Former ANC leader backs study finding Israel guilty of apartheid

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Israel is an apartheid state that should be boycotted by the international community, former South African Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils told an assembly of Palestinian rights advocates on Sunday.

Both contemporary Israel and the apartheid regime in South Africa, "proclaim their state on the basis of exclusive citizenship, monopolizing rights in law," giving one group superior access to services, he said.

The former African National Congress (ANC) leader also denounced the “dehumanization of the monstrous Apartheid Wall” and the "horrific bombardment of Gaza."

The architects of South African apartheid, he said, "would have greatly admired the machinations that have enclosed Palestinians in ghettos."

Kasrils, who spent five years in exile for his anti-apartheid activism, was speaking via videophone from Cape Town to a symposium in Ramallah on a new report that assesses whether Israel is violating international law through the practices of occupation, colonialism, and apartheid in the Palestinian territories.

The report was written by British, Irish, South African and Palestinian legal experts under the auspices of the South African Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The report finds Israel is committing crimes against humanity, which should trigger legal sanctions."

more

[Vegasaurus]

1. Hopefully he'll shut up now, after his five minutes of air time nt

[Violet_Crumble]

2. The world would be a very dull, ugly and stupid place if all we heard was opinions you like n/t

[Ken Burch]

4. MORE Hopefully, the Israeli government will stop moving TOWARDS apartheid

It's time to admit that collective punishment of the Palestinian population is wrong and DOESN'T WORK.

Face it, veggers, the hardline has failed. The Wall will fail. The only things that can work are respect, compromise, negotiations and giving up the insistence on "winning".

[azurnoir]

5. I doubt that you'll get your wish

as it those such as yourself that willfully assist and/or support the apartheid and occupation, perhaps when that stops he'll also stop

[FarrenH]

3. Its interesting that the article leaves out the fact that

Israeli legal experts participated in the study. Also of interest is that Kasrils is Jewish, and the founder of an anti-Zionist Jewish organisation called Not in My Name.

Yeah, there isn't a single former anti-Apartheid activist in this country who disagrees with the statement that Israel is an Apartheid state, outside of the Jewish community, where liberals are divided on the issue and unfortunately mostly lean towards unquestioning support for Israel despite often solid anti-Apartheid credentials from the old days (or fence-sitting, like some of my leftist Jewish friends). I struggle to understand, sometimes, why people I know who were front and center behind the idea of dismantling Apartheid here now let their ethnic loyalties cloud their judgement.

An old Jewish friend of mine who subsequently moved to Canada told me on facebook that my labelling of the situation in the occupied territories as Apartheid was simplistic and "showed insensitivity to the humanity of the people involved in the conflict", while another said that, while they know I'm not an antisemite, many of my arguments are appropriated by antisemites (as if that is a good reason to stop calling things what they are). He also climbed down my throat because he said he's sick of people expecting him to have a well formed opinion on the issue simply because he's Jewish (this after he decided to participate in the discussion, without any solicitation by me).

It disappoints me. I can't imagine being that conflicted about Irish or Catholic issues because of my heritage. I remember telling an irate Irish friend who's dad spent years in jail for IRA activity that the IRA had become a quasi-criminal enterprise and most Northern Irelanders didn't want independence any more and telling my horrified parents that it was perfectly proper for Sinead O' Connor to tear up a picture of the pope on stage after Ireland's indefensible laws denied a woman a life-saving abortion and she died. So I just can't understand how people subordinate progressive principles to ethnic loyalty in a pinch. But I digress...

[shira]

6. it ain't apartheid if it ain't based on racism - you lose, sorry!

what happens in the W.Bank is not at all based on race, but competing nationalities.

As for your ridiculous claim about all anti-apartheid activists see Israel as an apartheid state, see Ben Pogrund and also Rhoda Kadalie's article:
http://www.z-word.com/z-word-essays/franchising-%25E2%2580%259Capartheid%25E2%2580%259D%253A-why-south-africans-push-the-analogy.html

[FarrenH]

7. time to put on my lolloskates

shira, not content with having the fact of racially discriminatory laws and actions detailed for him or her and the grounds for such laws and actions constituting a prima facie case of Apartheid according to the UN definition of the Crime of Apartheid also carefully detailed, pursues me to another thread and waves a two page opinion piece of one Jewish former anti-apartheid activist (a group I've already said are disappointingly divided) and one admittedly non-Jewish anti-Apartheid activist at me as evidence that a 300-page study and the factual requirements of the UN defined Crime of Apartheid being met... does not constitute Apartheid, then ends, triumphantly, with an infantile proclaimation of my loss.

shira, baby, I'll give you this. Kadalie's view is a surprise to me. But she is wrong. Why don't you address the fact that demonstrably ethnically discriminatory laws that grant rights to one ethnic group, deny them to another and are used to segregate and control the majority of that other group in the land of their birth, while denying them self-determination, is. Factually. Apartheid?

