state the reality of its enemies' intentions. It is time that they did,"
...friends of Israel fret endlessly about whether or not Bibi will extend the moratorium on new building in the disputed territories, rather than ask the much more germane question of what the Palestinians are offering as an equivalent concession. The answer to that one, said Brett Stephens, is that they say they will keep the lid on terrorism. So their great concession is to stop killing Jews. Which kind of illustrates that, while the issue in contention for Israel is land, that for the Palestinians is mass murder.
But instead of accusing the Palestinians and their western supporters of this rejectionism - the true reason for the Middle East impasse - many self-professed "friends" of Israel position themselves on the very ground that Israel's enemies have chosen to conceal their real aim to obliterate it.
Hence the almost exclusive focus on the settlements and on Israel's supposed obduracy on these issues as the major obstacle to peace. This is demonstrably absurd. The only obstacle to peace is the Palestinians' continued and open refusal to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and thus their continued objective to wage a war of extermination against it.
... the whole issue of the settlements...is a giant red herring which has been swallowed wholesale by the west's Israel-bashers. But many in the pro-Israel camp have precisely the same preoccupation, obsessing about whether Israel is making enough concessions on the settlements.
Israel's defenders should be moving the conversation on to the subject of the ill treatment of the Palestinians by the rest of the Arab world - and towards each other.
I would go further. I would ask self-styled "progressives" who obsess about removing the settlers from the disputed territories why they promote an agenda of racist ethnic cleansing designed to remove every Jew from a putative state of Palestine - while Israel, whose Arab minority enjoys full civil rights, is excoriated for "apartheid".
Put the other side on the back foot where it belongs. Change the narrative.[845]
JIMMY CARTER
Carter's fraudulent "apartheid" label by his own opinion - his contribution to anti-Semitism - his reliance on Pallywood fake "quotes" such as (supposedly) by Mandela and others
The fraud
Exposing the fraud of J. Carter, Prof. A. Dershowitz writes:
The Israel- apartheid analogy is a fraud, one that Carter perpetuates by citing imaginary sources. At Brandeis, he claimed that South Africa's Nelson Mandela had "used the same description." Carter appeared to be citing a fake memorandum from "Nelson Mandela" that was written by Arjan El-Fassed, an Arab journalist living in the Netherlands. Anti -Israel activists often circulate the memorandum, pretending it is authentic, as does Carter, who has personal access to Mandela and has to know that the quote was made up. What is most striking about Carter's use of the word apartheid is his refusal to apply such labels to countries that actually deserve it.[846]
Pallywood
This is not surprising, coming from the culture of fabricating "news," images etc. By the infamous Pallywood (Palestinian Authority Hollywood),[847][848][849][850][851] like Hezbollahwood.[852]
Confused and self contradictory
He also adds that Carter in his own expressed opinion knows that the Arab-Israeli conflict has nothing to do with "race" but with what he calls it "acquisition of land," which makes his argument for "apartheid" totally wrong, as "apartheid" was defined by domination of one racial group over another.[853]
We already mentioned above how J. Carter admitted on CNN (December 12, 2006) that Israel is a democracy with equal rights for all under the law.[854] How then, can this slur ever be used in the context of Israel? What is also interesting is that he said in another interview that his use of 'apartheid' intentionally provocative (only) to create debate. That insinuates more of a tactic towards a certain goal (what he calls "debate") than out of a sincere belief and conviction. From Nov 27, 2006 ... a provocative title -- and I use the word provocative not in a negative sense, but just to provoke debate and to provoke discussion.[855]
Carter's blatant lies and distortions
Jimmy Carter's "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" reviewed Nov 13, 2006 – Jimmy Carter Book - Palestine Peace Not Apartheid - reviewed. Shockingly, Carter largely only see Israel as the party responsible for the "plight" of [self inclicted] Arab-Palestinians.[856] Most troubling is his blatant distortion of facts.[857]
What the experts are saying:
"President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments."
"The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary."
Kenneth Stein Former Executive Director of the Carter Center
"It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi Democratic Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
"While I have tremendous respect for former President Carter, I fundamentally disagree and do not support his analysis of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On this issue President Carter speaks for himself, the opinions in his book are his own, they are not the views or position of the Democratic Party. I and other Democrats will continue to stand with Israel in its battle against terrorism and for a lasting peace with its neighbors."
Howard Dean Democratic National Committee Chairman
"I cannot agree with the book's title and its implications about apartheid. Use of such terms in this context does not serve the cause of peace and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong."
Rep. John Conyers Senior Democrat, U.S. House of Representatives[858]
Carter's "Jewish problem"
D. Lipstadt wrote in the WashingtonPost about "Jimmy Carter's Jewish Problem" regarding "Jimmy Carter's book 'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid' ignores a legacy of mistreatment, expulsion and murder committed against Jews."[859]
In 2007, Carter said "too many Jews on Holocaust council."[860][861] The ADL commented "on Jimmy Carter's intent to meet with the head Of Hamas."[862] It asked Carter in 2010 after his continuing hate propaganda: "Jimmy Carter: Have You No Shame?... It was only nine months ago that former President Jimmy Carter issued an open letter to the American Jewish community asking for forgiveness."[863]
Carter, appropriately called "racist," "anti-Semite" on TV, for his book.[864] Astonishing is, how "Jimmy Carter, the Jew-hater, "cried racist" on someone critical of Barack Obama. Writes S. Benoit.[865]
Tutu / Carter and culpability of pushing anti-Semitism
There were "Anti-Semitic Reactions to Jimmy Carter's Book" by White Supremacists.[866] As to Desmond Tutu himself, which 'apartheid-slander-pushers' like to brag with. In 2002, Bishop Tutu who compared Apartheid & Nazis, outraged Jews. " His Jewish allies protested publicly "Tutu's latest anti-Jewish and anti-Israel slurs."[867] And both, Tutu and Carter, who more than crossed the line of merely "criticizing Israel," (but rather hide their hatred under a sophisticated cloak of "Pro-Palestinianism") are blamed for a subsequent wave of anti-Semitic rants. That "people like Tutu and Carter legitimize the kind of anti-Semitic attitudes."[868]
From a (Dec. 2010) article: "Bishop Tutu Is No Saint When it Comes To Jews": Among the world's most respected figures is South Africa's Bishop Desmond Tutu. His recognizable face—with its ever present grin—has become a symbol of reconciliation and goodness. But it masks a long history of ugly hatred toward the Jewish people, the Jewish religion and the Jewish state. Bishop Desmond Tutu is no mere anti-Zionist (though Martin Luther King long ago recognized that anti- Zionism often serves as a cover for deeper anti-Jewish bigotry). He has minimized the suffering of those killed in the Holocaust. He has attacked the "Jewish"--not Israeli--"lobby" as too "powerful" and "scar[y]." He has invoked classic anti-Semitic stereotypes...[869]
Tutu's general unreliability, especially in apartheid comparisons, said: "African National Congress worse than apartheid"
As if his anti-Jewish outbursts weren't enough to discredit his political clarity and bogus language, upset at a (2011) visa denial by the South African [black] ANC government for the Dalai Lama to attend his 80th birth day activities, he showed his true colors of selfishness, super arrogance, egoism and total disregard for the victims of the S. African apartheid era, when he said that
the African National Congress-party dominated government of President Jacob Zuma is worse than the regimes under apartheid and that he prayed for the collapse of the ANC.[870]
The ANC responded: <block quote>"We are appealing to the archbishop to calm down," […] "The archbishop knows it well deep down his heart, mind and soul that the ANC and its government cannot be equated to the repressive and divisive apartheid regime” ... "We are appealing to the archbishop to calm down."[871]</block quote>
Carter's unreliability, appeaser of Arab-Islamic regimes committing/promoting genocide
Carter and the Darfur genocide
J. Carter, who's supposedly so "caring" for the "plight" of the Palestinian-Arabs, couldn't bring himself to denounce strong enough the Arab racist (and supremacy against non-pure-Arabs)[872][873][874] [875] genocide in Darfur, that has claimed already around 2,500,000 victims.[876] Worse, he even objected to the term genocide.
As scholars put it in an article titled "Jimmy Carter and Sudan's genocidal regime":
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is often lauded by the Arab world for championing the Palestinian cause. However, after stumbling into the world of Sudanese politics, Carter has lost all credibility. Inexplicably, Carter gave his blessing (with perfunctory caveats) to a rigged election that has handed victory to a genocidal war criminal who granted safe haven to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.[877]
From Sudan activist, Eric Reeves "Jimmy Carter on Genocide in Darfur" (October, 2007):
Last week, Jimmy Carter toured Sudan as part of a group of international celebrities who are calling themselves "the Elders." Founded by Nelson Mandela, the Elders aim--in the modest words of one member, British billionaire Richard Branson--to address "problems in the world that need a group of people who are maybe...beyond politics, beyond ego, and who have got great wisdom."
Great wisdom? Let's just say the group is off to a rocky start. That's because Carter took the opportunity of his visit to Sudan to criticize the United States for labeling the killing and destruction in Darfur genocide. "There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard," Carter lectured. "The atrocities were horrible but I don't think it qualifies to be called genocide." He also said, "If you read the law textbooks...you'll see very clearly that it's not genocide and to call it genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation--I don't think it helps."
