Worried about apartheid? Too late, Mr Olmert, it’s already here

[ProgressiveMuslim]

Tony Karon

Last Updated: March 22. 2009 12:15AM UAE / March 21. 2009 8:15PM GMT

In one of her last acts as US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice had Nelson Mandela’s name removed from America’s terrorist watch list. Many Americans were shocked to learn that their favourite former political prisoner had ever been deemed a terrorist. That is because they had forgotten, or were too young to know, that the US under Ronald Reagan – like Britain under Margaret Thatcher – had backed the apartheid regime in South Africa as a Cold War ally.

Isolating South Africa through sanctions and boycotts was certainly not the choice of Mrs Thatcher or Mr Reagan, but their governments were eventually forced to take action by the outrage of their own electorates at the suffering apartheid inflicted. The international anti-apartheid movement began at the grassroots among religious, community and labour groups, but it grew sufficiently powerful to force governments to distance themselves from a regime that they had viewed sympathetically. And that is a lesson that terrifies Israel’s leaders.

Israeli government officials have spoken openly since the Gaza conflict of their growing sense of isolation. Despite their most strenuous PR efforts, the 1,417 Palestinian deaths they caused in Gaza (compared with 13 Israelis, four by “friendly fire”) made it hard to sell the idea that Israel was the victim in the conflict. Israel’s narrative did not fit the images of the Gaza clash. It’s hard to convince people that the guys with the F-16s and Apache helicopters and the tanks are little David, while those facing them with side-arms, mortars and a handful of improvised unguided missiles are actually Goliath.

Coddled in their own narrative in which they are the eternal victims, Israelis are not accustomed to finding themselves the focus of international moral opprobrium. And they see in it a mortal threat.

(snip)

In a remarkable interview last November, the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert cautioned that unless it could achieve a two-state solution quickly, Israel would “face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished”. The reason, he said, was that Israel would be internationally isolated. “The Jewish organisations, which are our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”

Jewish communities in western countries have long been Israel’s trump card against international pressure, because they mobilise support for Israel and restrain critics by painting opposition to Israel’s policies as motivated by hostility to Jews – a toxic accusation in a world still sensitive to the horrors of the Holocaust. But what was palpable during the Gaza conflict was the diminished enthusiasm of young Jewish people abroad for Israeli militarism, and the increasing willingness of many to openly challenge Israel.

(snip)

What Mr Olmert and others are really saying, without realising it, is that Israel is already in an apartheid situation – and that if it doesn’t end that situation soon, the world will notice and begin to respond accordingly.


http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090322/OPINION/714980252/1001

[IndianaGreen]

1. K&R

Israeli Arabs have lived in an apartheid situation for far longer than the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Only in the minds of propagandists and those without a grasp on reality.

[IndianaGreen]

3. A woman at our temple was going to marry an Israeli Arab

I got enough angst from her and repressed anger from him to know that second class citizenship is just as dehumanizing for Israeli Arabs, and Jews in a loving relationship with them, as it is for American LGBTs being offered the false choice of civil unions over full marriage rights.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. There is a difference between racism and apartheid.

No one is claiming discrimination is not involved in Israel, but to call it apartheid is incorrect, propaganda, and total bullshit and you know it.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Desmond Tutu, who knew apartheid first hand, condemned Israeli apartheid

Monday, 29 April, 2002, 11:55 GMT 12:55 UK

Tutu condemns Israeli 'apartheid'

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused Israel of practising apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians.

The Nobel peace laureate said he was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to the Holy Land, adding that "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa".

In a speech in the United States, carried in the UK's Guardian newspaper, Archbishop Tutu said he saw "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about".

The archbishop, who was a leading opponent of apartheid in South Africa, said Israel would "never get true security and safety through oppressing another people".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1957644.stm

Had Martin Luther King lived long enough to see 41 years of Israel's Occupation, he too would have joined Desmond Tutu in his condemnation of Israel's apartheid.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. He was speaking of the occupied territories.

And while I have a great deal of respect for him, just because he says doesn't make it true. The occupied territories aren't even a prime example of apartheid. As for MLK, he would be protesting the anti-Semitic outbursts from the UN as opposed to letting them "slide" like so many other "humanitarians."

[IndianaGreen]

7. MLK would have drawn an analogy between racism and present-day Zionism

and he would condemn the likes of Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman as racists.

