On Jimmy Carter's False Apartheid Analogy
By Gil Troy
Jimmy Carter has appeared on “Meet the Press,” Larry King, Charlie Rose, and elsewhere making his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a best-seller. Apparently, Carter’s publisher postponed the publication date until mid-November so as not to distract Democrats with a campaign controversy about their ex-President’s anti-Israel prejudices. By alleging that Israel practices Apartheid, Jimmy Carter’s title reflects a sloppy and nasty form of historical analogizing seeking to delegitimze Israel and Zionism, perpetuated by pro-Palestinian groups on campuses and elsewhere.
Carter has defended his title, by using “Apartheid” as a synonym for “apartness” and saying the division is economic not racial. But he has repeated the South African analogy to drive home his rhetorical point. Using the “Apartheid” label without seeking to impute racism, would be akin to calling Carter a redneck and claiming it only has to do with his tanning habits. If Carter is so innocent as to be unaware of the resonance that term has, he is not the expert on the Middle East or world affairs he purports to be.
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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 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.
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By accusing Israel of practicing Apartheid, Jimmy Carter has endorsed the latest Arab attempt to demonize Israel. In a world organized by nation states, singling out Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism, as racist was so ridiculous even the United Nations ultimately rescinded its 1974 resolution. Applying the Apartheid label tries to ostracize Israel by misrepresenting some of the difficult decisions Israel has felt forced to make in fighting Palestinian terror. Israel’s opponents are trying to transfer onto Israel the civilized world’s justifiable contempt for South African oppression. This charge is particularly ironic coming from so many Arab states, which perpetuate discriminatory citizenship policies against Christians, women, and even other Arabs from different regions.
No country is perfect or above criticism. But the one-sided zeal of critics like Carter, singling out Israel in inflammatory ways, raises doubts about the critics more than the criticized. Many seem all too eager for Israel to fail, happily pouncing on any Israeli mistake, while blindly ignoring crimes others perpetuate systematically, especially Israel’s Arab neighbors.
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http://hnn.us/articles/32916.html