Carter got one thing right--that there is a legal definition of genocide, embodied in the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide--but that's it. The "atrocities" Carter refers to have included, over the past four and a half years, the deliberate, ethnically targeted destruction of not only African tribal populations, but their villages, homes, food- and seed-stocks, agricultural implements, and water sources. People die now in Darfur primarily because of this antecedent violence, directed against not only lives but livelihoods. Here, the Genocide Convention is explicit: You can commit genocide not only by "[k]illing members of [a] group" but also by "[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." The destruction in Darfur clearly meets that test.
Then there is the use of rape as a weapon of war by Arab militias in Darfur. The racial component of rape in Darfur has been well-documented at this point. In a typical example, here is what three Fur women--the Fur are the largest African tribal group in Darfur--told Doctors Without Borders: "We saw five Arab men who came to us and asked where our husbands were. Then they told us that we should have sex with them. We said no. So they beat and raped us. After they abused us, they told us that now we would have Arab babies; and if they would find any Fur, they would rape them again to change the color of their children." Racist epithets are typically hurled at women and girls, who are often gang-raped and then scarred to mark them as rape victims--a terrible burden in Darfur's conservative Muslim ethos. Can there be any denying that such ethnically targeted rapes fall under the Genocide Convention's admonition that "[c]ausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" constitutes genocide? Moreover, because of the stigma that attaches to raped women, marriage and thus child-bearing becomes impossible for many. And, for some victims, especially younger girls, ensuing medical complications make child-bearing physically impossible. Which means that these rapes clearly meet yet another definition of genocide contained in the U.N. convention: "[i]mposing measures intended to prevent births within the group."
In addition, children, as well as women, are continually abducted by the Janjaweed. This, too, is a genocidal act under the convention, which prohibits "[f]orcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[878]
Carter and the Genocidal Hamas
Carter was also willing to meet with the Jihadi terror organization Hamas.[879]
"Palestinian" Arab-Islamic Hamas equals Genocide
In The Genocidal Hamas Charter, D. Littman points out article 7 of the charter which includs text like: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until the Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them),..."[880]
As D. J. Goldhagen in "Worse than war: genocide, eliminationism, and the ongoing assault on humanity" Hamas' blueprint, its genocidal charter.[881]
Or as phrased by human rights activists Hamas Charter of 18 August 1988 is racist, 'politicidal' and 'genocidal'.[882]
From a report at the UN: "The Charter of Hamas is genocidal and its article 8 a jihadist blueprint for global terrorism."[883]
Author E. Staub in "Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict, and Terrorism."
But enmity to Jews is at the core of Hamas. The Charter blames Jews for all the evils of the world in the past century and before: With money they ignited revolution in all parts of the world ...[884]
Or for instance:
Hamas cleric Muhsen Abu ‘Ita was interviewed July 13, 2008 on Al-Aqsa TV. After reminding listeners that the Koran's opening prayer itself (the Fatiha, at 1:7), which pious Muslims repeat five times daily, declares that the Jews are "those who incur Allah's wrath," (re-affirming the standard exegesis, for example, Suyuti's classical commentary), he declared:
The annihilation of the Jews here in Palestine is one of the most splendid blessings for Palestine. This will be followed by a greater blessing, Allah be praised, with the establishment of a Caliphate that will rule the land and will be pleasing to men and God.
It also promotes fighting global jihad.[885]
ZIONISM NOT CONNECTED TO "RACE"
There are more Christian Zionists[886] than there are Jewish Zionists. A person of any race or color can be a Zionist,[887] the refuge for Jews escaping persecution is termed by the way they are persecuted, or/and by the definition of a Jew by religious law. A German or an Arab convert to Judaism, or a half-Jew[888] that is persecuted, have all a right to the land.
Some have put it: "Zionism has nothing to do with race or racism. It is the expression of the Jewish people's yearning to return to their historical and religious homeland in the Land of Israel. The Jewish people also have a legal right to the land, as recognized by the League of Nations in 1922, and then by the United Nations."[889]
"Every colour is represented, thanks to the 'Law of Return' that has drawn Jews of diverse backgrounds to re-converge in the Holy Land."[890]
Israel is perhaps the most racially and ethnically
ISRAEL = ANTI-RACISM (VS ARAB RACISM)
Israeli Arab explodes Mideast 'lies'
Lebanese woman says she discovered freedom in Jewish state
[...]
"As a Middle Easterner brought up on this patent 'Israel is a racist state' propaganda, I discovered it is total hate-inspired nonsense," she said." I've seen with my own eyes what kind of society Israel is. I consider Israel to be one of the most multi-racial and multi-cultural countries in the world. There are no racial restrictions on becoming a citizen of Israel like there are in many Arab countries. Remember, Jews can't live in the neighboring Arab Kingdom of Jordan or in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."
She explained that more than 100 different countries of the world are represented in the population of Israel.
"Consider how the Israeli government spent tens of millions of dollars airlifting more than 40,000 black Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984 and 1991," she said. "Since 2001 Israel has reached out to help others taking in non-Jewish refugees from Lebanon, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Liberia, Congo and even Bosnian Muslims. How many such refugees have the 22 states in the Arab league taken in? The Arab world won't even give Palestinian refugees citizenship in their host countries."
She added that more than 1 million Arabs are full Israel citizens, that an Arab sits on the Supreme Court of Israel, that there are Arab political parties expressing views inimical to the state of Israel sitting in the Knesset, that women are equal partners in Israel and have complete human rights.
"Show me an Arab nation with a Jew in its government," she challenged. "Show me an Arab country with half as many Jewish citizens as Israel has Arab citizens. I'll borrow some of your academic freedom now and say that Arab nations are the real racist and oppressive states."[891]
Indeed, Defining Zionism, the national liberation movement of jews, the victims of racism, as racism is particularly cynical.[892]
The Jewish community has learned through bitter experience which people are likely to be targeted by antisemites for hatred and destruction. The State of Israel, accordingly, through the Law of Return, offers protection to all such people. It confounds logic, language, and common sense to argue that a law designed to protect targets of racist persecution is itself racist.[893]
Regarding "Human Rights In Israel," Israel has one of the broadest anti-discrimination laws of any country. According to the State Department, "The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, marital status, or sexual orientation. The law also prohibits discrimination by both government and nongovernment entities on the basis of race, religion, political beliefs, and age."[894]
From World Press Review:
For instance, until quite recently, the Israeli Consul General in Atlanta was an Arab. Racism is totally contrary to the tenets of the Jewish religion and to the unwritten constitution of Israel. How does that compare with Israel's accusers?... The Arabs have for the most part expelled all Jews from their countries and don't even allow Jewish visitors. They were the slave masters of yesterday and in some cases are reported to practice slavery even today. They are mercilessly exploiting black Africa and other developing countries by their inflated oil prices. For them to say that Zionism is racism is atravesty and an insult to the intelligence of the world. [895]
In 'The False Issue of "Race" in the Arab-Israeli Conflict' Barry Rubin writes about the anti-Israel forces in an attempt to demonize it delegitimize it in interjecting falsely the "race" card. He elaborates on racism in Europe and the worse case in the Arab world, as opposed to the non-racist society in Israel which does not 'think' in 'racial' terms (Whereas crude racism in language, cartoons have been on display by Arabs in Israel/Palestine). A society that has welcomed all kind of colors and races, including asylum seekers:
As the waitress whose family had come from Ethiopia put the pizza on the table at the Tel Aviv restaurant, I contemplated the ridiculous misuse of "race" as a factor in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Regardless of skin color, we belong not only to the same country by way of citizenship but also to the same nation and people in a very profound way that isn't true for countries that are merely geographical entities.
Among the scores of ridiculous things said, thought, and written about the Arab-Israeli conflict, the pretense that it has something to do with "race" ranks high among them. This has been interjected for two reasons. First, this is a blatant attempt to demonize and delegitimize Israel.
Second, as part of that point but also due to trends in Western intellectual discussions, there is a conflation of nationality and race. Often, there is an attempt nowadays to portray any form of nationalism in the West as racist, though this is never applied to Third World nationalists situations. Neither the internal conflicts in Iraq (among Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds) nor in Lebanon (among numerous groups) are about race but rather arise from national, ethnic, and religious (sometimes all rolled up into one) conflicts.
One of the most basic lessons in looking at foreign or international affairs is to understand that countries just don't think alike about issues. America, and in a different way Europe, has been obsessed with race. That doesn't mean everyone else is racially oriented. Israelis don't think about skin color as such and are well aware that Jews, while having a common ancestry, have been affected by many cultures and societies.
With intermarriage rates between Jews whose ancestors came from Europe and those who came from the Middle East approaching half in Israel today, there is no way to classify people. In fact, Israelis are far less interested than other countries about people's ancestral travels.
Moreover, what does one say about such "darker-skinned" Israelis as my Hungarian-Yemenite colleague or my Syrian-origin pianist neighbor (whose wife is from Poland by way of Argentina? There is absolutely no issue involved here. And many Israelis of European origin are not exactly "white" in their appearance.
Indeed, Israel has more "blacks" among its Jews (from Ethiopia) than do the Palestinians by far. Israeli media never use racial stereotypes or epithets while Arab and Palestinian media have had numerous racist remarks and cartoons about such American leaders as Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and now even Barack Obama. In a recent radio interview one of the leaders of the Islamist movement in Israel, in other words from the Arab minority here, said that it was a disgrace that a black Israeli soldier could ask for the identity document of an Arab Muslim. Yet such racism from the Arab/Palestinian side is ignored in the Western media.
While there have been some incidents in reaction to the arrival of Jews from Ethiopia, these have been few and universally rejected. Moreover, Israel has given refuge to the American "Black Hebrew" movement when it easily could have deported them.
