The apartheid myth

[FarrenH]

33. Shira's logic, in a nutshell:

A is involved in motor accident and the other guy's insurance company claims an excessive amount, call it X, from him. Since the amount is massively more than the actual damage cost the insurance company is effectively trying to defraud him

A doesn't accept that he caused damage equal to X. As a interim measure, A agrees to pay a fraction of X, on the assurance that the insurance company will provide him proof of the damages to merit the final amount, within reasonable time so that they can reach final agreement on some other, fairer amount.

Insurance company doesn't supply proof within the envisioned time-frame and proceeds to demand even more (call it Y). A is understandably incensed.

Shira: But A agreed to pay the unfair amount. Are you saying A agreed to be defrauded? No? QED, it isn't fraud.

No, he didn't. He agreed to an interim arrangement pending a finally negotiated and fair settlement. And its not logic you're deploying. It's stupidity.

Apartheid was not characterized by temporary arrangements to facilitate further negotiation of a new dispensation. It was characterized by a long term dispensation for the benefit of one ethnicity and to the detriment of another, where a majority of the second ethnicity is disenfranchised by said dispensation in terms of political self-determination, legal recourse, ancestral occupancy rights to land and resources et al. All of which are features of the ongoing occupation, fragmentation and permanent blockade of Gaza and the West Bank.

The current situation has no end in sight, was certainly not envisioned in the Oslo accords and is de facto Apartheid. That does not mean the participants in Oslo agreed to Apartheid. It doesn't even imply it.