“However potent the Israel-apartheid analogy, few of those who suffered from apartheid directly have bought into it … One reason is that the equivalence simply isn't true..."
Rhoda Kadalie,
former anti-Apartheid activist who was deemed “Colored” by the racist South Africa regime.


The comparison between the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and apartheid South Africa has become commonplace. Not only is this a false analogy, but it as insulting to the victims of apartheid in South Africa and is as disrespectful to history as using the Holocaust analogy falsely. The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict differs on many levels to that which happened in South Africa prior to 1994

The Israel Apartheid Week on campuses in North America and now throughout the world, is one such example of this. The type of malicious propaganda espoused in this forum needs to be confronted, debunked and discredited.

Here is a brief refutation of this false apartheid analogy, and the unmasking of the true intentions behind those that push it.

Why the Apartheid Analogy is False
Israel is a Champion of Human Rights in the Middle East
The Origins and History of the Apartheid Analogy - The "Durban Strategy"
Why the Apartheid Comparison Reeks of Antisemitism
Links to relevant websites and articles


signposts in Apartheid South Africa

WHY THE APARTHEID ANALOGY IS FALSE

 

Apartheid is about racism while the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a clash of nationalisms

Apartheid was a racist legal system the Afrikaner Nationalists dominating South Africa’s government imposed after World War II. The Afrikaners’ discriminatory apartness began with their racist revulsion for blacks, reflected in early laws in 1949 and 1950 prohibiting marriages and sexual relations between whites and non-whites. Apartheid quickly developed into a brutal system that tried to dehumanize South Africa’s majority nonwhite population.

Beyond the historical definition, international law emphasizes that Apartheid involves intentional, mandated racism. In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly defined Apartheid as “the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” The fact that Israel’s Declaration of Independence – and founding document – promises to “uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex,” proves that Israel rejects racism and by definition cannot be accused of Apartheid.

Injecting “racism” into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is absurd. It is a sloppy attempt to slander Israel with the accusation du jour, a statement as trendy and a-historical as equating Zionism with European colonialism, another folly given Jews’ historic ties to the land of Israel. Since the Nazi attempt to annihilate Jews as a “race,” the Jewish world has recoiled against defining Jews as a “race.” Zionism talks about Judaism, the Jewish people, the Jewish state. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a nationalist clash with religious overtones. The rainbow of colors among Israelis and Palestinians, with black Ethiopian Jews, and white Christian Palestinians, proves that both national communities are diverse.

 Article: "Franchising 'Apartheid': Why South Africans Push the Analogy"

ISRAEL IS A CHAMPION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Arabs in Israel
The Arab minority in Israel are full citizens who enjoy equal rights, including voting rights; in fact, it is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women may vote. Arabs are represented in the Knesset, have served in the Cabinet, on the Supreme Court, in high-level foreign ministry posts (including one who served as Israel's ambassador to Finland), and as deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. Oscar Abu Razaq was appointed Director General of the Ministry of Interior, the first Arab citizen to become chief executive of a key government ministry.

Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel. More than 300,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. At the time of Israel's founding, there was one Arab high school in the country. Today, there are hundreds of Arab schools.

The sole legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army. This is to spare Arab citizens the need to take up arms against their brethren. Nevertheless, Bedouins have served in paratroop units and other Arabs have volunteered for military duty. Compulsory military service is applied to the Druze and Circassian communities at their own request.

Rights for sexual minorities in Israel are considered to be the most tolerant in the Middle East. While Israel has not legalized same-sex marriage, same-sex marriages valid in foreign countries are legally recognized in Israel. Israel guarantees civil rights for its homosexual population, including adoption rights and partner benefits. Israel also grants a common-law marriage status for same-sex domestic partners.

Israel is the safest refuge in the Middle East for persecuted homosexuals, including Palestinians. In keeping with its commitment to civil liberties, every year Israel’s government actually grants some gay Palestinians legal residency to avoid Palestinian homophobic oppression. Israel is one of the few Middle Eastern countries to repeal its anti-sodomy law - from British Mandate days. Israel’s Equal Employment Opportunity Act, as amended, prohibits discrimination against employees based on their sexual orientation or marital status. Israel has even banned discrimination in its army.

Israel’s tolerant, celebratory, live-and-let-live Mediterranean spirit, especially in Tel Aviv, disproves the caricature of the Jewish state as a dour, embattled garrison state or theocracy. Openly gay Israelis serve in parliament, others are popular celebrities. Out Magazine has deemed Tel Aviv “the gay capital of the Middle East.”