It is officially estimated that at least 19 asylum seekers have been shot dead by Egyptian forces in Sinai. To my knowledge no one in this category has ever been injured in Israel.
I have had friends, mostly Filipinos, who were illegal workers (they overstayed work permits) deported from Israel and they simply accepted it and were soon working in another country. None of them bears any grudge against Israel, quite the contrary they could serve as citizen ambassadors on its behalf. None of them ever reported a single case of "racial" mistreatment and I don't believe there has ever been--and workers' advocacy groups have never reported--a racial assault or even insult on any foreign worker in Israel. The problem, of course, is that there is at times terrible economic exploitation by unscrupulous employers, which is in no way atypical in the world today.
The Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts are in no way "racial." National identity is something quite different from "race" generally. Israelis and Arabs are not easily distinguished by skin color, though of course there are exceptions.I was in an Israeli government agency meeting a high-ranking official whose skin shade was darker than that of Barack Obama. This was only something I noted because I was planning to write the article you are reading now.
I arrived at the meeting mentioned above by taking a cab from my neighborhood taxi stand. I gave the address and the driver went back to speaking on his mobile phone in Arabic, which is the only reason I realized he was an Israeli Arab. I couldn't tell just by looking at him.
The attempt by anti-Israel slanderers to inject a racial aspect is ludicrously nonsensical. If you have ever travelled in Syria you would find that the average skin color of people there is lighter than that of Israelis on average. Generally speaking, there is less variation in "racial terms" between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs than there is among member states of the European Union.
It just doesn't apply to conditions here. 'While Palestinian Arabs are on average a shade or two darker than Israelis you can find wider variations within the EU member states.
But if you can label someone as a "racist" because they are engaged in a conflict with another nation or group automatically "proves" they are in the wrong. If the conflict is a national one, however, you actually have to think about it. Who's right in the following conflicts: Irish Catholics or Protestants; Basques or Spain; Bosnians or Serbs; Russians or Chechens, Somalis or Ethiopians; Iraqi Sunni, Shia, or Kurds; India or Pakistan; Azerbaijan or Armenia, and so on?
The answer cannot be deduced automatically. But label one side as racist and the discussion is over. This, then, is a trick for deceiving, not a tool for understanding.
The ridiculousness of attempts to transfer American or European situations to Israel was embodied in an American student asking an Israeli professor how many blacks were on his university's basketball team. Actually, there are many on the professional teams...
I don't think there's any question of the fact that there is far far more racism in Europe or in the Arabic-speaking world than in Israel--and that's an understatement.[896]
Noted writer S. J. FRantzman shows the the blurry "race" and color that exist in the non-racially-defined Israeli society. He asks:
Do Arabs and Jews realize how much they look alike?...
A new coexistence project entitled Enemies by Swiss artist Olivier Suter seeks to show how people define the "other." Suter noticed that in many conflicts people come to hate and stereotype an "other" and ascribe all sorts of differences, particularly ethnic ones, to their enemy. He believes that if he can show that most people locked in deadly conflict look alike they will have no reason to be enemies. Towards that end he received backing from Charlatan, a Swiss-based artists collective, to publish an advertisement in March 2008 showing eight unidentified people and asking readers to submit photos of anyone who looked like them. He had chosen eight Palestinians and by publishing his "wanted" ad in Haaretz he was hoping to get pictures of Israeli Jews. Sure enough he received many of them. His final selection included a picture of an Israeli girl who remarkably resembles, almost identically, a Palestinian boy from Beit Hanina. The project is not limited to Israel. He intends to embark on a similar stunt in Belgium, showing that Flemish and French speakers look alike. Next he is going to Africa and will prove that Hutus and Tutsis, the latter the victim of the Rwandan genocide, look alike. The implication is clear: Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, look alike. Since we look alike there is no reason for a conflict. Suter asks, "Can two people who look so similar that they could be mistaken for identical twins really be enemies?" The project also seeks to show that by hating the other we are in affect hating ourselves since we are all the same. Those campaigning for a color-blind world have long championed this tune in their statement "one race: human." But while this project theoretically should make us think twice about the way we view the Palestinian "other," it also has a lot to say about accusations of Israeli racism and apartheid.
ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVISTS and extremists who write about Israel in the West tend to portray its Jews as white and European, and Arabs as dark and "indigenous." This is part of the rhetoric that wants to connect Israel to the policies of apartheid South Africa. The overtones of this racial lens of the conflict can often be found in anti-Israel material, such as Caryl Churchill's play Seven Jewish Children. It is perpetuated in more obscure ways by media outlets that often include pictures of headscarf-clad Palestinian women and very light skinned, even blond, Israelis. It is more blatant among fringe extremist groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Review, where Lauren Ray wrote in the fall of 2003 that they were "organizing and educating about the nature of Israel's white supremacy and colonialism." Tal Nitzan, a Hebrew University M.A. student, authored a 2008 thesis, supported by sociology professor Eyal Ben-Arie, in which she claimed that IDF soldiers don't rape Arab women because they are racist. Olivier Suter's project deserves attention for this reason. It shows the degree to which the "racist" and "apartheid" slur aimed at Israel is a myth. There are great differences between Jews and Arabs and Palestinians and Israelis, just as there are great differences within the two groups: between Yemenite and Persian Jews, between Hebronite and Jerusalemite Arabs, between Beduin and Druse. There are certainly elements of racism within Israel's multicultured society, such as that which sometimes is felt between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, or even between Beduin with African ancestry and Beduin with Arab ancestry in the town of Rahat. But it is very far from a racial conflict.
In a 2003 article in the Gotham Gazette, an on-line magazine focusing on New York, J.E. Safa noted that "Arabs come in all shapes and sizes and colors; they are not all dark haired and dark eyed." The same might be said of Jews. Surely Suter's project reminds us of this. If only the Israel- and Jew-hating activists who recently assaulted Israel's ambassadors to Spain and Argentina, barricaded Jews in Hillel at York University and rioted over tennis star Andy Ram in Sweden, all in the name of "anti-racism," could see behind their own myths of Israel and the Jewish other.[897]
HONEST CRITICISM OF ISRAEL VS CRUDE ANTI-SEMITISM
In the words of harsh anti-Israel critic H. Rosenthal (working for the State Department): "When Israel is demonized, when Israel is held to different standards than the rest of the countries, and when Israel is delegitimized. These cases are not disagreements with a policy of Israel, this is anti-Semitism."[898]
Scholar R. A. Steinsaltz in the WashingtonPost defines "Fine Line: Criticizing Israel Without Anti-Semitism" when it entails: misinformation, lies and singling out Israel, disproportionately criticizing Israel.
The term "anti-Semitism" is itself a euphemism for "anti-Jewishness," and it is therefore easy to replace it with other words that may have a similar meaning. In many places, to be "anti-Semitic" has become unacceptable and has thus been replaced with "anti-Zionism" or anti-Israel stances, which are easier to condone.
In my view, anyone, Jew and non-Jew alike, may criticize the State of Israel without being anti-Semitic, but it is walking a fine line. One's criticism of Israel should be of a certain nature.
The critique must be honest and without other agendas. The first step in making such a critique, as in any other criticism, is to verify the facts. Misinformation and negative propaganda are in abundance today, particularly in this day and age of the Internet. Furthermore, anti-Semitism is not confined only to non-Jews; Jews can be - and sometimes actually become - quite anti-Semitic. Therefore, Jewish, and even Israeli, sources may be as unreliable as Iranian or Syrian sources. When criticizing Israel, one must be careful about truth vs. misinformation, reality vs. prejudice.
In addition to the issue of factuality, there are other, more subtle elements involved here. Anti-Zionism and anti-Israel positions may be a covert expression of a desire to eradicate any concentrated Jewish existence. This desire may not manifest itself in killing Jews physically, but merely as a wish that, somehow, the Jewish people should disappear. A critique of Israel with this intent is, by its very nature, an expression of anti-Semitism.
In a certain way, there is a widespread belief, even sometimes reluctant, in Jewish "superiority," not only in mundane matters, but also in morality. This results in an attitude that holds Jews, and by extension, the Jewish state, to standards that are not expected of any other nation. One must be aware of this tendency when making a critique of Israel. Within these limits, anyone – including a faithful Jew – has the right to criticize Israel, even if sometimes the criticism may not be completely right.[899]
R. S. Boteach: "It seems that Jews are the only group that you can attack with impunity because they are the only ones unwise enough to tolerate it."[900]
SINGLING OUT ISRAEL - WHEN ISRAEL IS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS ANY OTHER DEMOCRACY
A watch group on [Arab lobbied] UN's obsession: Every country, including every democracy, commits human rights violations, and states should be held to account accordingly, both domestically and internationally. Yet Israel does have the right to be treated equally under the law. It is legitimate for the UN to criticize Israel, but not when UN bodies do so unfairly, selectively, massively, sometimes exclusively, and always obsessively...[901]
RACISM IN CALLING ISRAEL -UNFAIRLY- "RACIST"
There's great worry at the growing trend to brand Israel unfairly as "racist." In "Anti-Semitism under the Guise of Anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism," author laments attempts to "nazify" Israel, that to call it "racist" is a bigoted campaign against Israel being seen the 'Jew' among states.[902] The singling out of Israel has been criticized,[903] more noticeably, protested at the UN by Western nations.[904][905][906] The selective use of pseudo Arabist terminology where, for instance, the pejorative epithet "racist" applies to Jews alone. Thus, while the encouragement of Arab emigration from Israel to the neighboring lands is vehemently condemned as worthy of a Hitler, the indiscriminate attack on Jews as Jews is glossed over in silence, if not actually condoned... empathy with the Palestinian Arab plight. In reality it betokens the pseudo-Arabist's pathetic longing for no less than a racial transmutation.[907]
It has been called the "New Anti-Semitism," [part in a campaign of] attempts to delegitimize (only) Jews in their historic homeland.[908]
Experts, researchers noted: "Racial practices, such as apartheid, dhimma, tribalism, xenophobia, and antisemitism (sometimes under the cover of... anti- Zionism) persist today."[909]
From 'Facts & Logic About the Middle East' article in 1990 under title: The "Bashing" of Israel Who does it? What is behind it?:
What are the facts?