[Behind the Aegis]

8. Likely, he would have pointed how Jews, like Africans...

...were abused and misused the world over and the idea of 'self-determination' for them (Jews) is not only desirable but needed and to deny them of this human right is yet another example in the continued "hate relationship" many have with the Jews and would call "single-staters" racist and like motivated by anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry based on xenophobic and ethnocentric bias.

[IndianaGreen]

9. You are describing the Zionism that was, not the one that exists today

The Zionism you described is the one I grew up with, but it bears no resemblance for what passes for Zionism today. As to the rest of your post, the rant about "hate relationship" and "single-staters," it has nothing to do with what Zionism was before the settlements began on the West Bank.

Did you know that Bibi believes in a one-state solution?

[Behind the Aegis]

10. It is the Zionism that exists today except among Israel-haters, bigots, liars, ...

...propagandists, and the religiously deluded. "Single-staters" desire one thing, the destruction of Israel. The far-left and the neo-Nazis want it because it will be one less Jewish nation. The far-right wants it because of religious delusions and conquest.

[IndianaGreen]

11. No, it isn't the same Zionism! My Zionism did not include Jewish settlements on the West Bank

or taking over East Jerusalem, or occupying Arab lands taken in 1967 for 41 years.

[Behind the Aegis]

12. And you spread propaganda that equates Zionism with those things...

...not unlike the religious right. The vast majority of the Zionists at DU don't see that as Zionism, we see it as keeping a nation where the self-determination of Jews is realized and is safe and secure for the Jewish people.

[IndianaGreen]

13. Not at the expense of the Palestinians!

Israel has no right to the West Bank, or to East Jerusalem, or to Gaza, or to the Golan!

At what point in time was the idea for a homeland for Jews got twisted into a theocratic Jewish state extending all the way to Samaria and the Jordan Valley?

[Behind the Aegis]

14. The answer

"At what point in time was the idea for a homeland for Jews got twisted into a theocratic Jewish state extending all the way to Samaria and the Jordan Valley?" By the religiously deluded and the anti-Israel propagandists who use that religious delusion as the "true" definition of Zionism and use it to advocate Israel's destruction.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Your bunker mentality keeps you from seeing the reality of 'facts on the ground'

and what is doing to Israel.

Good luck defending Bibi/Lieberman for the next couple of years.

I'll sit back and, like Livni, wait for the government to collapse.

[Behind the Aegis]

16. And your propaganda-laden mind keeps you from seeing the actual situation.

I can only hope you never get your wish, the destruction of Israel.

Good luck defending terrorism against Israelis until, G-d forbid, Israel dies.

[IndianaGreen]

17. The policies that you support will bring about the destruction of Israel

while it is progressive Jews in Israel and in America that are trying to save Israel from falling deeper into fascism.

[Behind the Aegis]

18. You have no idea what policies I support.

Like most posters like yourself, you simply make shit up and pretend it is the truth. But I do know you advocate a single-state and therefore the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

[IndianaGreen]

19. Allow me to elaborate on the one-state solution (again!)

The ideal solution is a two-state solution in which Israel withdraws behind the borders as they were prior to June 1967. Relocate and build your precious Separation Wall right on top of the Green Line, if you must.

We have seen that for 41 years the pursuit of the two-solution has been used by Israel to continue to expand and build new settlements on Palestinian land, creating new facts on the ground that would make it impossible for Palestinians to ever have a contiguous and sovereign nation. This has been a game played by successive Israeli governments since the early 1970s, which continues into present day.

The Likud openly declares its opposition to a Palestinian state, as does several of its partners in the incoming government. In fact, it is hard to find too many people in Israel that support a two-state solution, and there are increasing numbers of those supporting views similar to the ones advocated by Avigdor Lieberman.

We know the sort of one-state solution advocated by Hamas.

We also know that any Israeli government that withdraws from the West Bank will be toppled by extremist elements inside the IDF.

The two-state solution is therefore impractical and impossible without a Jewish civil war, something that no one should wish for.

If the one-state solution is the only solution, it is up to us in the Diaspora to have some influence as to its nature. My own choice is a bi-national state. A federal Israel/Palestine republic in which all citizens enjoy equal rights. I also want for that bi-national state to be secular. Religion must remain a "private affair," as Lenin said, but religion must not play any role in the state.