By contrast, throughout the Arab and Muslim world, including the Palestinian territories, gays are hunted down, blackmailed, imprisoned, tortured and occasionally executed. Gay Palestinians are often treated as collaborators and have been brutalized in the most horrific of ways. Nearly two years ago, in September 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad created a stir when, during a visit to Columbia University in New York, he said, “We don’t have homosexuals, like in your country.”

Of course, gays found in Iran have been beaten badly - and face the death penalty. Ironically, Ahmadinejad’s calls to wipe out Israel - and the United States - did not offend as many people as his homophobia did, just as there are many more protests worldwide against Israel’s actions to defend itself than against Ahmadinejad’s efforts to oppress his people.

All religious groups have freedom to practice and maintain communal institutions in Israel. According to a 2009 US Department of State report on Israel and the occupied territories, "The Israeli Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty provides for freedom of worship and the Government generally respected this right in practice."In 2002, the Israeli Supreme Court also ruled that the government cannot allocate land based on religion or ethnicity, and may not prevent any citizens from living wherever they choose.

The “Durban Strategy” emanated from the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) held at Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. Article 424 of the WCAR NGO Forum Declaration announced “a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state,” and advocated “the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation, and training) between all states and Israel.”

Breaking down the "Durban Strategy"

·           The Durban conference was broadly denounced for allowing anti-Zionism to upstage the anti-racist agenda and for having so much of the anti-Zionism degenerate into antisemitism.

·           The “Durban Strategy” seeks to single out Israel as uniquely illegitimate because of its alleged racism. As the human rights activist and Canadian political leader Michael Ignatieff explains, “International law defines ‘apartheid’ as a crime against humanity. Labeling Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state is a deliberate attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state itself. Criticism of Israel is legitimate. Attempting to describe its very existence as a crime against humanity, is not.”

·           The Apartheid accusation and the Durban Strategy are rooted in the 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution of the UN General Assembly – which was repealed in 1991, the first time a General Assembly resolution was ever repealed.

·           This was a handout from one NGO at the Durban conference:

WHY THE APARTHEID COMPARISON REEKS OF ANTISEMITISM

·           Not everyone involved in Apartheid Week or making the Apartheid analogy is antisemitic. But in singling out one form of nationalism – Jewish nationalism – meaning Zionism as an allegedly 'racist' movement, critics are ignoring the antisemitic effect of this campaign, regardless of their intent.

·           Frequently activists making the Apartheid analogy have dehumanized Israelis or have used overt antisemitic propaganda – which others in the movement failed to repudiate.

·           Even a superficial look at those espousing the Apartheid analogy reveals hateful propaganda behind the mask of liberal rhetoric, reflecting the vicious antisemitism resonating throughout so much of the Arab world.

·           In its underlying negation of Zionism – the movement of Jewish nationalism – the Apartheid comparison violates the European Union Monitoring Committee's working definition of antisemitism which specifies “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” as the first example of the way “antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel.”

·           The Apartheid accusation violates Natan Sharansky’s '3-D test': Demonizing Israel, treating the Jewish State with Double Standards and Delegitimizing Israel crosses the line from criticizing Israeli policy to echoing traditional antisemitic tropes and perpetuating what experts call 'the New antisemitism.'

·           The Apartheid comparison is also guilty of “Essentialism,” meaning attacking Israel's very essence, its existence, not Israeli policy. Speaking as one Canadian union did, about “the apartheid nature of the Israel state” rather than criticizing a particular policy, moves to an essential repudiation of Israel, the Jewish state. That is the mark of traditional bigotry. 

Link to relevant websites and articles:

DECONSTRUCTING APARTHEID ACCUSATIONS AGAINST ISRAEL

NGOs & THE BDS MOVEMENT: BACKGROUND AND FUNDING

ISRAEL ASSOCIATION FOR ETHIOPIAN JEWS

MISPLACED OUTRAGE

THE CAMPAIGN TO DELEGIMITIZE ISRAEL WITH THE FALSE CHARGE OF APARTHEID

ZIONISM ON THE WEB - REFUTING APARTHEID

ANTISEMTISM IS NOW A CREATURE OF THE LEFT

LOOK AGAIN: ISRAEL IS THE VICTIM AND NOT THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

Go to:
Combating Israel Apartheid Week