Israel is a very small country, less than half the size of San Bernardino County, California. Its Jewish population is approximately 3.5 million, just about the population of Iowa. Compare that to the 22 Arab states, armed to the teeth, and virtually all of them in a state of war with Israel. They have over 140 million inhabitants and a land area larger than that of the United States. From its founding, Israel had to fight every day for its very survival.
Israel is constantly being hectored and admonished by sanctimonious advisors, who lament Israel's "abuse" of its Arab population. South Africa's Bishop Tutu made the false analogy between the condition of the blacks in South Africa and the status of Arabs in Israel. That is totally unfair. The blacks in South Africa are disenfranchised and politically impotent. The Arabs in Israel have the vote, have every civil right, are members of the Knesset (parliament), and are even members of Israel's diplomatic service. Nelson Mandela physically embraced that arch-terrorist Yassir Arafat and made the gratuitous statement that Zionism is a "unique form of colonialism." What a colossal lie! Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people whose purpose has been for 2,000 years to restore Zion, the ancient land of Israel, to their people. One must marvel at the love affair of the South African black leadership with the Arabs. It is the Arabs who, even today, keep black slaves; it is the Arabs who continue to engage in genocide against blacks in such countries as Chad, the Sudan and Mauritania; it is the Arabs who for years have fueled apartheid by selling millions of barrels of oil to South Africa: It is the Arabs who by their extortionist pricing of oil have brought ruin and famine to many countries of black Africa.
Ex-president Carter, in his recent swing through the Middle East, visited Syria, but did not have one word of unfavorable comment about that aggressor country and its regime. How strange! It is a country whose record of executions, torture, imprisonment, and utter abuse of even the most fundamental human rights is almost unsurpassed. President Carter did not talk about any of that. He talked about "human rights violations" by the Israelis against the stone throwers and Molotov cocktail hurlers in the administered territories. He did not mention that it is only because of Israel's abiding respect for human rights that the "intifada" has been allowed to go on for so long. Any of the Arab rulers would have known how to handle such an uprising "efficiently" had it occurred in their own country.
Disconcertingly, our own Administration is beginning noticeably to "tilt" to the Arab cause. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Western concepts of law, decency and human rights prevail. It is the only country that has free elections, a free press, unrestricted right of movement of its citizens and, of course, unlimited right of dissent. Besides, Israel is the staunchest ally of the United States not just in the Middle East, but in the entire world. It is a priceless defensive asset of our country where, in contrast to NATO or Japan/Korea, not a single American soldier needs to be stationed. How strange that our Administration would be so grimly fixed on imposing a PLO state on Israel and that it questions the legitimacy of Israel's possession of Jerusalem. And how strange that the Administration would constantly wish to strong-arm Israel, oblivious to Israel's constant struggle for survival in a sea of implacable hostility, but at the same time remaining silent about the Arab tyrannies in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and all the others.
Why is so much Israel bashing going on? Why do such obviously decent people as our President, Secretary of State, former president Carter and so many columnists, commentators, pundits, television personalities and "liberals" of all stripes identify with the tyrannical Arab regimes, with governments that have terror, kidnapping, torture, attacks on innocent civilians and assaults on commercial aircraft as their official policy? And why do they oppose and criticize Israel, a country that started from scratch, little more than 40 years so, and which, despite being under constant attack, has built a prosperous nation and a thriving society that surely could be a model for all developing countries? Could the sad answer be that it is a reincarnation of good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, which for almost twenty centuries has been the curse of Western society? No longer tolerated in its cruder manifestations, it now seems to be acceptably sublimated in the bashing of the state of Israel which, deep down inside, so many do not really wish to survive.[910][911]
R. Shulman correctly stated: "I suspect bigotry in ignoring apartheid in Muslim states and erroneously finding it in the Jewish one."[912]
Arab-Nazi attempt to "Nazify" their victims
As anti-Israel hype [as opposed to genuine criticism] is never related to facts, there is, therefore, no limits, anything goes, the "ultimate" defiled idea can be attached without any moral conscious, Since radical Islamists believe in calumniation of Israel and even 'all' Jews as a religious "good deed," or Arab racists are motivated by their racism and neo-Nazis are all about that to begin with.
A simple Google search shows Arab propaganda and openly neo-Nazi websites 'Nazifying' the Zionist state. Next to them, there are some among radical left that, so sadly jump the repugnant bandwagon.
Noted Canadian MP, I Cotler cites as one example of many in which critics of Israel become anti- Semites: when they nazify Israel.[913]
In 'A lethal obsession: anti-semitism from antiquity to the global Jihad', Robert S. Wistrich wrote how some Europeans journalists believe it is legitimate to Nazify Israel and fail to see any anti-Jewish prejudice in such caricatures.[914]
In 'Where have all the fascists gone?,' Tamir Bar-On wrote on the new global Judeophobia that combines Old Right anti- Semitism and New Left anti-Zionist anti-Semitism in order to Nazify Israel[915]
Already in the 1980s, Conor Cruise O'Brien observed the increasingly systematic attempt to Nazify Israel and the Jewish People: In the Spectator (19 June), a respected journalist , Mr. Nicholas von Hoffman developed the analogy with refinements.[916]
The UN Commission on Human Rights: To "Nazify" Israel and the Jewish people is, for example, a contemporary form of Holocaust inversion that palpably incites antisemitic feelings. The kind of mindless "antiracism" that pillories Israel as an apartheid state...[917]
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs explains the goal of this diabolical path:
The Aims of Those Who Nazify Israel
The "Nazification" of Israel makes it possible to kill three birds with one stone. The first objective is to delegitimize Israel by associating it with the symbol of evil par excellence. Second, one can attack and humiliate the Jewish people by equating them with the perpetrators of the brutal genocide that nearly succeeded in exterminating the Jews. Finally, this malicious analogy between Israelis and Nazis frees Europeans of any remorse or shame for their history of a lethal anti-Semitism that lasted a solid millennium...[918][919]
Decrying the Arab-Islamic Goebbels' Nazi tactics in Nazification the image of Israel, a writer that has lived through [real] Apartheid in South Africa Mervyn Danker, wrote an Op-Ed in the AJC: 'Calling Israel an apartheid state is preposterous,'
Pro-Palestinians have, ironically, taken a page out of Joseph Goebbels' playbook: If one says something frequently enough and with sufficient conviction it will be believed. This strategy has been helped along by a sympathetic and often gullible media that portrays Israel as the "oppressive occupier." Indeed, the Palestinians are handily winning the propaganda battle.
Palestinian propagandists have seized on the term "apartheid" and its association with an evil regime and inhumane policies.
For example, the security barrier separating the West Bank and Israel (which, by the way, has dramatically and sharply cut the incidents of suicide bombings) is referred to as the "apartheid wall." And Israel's granting of automatic citizenship to Jews only is seen as blatant discrimination, again offered as evidence of the state's "apartheid" policy. Israel's Arab population is (erroneously) portrayed as second-class citizens, akin to people of color in apartheid South Africa.
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, prime minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966, is often called the "Architect of Apartheid" and is credited with having coined the term as it is used today. Apartheid literally means "separateness" and it characterized his government's policy.
During its more than four decades in power, the white regime enacted a series of laws that separated whites and the majority population (blacks, mixed race and Asians). For example, people of color who lived in neighborhoods close to white areas were relocated to distant areas, while the right to vote in parliamentary elections was denied to all but whites. People of color were relegated to a life of discrimination and deprivation.
Growing up in South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, I attended whites-only elementary schools and high schools, as well as a whites-only university. Years later, the early 1980s, I was the principal of a Jewish day school in South Africa when I could finally see signs of the apartheid system crumbling (the government allowed us to admit Asian and mixed-race students, although only after we filled out a battery of government forms).
Nowadays, the use of "apartheid" in referring to Israel is grossly inaccurate, misleading and fallacious.
The Israeli Arab population, as citizens of the country, enjoys the full range of civil rights. Israeli law guarantees the social and political equality of all citizens without distinction of race, creed and sex - sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Arab citizens vote in national elections, attend Israeli schools and universities and represent Israel on national athletic teams.
Unlike the bulk of the poverty-stricken population of South Africa during the apartheid years, Israeli Arabs enjoy a higher standard of living than Arabs in neighboring countries. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen addressed the subject March 2 in an op-ed piece headlined "Israel has its faults but apartheid is not one of them."
That covers the West Bank and Gaza, as well. Israel withdrew fully from Gaza in 2005, and while Israel has established security zones and implemented some road restrictions in the West Bank, it's only because of a rash of suicide bombings earlier in the decade. As security improves and Palestinian police take more control of Arab towns and villages, barriers and checkpoints will become fewer, eventually disappearing. Already Arab towns and villages are run by mayors and town councils elected by Palestinians. Certainly these dynamics do not qualify as apartheid.