Because if you could do that I'd be much more impressed than I am at this desperate thrashing around and semi-coherent, spittle-flecked polemic delivered in the manner of a nationalist propagandist.

[shira]

8. what do you think about Kadalie's comments on Tutu, Carter, and Kasrils?

you attempted numerous times with bad examples but have yet to show ONE real and irrefutable example of racist based Israeli law or action that confirms apartheid based on ethnic racism. If it's not based on racism, it cannot be apartheid. Separation based on competing nationalities is not apartheid based on racism no matter how much you wish for it.

tell you what - being the good sport I am - give me your best and most irrefutable example proving Israeli racist apartheid. Let's have it. What's the best argument, just one okay as that should be enough, from that 300 page scholarly masterpiece?

[FarrenH]

9. I gave you several

so I guess that makes you a liar

refer:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=284131&mesg_id=284359

and (in response to your disingenious attempts to adopt an excessively narrow definition of "racist")

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=284131&mesg_id=284398

[FarrenH]

10. And here are dozens more examples

(2006 Article from the Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel

Discrimination by unchallenged beauracratic means:

According to the Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, Jerusalem's Jewish population, who make up about 70% of the city's 700,000 residents, are served by 1,000 public parks, 36 public swimming pools and 26 libraries. The estimated 260,000 Arabs living in the east of the city have 45 parks, no public swimming pools and two libraries. "Since the annexation of Jerusalem, the municipality has built almost no new school, public building or medical clinic for Palestinians," says a B'Tselem report. "The lion's share of investment has been dedicated to the city's Jewish areas."

Take the interior ministry offices on each side of the divide. In the west, Jewish residents face a relatively short wait in an air-conditioned hall. In the east, Palestinians begin queueing in the middle of the night, or pay someone else to do so, to stand a chance of being served. Once the sun comes up, they wait for hours in the heat in front of an iron-grilled gate on the street for identity documents, or to register the birth of a child or the death of a parent. In Johannesburg, white people and black people were directed to different entrances of the home affairs ministry and afforded service - or not - according to their skin colour.

There is many a city in other parts of the world where minorities are forced into poor, underfunded neighbourhoods and treated as unwelcome outsiders. Where Israel's self- proclaimed capital differs is in policies specifically designed to keep it that way, as in apartheid Johannesburg. In Jerusalem and other parts of the occupied territories, Palestinians face a myriad of discriminatory laws and practices, from land confiscations to house demolitions, de facto pass laws and restrictions on movement. "The similarities between the situation of East Jerusalemites and black South Africans is very great in respect of their residency rights," says John Dugard, the international law professor widely regarded as the father of human rights law in South Africa and now the UN's chief human rights monitor in the occupied territories. "We had the old Group Areas Act in South Africa. East Jerusalem has territorial classification that has the same sort of consequences as race classification had in South Africa in respect of who you can marry, where you can live, where you can go to school or hospital."

...

During the 1990s, about 12 times as many new homes were legally built in Jewish areas as in Arab ones. Denied permission to build new homes or expand existing ones, many Palestinians build anyway and risk a demolition order. Israel's former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, routinely defends the demolitions by arguing that any civilised society enforces planning regulations. But Israel is the only western society to deny construction permits to people on the grounds of race. Until 1992, so did South Africa.

Explicit statement of the discriminatory motivation you frequently deny, by the people executing it

In 1992, Jerusalem's deputy mayor, Avraham Kahila, told the city council: "The principle that guides me and the mayor is that, in the Arab neighbourhoods, the municipality has no interest or reason to get into any kind of planning process. Thus, we encourage the building of Jewish neighbourhoods in empty areas that have been expropriated by the state of Israel. But so long as the policy of the state of Israel is not to get involved in the character of existing Arab neighbourhoods, there is no reason to require plans."