[Behind the Aegis]

20. So basically, you support the destruction of the Jewish state,

I told you, I already knew that about you.

"We also know that any Israeli government that withdraws from the West Bank will be toppled by extremist elements inside the IDF." Did you miss the name change amnesty? You could have been "Miss Cleo!"

"We know the sort of one-state solution advocated by Hamas." Yes, we do. The same one you support; a non-Jewish one.

"We also know that any Israeli government that withdraws from the West Bank will be toppled by extremist elements inside the IDF." Miss Cleo?! Maybe Kreskin?

"The two-state solution is therefore impractical and impossible without a Jewish civil war, something that no one should wish for." Personally, I think that is exactly what you and those like you wish for. If they kill each other, it makes it easier.

Your pie-in-the-sky, bullshit "let's all hold hands and sing 'kumbaya'," "bi-national" state is the biggest fucking fantasy that you and those like you hold on to in order to justify your calls for the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

Being Jewish is more than religion, but then you know that as well.

[IndianaGreen]

21. No, I don't, but the path being followed by Israel leads to nowhere

Being Jewish is more than a religion, it involves peoplehood, but I don't support theocracies regardless of religion or where they are. BTW, genetically many of those Palestinians and Arabs your side often maligns were Jews that were forced to convert to Islam generations ago. What games does fate play with humankind!

Israel was established as a secular state, a state for Jews, on a socialist model. That was a very long time ago.

On a side note, since we are approaching Pesach, there is a story that when the Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds they didn't follow each other on a straight line, but that each tribe followed its own path. It is so ironic that on a holiday in which we celebrate freedom from slavery, we also have to watch the plight of the Palestinians on TV. When will they get their freedom?

[Behind the Aegis]

22. And the path you suggest leads to her death. The desire you and those like work for.

Yes, the Palestinians are slaves; slaves to many Arabs, many Muslims, the far-left, like yourself, and their own leadership. Each group wanting to use them to destroy Israel. They "work" at the bidding of those groups. And, like the slave-masters of the past, none of those groups, or very few in comparison, die while trying to "free the slaves."

I will not stand by and watch as those such as yourself call for the death of Israel.

[IndianaGreen]

26. The settlements and Bibi/Lieberman will bring the death of Israel

as are those knee-jerk Zionists in America that blindly support the status quo and spew as their own every pronouncement from the settlement movement.

[Sezu]

34. Amazing how a faction of the left has embraced

the fascist rantings of the far right and still think they are "progressive."

[cali]

27. What irritates me about the one state solution, is its massive and mind boggling

stupidity. The only thing far more unlikely than a two state solution, is the so called bi-national two state solution. It's the ultimate Candide type idiocy. What part of the people who live there are solidly against it, eludes you?

[IndianaGreen]

28. As you post, new Jewish settlements are being build, existing ones are being expanded

This is prima facie evidence of the Zionist one-state solution, a process that will be accelerated under Bibi/Lieberman.

[cali]

29. uh, no. it's not prima facie evidence of a one state solution.

It couldn't be clearer that Israel has no intention of forming a bi-national state, let alone the secular peaceful kumbaya state you delude yourself into believing is a possibility.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

31. Cali's correct. Israel has no intention of forming a binational state, or of allowing a Palestinian

state. The settlements, with the myriad of human rights abuses that accompany them, are evidence of Israel's intention to keep on colonizing, to continue its growing apartheid system.

[Douglas Carpenter]

30. but, do you believe the two-state solution is going to happen?

I have ONLY one problem with the two-state solution which I supported back when it was only beginning to gain support among Palestinians and completely rejected by every Israeli political party except the Communist. Back in the 80's, anyone who supported the two-state solution was accused of "trying to destroy Israel."

I can see absolutely no evidence that the two-state solution will happen. I simply see no hope whatsoever that this will change until well after the colonization, dissection and cantonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem has become so entrenched and so permanent that a viable and contiguous Palestinian state will be flat-out impossible. Of course, I could be wrong. I have been wrong before. But I don't think so.

Of course the majority of Israelis will not agree to a singular or binational state for the foreseeable future. But it is simply a matter of reality that 2-1=1. So, what we will have, most likely will be a single state. It might be able to call itself a Jewish state. But it will not be a Jewish and democratic state especially when within ten years there is a solid Arab majority and an overwhelming Arab majority within less than a generation.