Using "Nazi" terminology in reference to Israel is just as off-base. One need not be a student of history to be aware of the atrocities and inhumanity of the German Nazi regime. Their murder of 6 million Jews - either in the extermination camps or by SS paramilitary death squads (which shot thousands of Jews at a time and dumped their bodies in open graves) or by starvation and disease - is well chronicled. More than 65 years later, the mind still boggles at the massacres and madness.
Yet at the S.F. Board of Supervisors meeting and at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in U.S. cities and overseas, the use of "Nazi" in reference to Israel, and claims of Israel using "Nazi tactics," is clearly evident.
In a Chicago protest, the Magen David in the Israeli flag was replaced with a swastika. In San Diego, a poster read "Stop the Israel Third Reich." And in San Francisco, Gaza was compared to a concentration camp. At the time of the Gaza conflict in December 2008, on the floor of the House of Commons in England, Jewish M.P. Gerald Kaufman compared Israel's actions to the brutal tactics used by the German Nazis.
The use of the term "Nazi" in describing Israel is obscene, odious and contemptible. It needs to be refuted as vigorously as possible, each and every time.
[...] Inaccuracies and distortions need to be challenged consistently and with unfailing resolve.[920][921]
As mentioned above, the first known politician to come up with such a thesis was A. Shukairy,#1961: Genocidal pro-Nazi Arab leader: Ahmad Shukairy, 'father' of 'Apartheid' slander the aide to Hitler's ally, the Mufti, and an assistant on extermination techniques in WW2. The one that called to 'drive the Jews in the sea,' and identified himself with [Argentine] Nazi groups on the UN floor. The very first initiator of the "apartheid" analogy as well.
It all fits well with the identical aims, characteristics and hypocrisy [as in a genuine Arab-Nazi and admirer of Nazism calling its very target by this term. The same paradox-mentality that "explains" how Neo-Nazis brand Israel by this terminology] of those that follow suit, as if nothing has changed during the 50 Years (since Shukairy's 1961 virulent speech). Indeed, 'history repeats itself.'
Apartheid lie - as pure racism
Even such long-time fierce critics of Israel, like Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, has exposed the lie behind tying the Jewish State with the term "apartheid." Under the headline "Israel has its faults, but apartheid isn't one of them," tore apart the description as "pure racism."
"Israel's critics continue to hurl the apartheid epithet at the state when they have to know, or they ought to know, that it is a calumny." "Interestingly, they do not use it for Saudi Arabia, which maintains as perfect a system of gender apartheid as can be imagined -- women can't even drive, never mind vote -- or elsewhere in the Arab world, where Palestinians sometimes have fewer rights than they do in Israel."
[...]
Cohen flatly stated that the linking of the word "apartheid" with Israel belies the truth. "The use of the word has become commonplace -- Google "Israel and apartheid" and you will see that the two are linked in cyberspace, as love and marriage are in at least one song," according to Cohen. "The meaning is clear: Israel is a state where political and civil rights are withheld on the basis of race and race alone. This is not the case."
He also took aim at former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" set off a storm of protest in the Jewish community. Carter last year wrote a public apology for his previous criticisms that "stigmatize Israel" but did not refer to his own book's description of Israel.
Cohen wrote, "Carter was waving the bloody shirt of racism, and he knew it."
The journalist contrasted the official apartheid policy of South Africa decades ago, when the majority black population was denied citizenship and civil rights, with the situation in Israel, where Arabs and Jews have equal civil rights, including representation in the Knesset.
He stated, "Whatever this is -- and it looks suspiciously like a liberal democracy -- it cannot be apartheid."
Despite Cohen's rare defense of Israel, his column did not spare Israel from his usual condemnation of a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. ..
However, Cohen admitted that the term apartheid does not apply to Judea and Samaria, which he calls the West Bank, and wrote that "security concerns are not rooted in racism."
As for Israel Apartheid Week, Cohen condemned it. He told readers, "Israel is not above criticism and the Palestinians have their case, but when that case is constructed out of lies about the Jewish state, it not only represents a wholly unoriginal cover of some old anti-Semitic ditties but also denigrates the Palestinian cause…"
"Years of this sort of stuff have made Israel tone-deaf to legitimate criticism and exasperated with any attempt to find fault. That's why Israel refused to cooperate with the South African jurist Richard Goldstone when, on behalf of the United Nations, he looked into alleged war crimes. The United Nations had once equated Zionism with racism. After that, it was hard to care what the United Nations thought."[922]
The real racism of categorizing as "racially motivated" - whatever self defense measures Israel takes to fend off Arab-Muslim racist attacks of Jews because they are Jews
"The real racism: Expecting Jews to die meekly," M. Sherman wrote in the JPost (2011): Into the Fray: Israel needs to once again convey, unapologetically, to the world the rationale for its founding.
After quoting from an "academic" (i. e., Neve Gordon, an infamous exposed anti-Israel extremist,[923][924][925][926] Or as other have put his hypocrisy (Oct. 2011) Neve Gordon can't take criticism... A Haifa University professor is denied free speech by a self-hating Israeli academic. It's ironic that those who shout loudest about freedom of speech for themselves and their friends are often the first to try to silence those with whom they disagree. A case in point is Dr. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University, who has defamed so many people, as well as the nation of Israel..."[927]) who accused Israel with the "apartheid" mantra, he appropriately charges:
... Taken from an article by a senior Israeli academic, this excerpt typifies the racist Judeophobic rhetoric that has come to dominate the public discourse on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Sadly it is rhetoric that has been endorsed by many in the Israeli academia and media. Even more disturbing is the complicity - or at least complacency — of Israeli officialdom in allowing it to become the defining feature of this discourse.
Expecting Jews to die meekly
This mode of rhetoric is no less than inciteful, Judeophobic racism, because in effect, it embodies the implicit delegitmization of the right of Jews to defend themselves.
It embodies the implicit expectation that Jews should consent to die meekly. And how can an expectation that Jews die meekly be characterized other than as "inciteful, Judeophobic racism?" For no matter what the measures Israel adopts to protect its citizens from those undisguisedly trying to murder and maim them — because they are Jews — they are widely condemned as "racist," "disproportionate violence" or even "war crimes/crimes against humanity."
It matters not whether these measures are administrative decisions or security operations, defensive responses or anticipatory initiatives, punitive retaliations or preemptive strikes. It matters not whether they entail the emplacement of physical barriers to block the infiltration of indiscriminate murderers; the imposition of restrictions to impede their lethal movements; the execution of preventive arrests to foil their deadly intentions; the conduct of targeted killings (with unprecedentedly low levels of collateral damage) to preempt their brutal plans; the launch of military campaigns to prevent the incessant shelling of civilians...
Lip service to Israel's right to self-defense
The depiction of these measures as arbitrary acts of wrongdoing, whose only motivation is racially driven territorial avarice and discriminatory embitterment of the lives of the Palestinians, distorts reality and disregards context. But far more perturbing, is the moral implication of this condemnation.
For if all endeavors to prevent, protect or preempt are denounced as morally reprehensible, the inevitable conclusion is that they should not be employed. This implies a no less inevitable conclusion: To avoid the morally reprehensible, the Jewish state should - in effect - allow those who would attack its citizens, to do so with total impunity, and with total immunity from retribution.
True, many of Israel's detractors protest with righteous indignation that they acknowledge that it "has a right to defend itself." But this is quickly exposed as meaningless lip service, for whenever Israel exercises that allegedly acknowledged right, it is condemned for being excessively heavy-handed.
It makes little difference if Israel imposes a legal maritime blockade to prevent the supply of lethal armaments to Islamist extremists; or if Israeli commandos are forced to use deadly force to prevent themselves from being disemboweled by a frenzied lynch mob; or if, in response to the savage slaughter wrought by Palestinian suicide bombers - which relative to its population, dwarfed the losses on 9/11 - Israel clears the terror-infested and boobytrapped Jenin, using ground troops rather than its air force to minimize Palestinian collateral damage, thus incurring needless casualties of its own.
No matter how murderous the onslaughts initiated by the Palestinians, no matter how blatant the Palestinian brutality, no matter how outrageous the Palestinian provocation, the Israeli response is deemed inappropriate.
Despite the declaration of recognition of some generic abstract right to defend itself and its citizens, it seems that in practice the only "appropriate" response is for Israel to refrain from defending itself.
Exigencies of security
Then there is the reverse racism emblazoned in the subtext of the discourse of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians: The victims of racist hatred are condemned as racist for fending off their racist attackers.
Security barriers are not erected, roadblocks are not put in place, travel restrictions are not enforced as a racist response to Palestinian ethnicity but as a rationale response to Palestinian enmity. To believe otherwise is to fall prey to what Binyamin Netanyahu once called the "reversal of causality." The blockade of Gaza is a consequence, not a cause, of Hamas's violence; the West Bank security barrier is the result of, not the reason for, Palestinian terrorism.
If not for the massive carnage at Sbarro pizzeria, at Dizengoff Center, at the Passover Seder in the Park Hotel, there would have been no IDF operation in Jenin in 2002. Without the indiscriminate bombardment of Israeli civilians, there would have been no Cast Lead operation in Gaza in 2009. If pregnant women and ambulances were not used to smuggle explosives into Israeli cities, there would be no need for checkpoints and roadblocks. If Palestinian gunmen would not open fire from vehicles on Israeli families passing by, there would be no need to restrict the movement of Palestinians on certain roads. If Palestinians did not ambush Israeli cars traveling though Palestinian towns, there would be no need to construct special roads for Israelis to bypass those towns.