Factual discrimination based on ethnicity

Israeli law permits wholesale confiscation of property inside Israel or Jerusalem that is owned by Palestinians who live in areas defined as "enemy territory", including the West Bank, which was occupied by Jordan until it lost the war against Israel in 1967. "Any Palestinian who was at any point in 'enemy territory' after 1967, forfeits his property," says Seidemann. "But enemy territory includes the West Bank. It's a remarkable situation. Any property that was ever 'abandoned' by any Palestinian becomes state land and is then 'turned over to the Jewish people'. Any property that once belonged to a Jew is 'recovered to the Jewish people' and turned over to the settlers."
...
The law is not applied in reverse: Jews who go to live in West Bank settlements do not lose property they may own in Tel Aviv. Last year, Sharon's government quietly confiscated thousands of acres of Palestinian-owned lands within greater Jerusalem without compensation, after a secret cabinet decision to use a 55-year-old law on abandoned property against Arabs separated from their olive groves and farms by the West Bank barrier.

Separation of services based on ethnicity

Israel's Population Registry Act serves a similar purpose by distinguishing between nationality and citizenship. Arabs and Jews alike can be citizens, but each is assigned a separate "nationality" marked on identity cards (either spelled out or, more recently, in a numeric code), in effect determining where they are permitted to live, access to some government welfare programmes, and how they are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen.

Ask Israelis why it is necessary to identify a citizen as a Jew or Arab on the card and the question is generally met with incomprehension: how can it be a Jewish state if we don't know who the Jews are? The justification often follows that everyone in Israel is equal, so it does no harm. Arab Israelis will tell you differently.

Unequal expenditure on social services for different ethnic groups

In the 2002 budget, Israel's housing ministry spent about £14 per person in Arab communities compared with up to £1,500 per person in Jewish ones. The same year, the health ministry allocated just 1.6m shekels (£200,000) to Arab communities of its 277m-shekel (£35m) budget to develop healthcare facilities.

Israel is a racist state and you are (rather poorly) defending Apartheid.

[shira]

12. I asked for your one best proof of racist policy dictating Israeli actions in the W.Bank

you stated yourself that the problem is in the W.Bank, not Israel - and I agreed when I said that although there is still discrimination within Israel, it is no worse than in any other western nation (and that's quite an achievement given Israel's state of war with their neighbors the past 70 years). Jimmy Carter says Israel is a wonderful example of democracy and is in no way racist.

You failed earlier in your attempts with:

a) Jew only roads (they're Israeli-only, just like settlements which are not jew-only)
b) RoR for Jews (which is no more racist than Greek RoR)
c) Israelis banned from marrying Palestinians who can claim Israeli citizenship (Israelis marry Arabs in the USA, UK, Canada...who become Israeli citizens)
d) I brought up Sudanese refugees, who are Arabs, taken in by Israel - proving again Israel is not a racist state and their beef is with Palestinians outside the green line, not Arabs in general.

None of those are examples of race-based policies that form the basis of defacto apartheid in the W.Bank. The problem is competing nationalities, not race, as has been explained to you over and over again.

Now one more time - what is your one best proof that W.Bank policy is apartheid that is based clearly on racism?

Just one (for time's sake).

Make it good, okay?

[shira]

14. and one more thing - be careful what you accuse Israel of doing

anytime anyone here is critical of Palestinians or their leadership, they are accused of being hateful, bigoted, racist, etc....even if the charges are accurate. How do you think you appear when you are highly critical of Israel and your accusations (about the racist nature of Israel) are completely bogus?

Islamophobics who make up charges against Muslims, Arabs, or their countries are labeled racists, bigots, and hatemongers.

What shall we call critics of Israel who make up bogus charges against the Jewish state?

What makes one group more righteous and moral than the other?

==========

I've been accused of hate, bigotry, and racism and I'm not certain I've made any bogus or phony claims against Palestinians or their leadership. You have so far, perhaps unwittingly due to ignorance, made accusations against Israel which are bogus and phony - and you have been quite unapologetic about it. If I'm racist, hateful, etc... for my views what does that make you?

==========

Bottom line - give the one best, solid piece of evidence you have proving Israel's policies regarding the W.Bank are racist.

[FarrenH]

17. shira, you're all over the place

you make the disingenious claim that alleged equality in Israel distinguishes its behaviour in the West Bank from Apartheid, then, when I dismemember that claim, you immediately return to the West Bank. As stated quite eloquently in the study I provided, the coupling of elevated rights for a single ethnic group in both Israel in the West Bank with ethnically discriminatory opression, seperation and lack of self-determination in the West Bank makes it Apartheid. The additional evidence of ethnic discrimination in Israel proper only serves to disabuse any other readers of the idea that your claim to equality may be true, as well as make it clear that the settlement enterprise is primarily concerned with acquiring land for Jewish Israelis (by way of answering the specious claim that its not Apartheid because Arab Israelis can drive on roads denied to Palestinians in the West Bank).