What will happen as this develops? Probably a profoundly undemocratic Zionist state fighting to hold off a rebellious Arab majority.

Is it so far out to imagine that when this happens, the Palestinian movement will evolve into a pro-democracy movement demanding equal rights with one person one vote?

All the military power in the world cannot hold off the power of demographics and geography forever defending an utterly de-legitimized, unwanted and undemocratic state.

Which kind of binational state?

By Meron Benvenisti - former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem


And there's a fourth model, which can be called "undeclared binationalism." It's a unitary state controlled by one dominant national group, which leaves the other national group disenfranchised and subject to laws "for natives only," which for the purposes of respectability and international law are known as laws of "belligerent occupation." The convenience of this model of binationalism is that it can be applied over a long period of time, meanwhile debating the threat of the "one state" and the advantages of the "two states," without doing a thing. That's the situation nowadays. But the process is apparently inevitable. Israel and the Palestinians are sinking together into the mud of the "one state." The question is no longer whether it will be binational, but which model to choose ".

link to full article:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=363062&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

[ProgressiveMuslim]

32. AKA: The status quo. Shocking how many who say they support a Palestinian state find the status

quo preferable to any other arrangement.

[Violet_Crumble]

23. Interesting article, but there's a bit I don't agree with...

'And that is where the apartheid warning used by Mr Olmert and other Israeli advocates of a two-state solution becomes an unintended confession. It is not some demographic milestone that will tip Israel into the realm of apartheid, because apartheid is a qualitative rather than a quantitative term: it refers to a situation in which a whole category of people were denied the rights of citizenship in the state that ruled over them. South Africa’s apartheid would have been no more acceptable to the world had black people comprised 45 per cent of the population rather than 80 per cent. And since 1967, the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza have been living under the control of a state that denies them citizenship.'


I don't agree with his definition of apartheid. Apartheid is a practice of segregating of groups.. Sure, a denial of citizenship can be part of the segregation, but it's not the defining factor, or else apartheid doesn't apply to the West Bank. The issue there isn't that if Israel gave Israeli citizenship to Palestinians (who don't want Israeli citizenship, but their own state), the situation would stop being one where there are apartheid-style practices in place. What makes what Israel has done in the West Bank reminiscent of apartheid is that there's two sets of laws - one for Israeli citizens and another far more draconian one for Palestinians. There's also things like the territory between the Green Line and the separation wall that Israel has defacto annexed - Palestinians have to apply for permission from the Israeli military to remain living in their homes, regardless of the fact that they may have lived there all their lives, yet Israeli settlers in the same areas aren't under the same constraint....

[bemildred]

25. Yep, we called it "Segregation" here, I remember it well.

And we were all theoretically full, equal citizens. And the USSC finally decided that there is no such thing as separate but equal.

[Scurrilous]

24. Har Adar banning movement of Palestinians

Official order forbids Arab laborers to walk around Jerusalem corridor community. Association for Civil Rights: This is racism. 'I can't understand what's wrong with what we're doing,' says Har Adar's security officer

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3690028,00.html

<snip>

"Palestinian laborers are forbidden to walk around the community of Har Adar in the Jerusalem corridor. They are allowed to work, but cannot simply roam the area. This is the local council's policy.

Some 600 Palestinian workers arrived every morning at Har Adar, a community located beyond the Green Line which accommodates many military and security officials.

The laborers are forbidden to move on foot in the community, and are even not allowed to shop at the local grocery store. They must ask their employer to take care of their needs or drive them wherever they wish to go.

The instruction appears on the community's website, where it is stated explicitly that "laborers are strictly forbidden to move around the community on foot, between the construction sites."

Palestinian laborers working in the community refused to discuss the matter on Saturday. "We're not allowed to talk," said one of them, an east Jerusalem resident. "Talk to the contractor, he'll tell you everything."

Attorney Limor Yehuda of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel is infuriated by this matter. In a letter sent to the community's council she determined that a local council like Har Adar has no authority to issue such orders against Palestinian workers.

"This is a racist instruction based on a general fear of Arabs, which is reminiscent of dark days in the history of mankind," she wrote."

[ProgressiveMuslim]

33. Imagine what it would be like if Israel weren't the shining beacon of democracy in the ME!