The outcome of Judeophobic enmity
Of course, the standard Judeophobic response to this will be... "occupation," that all-purpose, all-weather, one-size-fits-all excuse for every racist Palestinian atrocity perpetrated against the Jews.
According to this morally base and factually baseless contention, all Palestinian violence is an expression of understandable rage and frustration due to years of repressive "occupation" of Palestinian lands.
Exposing the "occupation" utter fake excuse:
This claim is as egregious as it is asinine. It must be rejected with the moral opprobrium and the intellectual disdain it so richly deserves.
Indeed, as I have demonstrated in several recent columns, the call for the destruction of the Jewish state was made long before Israel held a square inch of what is now designated as "occupied Palestinian land." (In fact, the original 1964 Palestinian National Covenant explicitly disavows any sovereign claim to the "West Bank" and Gaza as the Palestinian homeland.) The founding documents of the PLO, Fatah and Hamas are all committed to the destruction of the Jewish state, irrespective of time and regardless of frontiers. This too was the sentiment reiterated by Mahmoud Abbas in his recent UN appearance.
So clearly "Occupation" is not the origin of Palestinian ill-will towards Israel. Quite the reverse. The Israeli presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is a direct outcome of Arab ill-will towards Israel, when in 1967 their massive military offensive to destroy Israel failed catastrophically.
It was not Jewish territorial avarice that brought Israel to "the territories" but Arab Judeocidal aggression.
What if there had been no 'Occupation'?
Even if it can be irrefutably shown that "occupation" is not the origin of Palestinian hostility, might it is not be possible that elimination of "occupation" would induce, if not Palestinian amitié, then at least Palestinian acceptance of Israel? Sadly, all evidence seems to point the other way. Every time Israel has made tangible efforts to remove "occupation," the frenzy of Palestinian terrorism has soared to a higher crescendo, and forced abandonment or even reversal of these efforts:
- This was the case from 1993 to '96, when the implementation of the Oslo agreements brought forth a huge wave of suicide bombings.
- This was the case in 2000, when Ehud Barak offered sweeping concessions to the Palestinians, who responded with a wave of unprecedented terrorism which continued under Ariel Sharon's "restraint-is-strength-policy" until the carnage made military response unavoidable. The result was Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 that brought the IDF back in force to the "West Bank," where calm has been largely maintained ever since.
- This was the case in 2005, when Israel withdrew from Gaza and erased every vestige of "occupation," and in return received continuing and escalating violence that culminated in Operation Cast Lead.
Clearly, not only can "occupation" not be attributed as the cause of Palestinian enmity, but attempts to remove - or at least attenuate - it seem only to exacerbate this enmity.
Here intriguing questions arise: What if Israel had never taken over the "West Bank" or had withdrawn immediately after doing so, transferring control back to Jordan? What then would have become of the Palestinians and their claims to "national liberation?" What "occupation" would have then been blamed for their plight? What territory would have then been the focus of their efforts to establish their state? These are weighty questions which must await discussion at some later stage, but merely raising them poses a serious challenge to the factually flawed conventional wisdom that dominates and distorts the debate on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
'Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism'
"Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism" is the mantra sounded with Pavlovian regularity by Israel's detractors. And they are of course right. Criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti- Semitism.
However, the enduring practice of holding the nation-state of the Jews to discriminatory double standards does makes anti-Semitism an increasingly plausible explanation for that criticism, an explanation can no longer be summarily dismissed without persuasive proof to the contrary.
After all, atrocities of ferocity and scale far beyond anything of which Israel is accused, even by its most vehement detractors, are perpetrated regularly with hardly a murmur of censure from the international community. By contrast the slightest hint of any Israeli infringement - real or imagined - of human rights immediately results in expression of shock and revulsion in headlines in all major media outlets across the globe, precipitates emergency sessions of international organizations, and produces worldwide condemnation, from friend and foe alike.
Of course, the implication is not that Israel should be judged by the same criteria as the tyrannies of Sudan or North Korea; or by the bloody standards of Damascus or Tehran.
The question is, however, why should it be judged by standards and criteria which are far more stringent than those applied to the democracies that make up NATO.
For in the Balkans, in Iraq and in Afghanistan they have enforced blockades and embargoes far more onerous and damaging to civilians than that imposed on Gaza. They conducted military campaigns far from their borders that caused far more civilian casualties than Israel has in campaigns conducted only a few kilometers from the heart of its capital city...
Yet international outcry has been - at best - muted.
So, while holding the Jewish state to standards demanded of no other nation in the exercise of its right to self-defense may have explanations other than anti-Semitism (or Judeophobia to be more precise), no really compelling ones come readily to mind.
The real racism
This brings us back to where we began.
While the Jewish state faces unparalleled threats, and unconditional enmity, it is continually condemned for acting to meet those threats and to contend with that enmity — no matter what measures it adopts, no matter how grave the peril, no matter how severe the provocation.
This then is the real racism that permeates the discourse on the Israel-Palestinian conflict:- The expectation that the Jews jeopardize their security in order to maintain the viability of manifest falsehoods.
- The perverse portrayal of every coercive measure undertaken by the IDF to protect the lives of Jews against those striving to kill them, merely because they are Jews, as racially motivated, disproportionate violence.
- The disingenuous depiction of the inconvenience caused to Palestinians by these measures as a more heinous evil than the Jewish deaths they are designed to prevent.
- The attitude that shedding Jewish blood is more acceptable than the measures required to prevent it, an element that appears to be becoming increasingly internalized into the discourse on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Israel needs to once again convey, unapologetically, to the world the rationale for its founding: Jews will no longer die meekly.[928]
CALL TO CRIMINALIZE THE RIDICULOUS - YET DANGEROUS "APARTHEID" AND "RACISM" SLUR
Due to the obvious danger against Jews by bigoted Arab Islamic led inflammatory campaign of these slurs, ridiculous as they are, the seriousness of endangering Jews' lives has been raised. Noted French Doctor, activist against helping the hungry, and novelist Dr. Jean Christophe Rufin has suggested to France's government the following:
Certainly, there is no question of penalising political opinions that are critical, for example, of any government and are perfectly legitimate. What should be penalised is the perverse and defamatory use of the charge of racism against those very people who were victims of racism to an unparallaed degree. The accusation sof 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 legitimate to require by law that these accusations are not made lightly. 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.[929]
RACISM MASQUERADING AS "ANTI-RACISM"
The classical racism masquerading as "anti-racism" was seen -among other opportunities- at the infamous, condemned, disgraced[930] Arab-hijacked racist "Conference against Racism" in Durban.[931] (Where not a single word was uttered against the racism, apartheid and discrimination against minorities and even "raw" slavery in the Arab and Muslim world, but the members of the conference, geared by the oil-elite Arabs went ballistic over Zionism, as expected of their clear anti-Israel agenda.[932]) For example, the Arab Lawyers Union, distributed a booklet filled with anti-Semitic caricatures frighteningly like those seen in the Nazi hate literature printed in the 1930s.[933][934] (From M. Melchior's speech in 2001: But here today, something greater even than peace in the Middle East is being sacrificed - the highest values of humanity. Racism, in all its forms, is one of the most widespread and pernicious evils, depriving millions of hope and fundamental rights. It might have been hoped that this first Conference of the 21st century would have taken up the challenge of, if not eradicating racism, at least disarming it: But instead humanity is being sacrificed to a political agenda. Barely a decade after the UN repealed the infamous 'Zionism is Racism' resolution, which Secretary-General Kofi Annan described, with characteristic understatement, as a "low point" in the history of the United Nations, a group of states for whom the terms 'racism,' 'discrimination,' and even 'human rights' simply do not appear in their domestic lexicon, have hijacked this Conference and plunged us to even greater depths.[935][936]) These repeated "conferences" are rightfully termed: "The U.N.'s Racist Conference On Racism,"[937] or simply "racist conference."[938]
HATE RHETORIC OF SHOUTING "APARTHEID, RACISM" AS A TOOL BY ARAB RACISM AND ISLAMIC BIGOTRY TO PROMOTE GENOCIDE
Usage of "racism" and "apartheid" slurs as justification for real racism and genocide:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the first Holocaust[939] threatens a new one in wiping out Jews, annihiliation[940] charged with genocide,[941][942] has used the Arab racist "anti-racism"[943] Durban conference to damn Israel with the fake "racism" charge. The West protested it.[944] This Islamic leader, who advocates a 'New Holocaust' was -appropriately- termed 'Hitler,' worldwide.[945][946][947][948][949][950][951][952][953][954][955][956][957][958][959][960][961][962][963][964][965][966][967][968][969][970][971][972]
Those openly calling for annihilation of Jews, like Arab "Palestinian" terrorist organization/Islamic regime in Gaza, Hamas[973][974][975][976][977] [978] it even warned that "Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world,"[979] and Islamic Republic of Iran's terrorist organization: Hezbollah[980] [981] [982] "jewish-targets"-renewing-hezbollah's-jihad-genocide/[983] use these slurs regularly. Even "moderate" Fatah who "accuses" Israel in this terminology, has promoted annihilation.[984]
At the outcry of the brutal massacre by "proud" racist Arabs[985] of a Jewish family while asleep in Itamar, Israel (March, 2011), where a baby's throat was slashed, and Palestinian Arabs celebrating it,[986] Iran and Hamas praising it,[987] the cause for such crimes and "celebration" was raised. 'Palestinian Authority incitement against Jews': "Palestinian incitement: Jews receive 'Der Stürmer' depiction," leading for the "Atmosphere for terror," Israel said: "The world must call on the Palestinians to put a stop to the incitement. When Abbas chooses a band calling for the annihilation of Jews to play at festivals, then how can you even dream of reaching an agreement?"[988]
The PFLP and the PLO who from the beginning [in the 1970s, starting with Kiryat Shmona, Avivim, Maalot[989][990][991][992] etc. Continuing today as in the mentioned 'Itamar massacre'[993]] targeted to massacre children under a garbage cloak of "freedom fighting," are the main propagators of the Arab racist "apartheid slur" (as seen on their "imagingapartheid"). Tied together with the infamous "ISM" International Solidarity Mission[994] (the anti-Jewish genocidal organization who chant the slogan: "Kill the Jews" - "Ittbach al yahood" in Arabic.[995][996]
In May 2010: "MSA (Muslim Student Association) Member publicly calls for another Holocaust promotes Hitler Youth Week."[997][998]
One shouldn't be surprised to hear that among the Arab lobby tied to money for J. Carter[999] for his hate book against Israel, would be "activists" of these butchers - organizations.
'JEW HATRED' WEEK / 'INCITEMENT TO MURDER' WEEK
The so-called (IAW) "Israeli Apartheid Week" - anti-Israel bigoted[1,000] "agenda of propaganda and lies."[1,001] A smear campaign (with its gist of defining Israelis' genuine security concern from bigoted Arab-Islamic attacks with "racism" and "apartheid" epithets), though deceiving in its theme as a "pro-Palestinian" activism or as "caring" for Palestinian-Arabs, the overwhelming anti-Israel and often anti-Jewish hatred message is well noted. It has been marked as 'a ritual of discrimination and incitement against Israel,' that it "doesn't seek Middle East peace. It seeks to harm the Jewish people by taking from them the only land where they are not a minority."[1,002] It is dubbed the 'Jew hatred week' especially in light of grave hate crimes arising around this hype venomous week, such as: Swastika graffiti found in college bathroom in Selden (February 26, 2009),[1,003][1,004] Vandals leave graffiti on Jewish Federation building (March, 2009),[1,005][1,006] In 2009, during IAW at Queen's University, one of the anti-Israel propaganda pamphlets (sitting in a public cafeteria) had been defaced with several swastikas.[1,007] In 2010, at the University of California, a Jewish student found a swastika carved into her dorm door.[1,008] Among the phenomenon of the unholy alliance "cooperation" between racist Arabs and Neo Nazis: Carleton University graffiti: "Kill a Jew slow + painfully…" (April 2010),[1,009][1,010] Swastikas and Ku Klux Klan Symbols during 'Apartheid Week' (Mar, 2010[1,011] No wonder it was defined: "Israel apartheid week anti Semitism by any other name." It reveals itself recently in the intimidation of Jewish students at York University, where SAIA members disrupted a Hillel news conference, called the Hillel president a "dirty Jew," a "f-king Jew," and prevented students from exiting the Hillel building. (2009)[1,012] Invidious and raw slurs as "Die Jew - get the hell off campus." (2009)[1,013] Or the cases whereby its accompanied with, screaming anti-Semitic slurs like, "[Expletive] you, you Jewish Israeli mother [expletive]ers."[1,014]
It is a pattern to attack physically,[1,015] like in York University in particular, has .. revealed a troubling pattern of tolerating physical and emotional assaults by pro-Palestinian radicals against Jewish students and others who dare to demonstrate any support for Israel or question the tactics of Islamists in their efforts to destroy the Jewish state.[1,016] At the University of Toronto, a Jewish student protesting against IAW 2009, was threatened with beheading.[1,017] Some have been threatened and assaulted,[1,018] In some cases there were comments such as "Hitler did not do a good enough job."[1,019]
Here's an example of the feeling of a Jewish student (2010) as a result of Muslim Students Association's "Apartheid week" hate campaign:
University of California Jewish Student Questionnaires
Sample Responses to Selected Questions from students at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine
Do you feel harassed or intimidated as a Jewish student when you have seen or heard about the appearance of anti-Semitic graffiti (eg. swastikas) on campus?
"I feel very intimidated and worried when I see anti-Semitic graffiti on campus. I grew up thinking that such occurrences are a thing of the past, or things that only take place in Europe, but never in supposed intellectual centers." (UCB)
"I definitely feel harassed when I hear about the appearance of swastikas on campus and the utter APATHY with which it is treated by the student newspaper and student body in general. The campus's reaction to this event is by far more disturbing than the event itself; the student newspaper brushed it off as a meaningless prank, and most students I've talked to don't seem to care at all or even realize that the appearance of a swastika means someone on this campus wants me, as an ethnically Jewish student, dead." (UCB)
Do you feel harassed or intimidated as a Jewish student when speakers, films and exhibits that demonize Israel and her supporters are brought to your campus?
"I feel very uncomfortable when university sponsored events come to campus that are not only blatantly anti-Israel, but often quite anti-Semitic.
[...]
"Yes. I tell my friends how uncomfortable I feel. MSA speakers not only demonize Israel, but its supporters like me. When Finkelstein and other speakers compare Israel to apartheid South Africa or Nazism, that is a reflection on me, as though I support apartheid or Nazism." (UCSD) "I do feel very uncomfortable, hurt, and intimidated as a Jewish student at UCI during Israeli Apartheid Week." (UCI)
"Absolutely. [Israel Apartheid Week] is completely anti-Semitic, no matter how many times the MSU denies it. Just today, after the Malik Ali event dissolved into debates, an MSU student stood on top of a wall and shouted the Islamic prayer as loud as he could. No one seemed to hear him because they were too far away, but I recorded him. It was clearly directed at the Jewish and Zionist students." (UCI)
Do you feel harassed or intimidated as a Jewish as a result of the Divestment from Israel campaign on your campus?
"Yes, the divestment bill raised so much tension on campus and made fellow students into enemies simply based on their beliefs toward Israel. The big senate meetings were a harsh reminder to me that intense hate of Jews and Israel is very much alive and that we Jews have to remain vigilant, since the authorities and campus officials haven't stood up for us." (UCB)
"Yes I do feel very harassed, intimidated, and threatened as a result of the divestment from Israel campaign." (UCB)
"I feel harassed because the Divestment campaign has lead to anti-Jewish expressions such as the swastikas drawn across from the doors of Jewish students and the verbal attacks on Jewish students (for example, someone drove by my friend in a car and yelled, "Jewish bastard!" because my friend was wearing a kippah)." (UCB)[1,020]
Israel "Apartheid" Week, was also dubbed "Hitler Youth Week" by some. The MSA and SJP launch a war against Jews and their supporters during this week. These groups bring virulent anti-Semitic, radical speakers to campuses nationwide to call for the destruction of Israel and Jews. Additionally, a mock wall is erected to portray Israel as an "occupier" and "human rights violator." As a result, students are targeted by these hate mongers and are not protected by their school's administration.[1,021]
From remarks prepared for the delivery at the Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberties Forum:
Universities should ban Israel anti-apartheid weeks. Why they should do so takes some explanation.
There is no apartheid in Israel. That much is obvious even from a cursory glance.
Basic to apartheid in South Africa was the denationalization of blacks because they were black and allocation of nationality in state created bantustans or homelands. Blacks assigned to bantustans were subject to influx controls and pass laws. The objective of apartheid was to denationalize all blacks, to assign every black to one of ten bantustans. Blacks were forcibly removed from where they lived to their designated bantustans.
Israel has not since its inception taken away vested Israeli citizenship of even one Palestinian for the sole reason that the person is ethnic Palestinian. Israel has not created designated territories within its borders to which it has forcibly removed its own citizens who are ethnic Palestinian.
Freedom of speech encompasses the right to be wrong. The mere fact that Israel is not an apartheid state, not even close, in itself, does not justify banning Israel anti-apartheid weeks from universities.
Calling Israel an apartheid state is a form of incitement to hatred against the Jewish people. Understanding hate speech requires an understanding of the context in which the speech is uttered. Hate speech often involves veiled or coded references. Understanding is a work of decoding.
The charge of apartheid against Israel is one of a barrage of anti-Zionist accusations levied against Israel. Anti-Zionism by definition is rejection of the existence of the Jewish state. That rejection is the denial of the right to self determination of the Jewish people.
Anti-Zionism attempts to destroy Israel through arms and words. Words are used as hate and war propaganda.
Because Israel is a sovereign, legal entity, anti-Zionists attempt destruction through demonization and delegitimization. Anti-Zionists assert that Israel has no right to exist claiming that it is, by its very nature, a rights violating state.
The position of anti-Zionists that Israel violates rights is not a conclusion based on facts but a strategy adopted to combat the existence of the state of Israel. This strategy leads anti-Zionists to accuse Israel of every grave crime known to humanity - war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and, not least, apartheid.
The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is connected to antisemitism both in substance and in form. The accusations of criminality against the Jewish state lead to accusations of criminality against the Jewish community world wide as actual or presumed supporters of this allegedly criminal state. If Israel is an apartheid state, then the Jewish community world wide supports apartheid.
Antisemitism linguistically means being against semitism. It has come to mean discrimination and bigotry against Jews. Today, there in no semitism, only antisemitism.
No one today claims to be against semitism. Antisemitism is rather a characteristic that others attribute to antisemites. Those who objectively we have to acknowledge manifest antisemitic attitudes or behaviour claim not to be antisemites.[1,022]
Understandably, governments like that of Canada slam this "apartheid week" warning students to think twice before engaging in the activities designed to de-legitimize Israel.
Adding:
The events, which seek to promote Palestinian human rights, are frequently "accompanied by anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation and bullying," Mr. Kenney said, and are at times planned and promoted with disregard for the safety of Jewish students, professors and others on campus.
"These activities can cultivate an atmosphere exactly the opposite of one that is open to the free exchange of ideas and the development of the mind with the aid of facts and logic," he said. Repeatedly singling out and condemning Israel year after year creates a "hateful environment" that "offends not only our sense of fairness, but also our core Canadian values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."[1,023]
In an article titled: "Political Theater at Its Worst," noted writer P. Chesler in a report summed it up:
The mob roars its hoarse, ear-splitting chants. "Death to the Jews," "Death to Zionism," "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free." Keffiyas abound: On heads, over faces, around shoulders. The Arab "street" is on the move-in Toronto, Montreal, Amherst, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, St. Louis, Houston, Berkeley, and in Oxford, Belfast, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, and many other Western cities.[1,024]
The 'apartheid slur' message is also accompanied via terrorizing all who oppose this slur, typically it is ironically so hypocritical. Here's an example of a someone that dares tell the truth about humane Israel VS the Arab world who was about to be attacked physically by a Muslim "angry" anti-freedom fanatic:
Israel stands alone
In human rights and tolerance, Jewish state far superior in its region
By Michael Coren, QMI Agency
Last Updated: March 12, 2011 2:00am
I will defend all of my beliefs, but one of the ideas I most proud of is Zionism. No apologies, no hiding, no doubts.
Zionism is arguably the most successful example of the restoration of an indigenous people to their rightful homeland in human history. It is a liberation struggle, a story of the creation of a light on a hill, that light being the Jewish state in the Middle East.
I write this now in particular because it is Israel Apartheid Week. Which is an attempt to bully and silence supporters of Israel and close down any civilized debate on university campuses concerning Israel and Palestine. It singles out for particular contempt one small country that, while far from perfect, has a human rights record eminently superior to that of any around it.
It attempts to equate the Jewish state - where all citizens irrespective of religion, race, gender or sexuality enjoy equality - to the hideously immoral racist society that was apartheid South Africa. It's a lie, a blood libel, a politically motivated and blatantly dishonest campaign to use Soviet-style propaganda to condemn Jews.
So I was delighted to accept the offer to speak to four different universities during this death-dark celebration of doublespeak and anti-intellectual posing.
As I write this, I have spoken at my first and while the majority of the people there were supportive, and most of those not supportive were relatively polite, the fanatic who was removed by the police showed me the face of authentic hatred.
In the middle of my talk, he ran to the microphone reserved for questions at the end and screamed foul language and abuse. That the police were there in the first place says a great deal - disruptions are not uncommon.
This particular individual then waited for me when I left the lecture hall and continued to abuse me for 10 minutes, and also try to run at me and physically confront me. If this happened to me, I can only imagine what ordinary Jewish kids have to put up with on campuses each day.
A few brief comments: Kurdistan is occupied by four different Islamic nations. Morocco forcibly prevents hundreds of thousands of people who have the right to live in the country from entering. Most Arab countries reject black immigration and embrace passive, if not aggressive racism. In the Gulf States, and Pakistan in particular, slavery exists in the guise of "servants" who are treated as virtual animals.
In Lebanon, Palestinians are denied dozens of different occupations simply because of who they are. In Iran, homosexuals are publicly hanged and innocent women stoned to death. The secret police suppress freedoms in Syria and even relatively free Jordan. We have seen what Egypt and Libya are like, with other Arab countries little better and sometimes worse. ...gender apartheid exists in massive chunks of the Arab and greater Islamic world, yet Israel is supremely open and progressive. And so on and so on.
It's the sort of thing the man screaming at me doesn't want to hear.
Tragically, he is not alone.[1,025]
Howard Galganov in an editorial "The New Old Anti-Semitism . . . Intellectual Nazis," writes about the lies, about the rainbow colors of refugees that can be found in Israel, in sheer contrast with the raw apartheid, oppression, denial of rights in the Arab-Muslim world, showing that the target of the campaign is Jews, period:
This past week was when university students, their professors, unionists and other assorted LEFTISTS worldwide, INCLUDING the USA and Canada, celebrated their common hatred for Israel, in what they describe as ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK (IAW).
The absolute truth of Israeli Apartheid Week is really . . . LET'S HATE THE JEWS WEEK.
But, these LEFTIST snivelers don't have the guts of bygone JEW-HATERS to say exactly what they mean; instead, they couch their visceral Anti-Semitism in their contrived concept of Apartheid in Israel.
This 7 year old annual university event is so sick, that there are even LEFTIST Jews who get involved in this mockery of social conscience, that it rings in my mind to the equivalence of what the Nazis and other varied Jew-Haters contrived throughout the generations.
It seems to me that the only things missing are the BLOOD LIBELS and The Protocols Of The Learned Elders of Zion; two other lies Jew-Haters cling too for their Anti-Semitic approbation.
The rub here, is that these Anti-Semites, who wouldn't cross the street to help anyone who is really downtrodden; like the women of MOST Arab/Moslem countries, will climb mountains to demean and punish Israel, which is one the most open, egalitarian, and accomplished countries on the planet, let alone within the entire Middle East.
In Israel, Arabs and Moslems are absolutely FREE, and encouraged to reach for the greatest heights imaginable. Like any other Israeli, their own limitations are what they put upon themselves.
In Israel, Arabs are FREE to vote and participate in every fabric of life, where Arabs sit in government, where Arabs sit as jurists in the courts, where Arabs compete on Israeli sports teams, where Arabs express themselves freely in the media, where Arabs are educated from grade-school to post graduate universities, where Arabs teach at all levels and work in hospitals in all capacities.
In Israel, Arabs are FREE to buy homes and rent apartments anywhere they wish without government restrictions. Israeli Arabs own businesses and are no less FREE than any other Israeli to work at all jobs, including within the Israeli civil service.
Where in the Arab World are Gays and Lesbians accepted, if not murdered? But in Israel, Gays and Lesbians celebrate Gay Pride Days strutting their stuff on audacious floats in parades.
Where in any Arab country are women really FREE? In Israel, all women are as FREE as men, without being restricted to reach for the top.
As these LEFTIST academic Jew-Haters cloak themselves in as dishonest an intellectual charade as any that can be imagined, Israel was out there just one hour from the time the earthquake hit Japan, all saddled-up and ready to go to help in no small way.
When the earthquake shattered Haiti, ONLY little Israel, a quarter distance of the world away, was able to set-up a completely functioning hospital with an OR second to none.
When the Indonesian Earthquake and resulting Tsunami in 2004 killed more than 200,000 people, Israel was amongst the first on the scene, treating and helping everyone they could, regardless of their religion, culture or gender, even though several Moslem countries preferred to have their people suffer and die rather than let an Israeli on their soil to help.
When there was genocide in Ethiopia, which other country other than Israel sent in rescue planes to get people out?
Even today, Blacks from Africa travel the most dangerous routes imaginable in their desire to reach FREEDOM in Israel, where they know they will be treated humanely if they survive the journey.
In absolute reality, what the universities are doing throughout the world in their participation of Israeli Apartheid Week, is nothing more and nothing less than an OVERT expression of Hate-Speech and incitement against an entire people based EXCLUSIVELY upon that people's religion.
And because of this, I have no problem whatsoever equating them and what they are doing, and what they stand for with Nazis and other worldly Jew-Haters.
To single out an entire people for contrived and phantom crimes, all of whom happen to be Jewish, would make the likes of Hitler, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Eichmann and others just like them proud.
Rampant intellectual Nazism, Fascism, Anti-Semitism or whatever you want to call it in our universities and amongst our trade unions is as despicable as it gets.
MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT - When they attack Israel, their target are Jews.
When I was 18 years old (1968), I took a pledge amongst a small but determined group of other young Montreal Jews who swore an oath NEVER AGAIN!
I meant it then - And I mean it now.
To most people, 1936 (the Nuremberg Laws), 1938 (Crystal Nacht), and 1945 (the Liberation of the Death Camps) were a long time ago. To me, they were just like yesterday, and will always be just like yesterday.
Let me repeat myself – NEVER AGAIN!
There is no Audio Editorial with this commentary.[1,026]
Activists countering the anti-Israel propaganda in 2011, allied with those who set up the "Palestinian Wall of Lies" ad,[1,027] explain, it was an attempt to confront Boston University's Israel Apartheid Week, which featured the erection of an "Apartheid Wall," a speech by Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization, and an event... from a group called "Anarchists Against the Wall" which protests Israel's security fence and what they term "land theft, violence, separation and occupation" – all favored propaganda terms of the left to support the claims of the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas. The removal of Israel's "apartheid wall" would simply give free reign to Palestinian suicide bombers to kill more Jews.[1,028]
Suugestions for terminology 'inspired' by the Arab-Islamic bigoted slanderous "apartheid week"
- 'Hypocrisy Week'[1,029]
- 'Hitler Youth Week'[1,030]
- 'Israel Pogrom Week'[1,031]
- 'The Arab Apartheid Week'[1,032]
- 'Islamic State Apartheid Week'[1,033]
- Terror apologists[1,034]
- "Hate fest"[1,035]
- 'anti-Israel hatefest'[1,036]
- Anti-Israel, Apartheid Week'[1,037][1,038][1,039]
- Anti-Israel Hatefest[1,040]
- 'Jew-Hatred Week'[1,041]
- Verbal Terrorism[1,042]
- 'Arab Genocide Week'[1,043]
- 'kill J-ws week'[1,044][1,045][1,046]
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