As for the West Bank, your request is frankly absurd. The Israeli government has siezed the land of, demolished the homes of and deprived a single ethnic group of self-determination, over a period of decades, for the advantage of another ethnic group. To wit, Jewish Israelis. The examples provided above also serve to demonstrate this latter point. Israeli Arabs are NOT equal. They do NOT as easily acquire building permits. Massively LESS resources are allocated to developing their neighbourhoods and providing basic services and education. The quasi-governmental status accorded the Jewish National Fund (via special legal status), which has long had a policy of only leasing to Jews and owns a massive percentage of the arable land in Israel, represents factual, government-sanctioned discrimination against Arab citizens. And while the JNF claims not to have any dealings across the green line, its legal subsidiary, Himnuta Ltd, does.

These are all facts of the contemporary state of Israel, not obscure extrapolations from quesitionable evidence.

[shira]

18. of course there is some discrimination in Israel, just as in ANY western country against some ethnic

groups - but rather than accuse all other western governments of racism, you are focused exclusively on Israel for carrying out similar policies within its own borders in an attempt to conflate and make the lazy and disingenuous, reductionist argument that Israel is a racist state.

No one serious argues that Israel is racist towards Arabs within the green line. Does discrimination exist, yes, but due to Israel being a racist state? No. Come on. Otherwise, all other western nations that discriminate in one way or another are also racist and that's just mind-numbing idiocy, to use your own words.

Now for the crux of the matter - which particular single ethnic group is Israel acting racist towards? Be very specific with your description of this group of people, okay? Palestinians? Arabs? Be clear.

==========

Can you admit you used obscure extrapolations from questionable sources when you mentioned earlier jew-only roads, the government opposing israeli arabs marrying any other arabs for fear of including them as citizens, and RoR - which is basically the same as Greek RoR? You wrongly accused Israel of racism where it doesn't exist, didn't you?

[FarrenH]

11. Finally, Kadalie calls Tutu, Carter and Kasrils

hypocrites, without anywhere in her article obviating their claims. Furthermore, Tutu and Carter HAVE called on Palestinian leadership to respect human rights, flatly contradicting her claims of silence on Palestinian excesses by both men. Even their focus on Israel's role doesn't constitute hypocrisy, since according to the standards of international humanitarian law, Israel is guilty of far greater crimes. And Tutu hews quite closely to the values represented in that law. That is not hypocrisy, that is focusing on the greater of two evils.

She makes claims in the article that are flatly contradicted by facts of Israeli law, which further discredits her position. To wit "There are no laws in Israel that discriminate against Arab citizens or separate them from Jews". There factually are. See above.

And she simultaneously employs the same thoroughly fallacious logic as yourself, premising her entire argument on the idea that non-Israeli Palestinians are not Israelis and therefore any discriminatory impositions on them to not create a parallel to Apartheid. The astonishing, mind-numbing idiocy of this argument can best be grasped by realising that under Apartheid law, no black people were recognised as citizens of South Africa. They were citizens of designated "homelands" exactly like the fragmented West Bank, under the complete control of the state imposing discriminatory practises, exactly like the West Bank and Gaza.

Thus by Kadalie's specious reasoning Apartheid was never imposed on South African blacks.

That this idiotic drivel comes from the pen of a former anti-Apartheid activist amazes me.

And that the defenders of Israeli Apartheid have sunk so low as to call into question the ethics of not only every other credible human rights organisation in the world, but two Nobel peace prize winners of the calibre of Carter and Tutu only serves to illustrate their complete detachment from the moral universe that real humanitarians live in.

[shira]

13. now we're getting somewhere - you believe W.Bank Palestinians should be treated as Israeli citizens

and that they should have rights that are equal to any Isreali within the green line. Is that correct?

Kadalie is only pointing out Carter and Tutu's political bias (really hostility) towards the Jewish state, and showing it's not rational or objective.

[FarrenH]

15. I don't think that's feasible at this juncture

Neither is Apartheid

[shira]

16. then why did you bring it up?

you wrote:

And she simultaneously employs the same thoroughly fallacious logic as yourself, premising her entire argument on the idea that non-Israeli Palestinians are not Israelis and therefore any discriminatory impositions on them to not create a parallel to Apartheid. The astonishing, mind-numbing idiocy of this argument can best be grasped by realising that under Apartheid law, no black people were recognised as citizens of South Africa. They were citizens of designated "homelands" exactly like the fragmented West Bank, under the complete control of the state imposing discriminatory practises, exactly like the West Bank and Gaza.

You realize you're comparing apples and oranges, don't you? Bantustans or little bogus islands were created to artificially separate whites from blacks in S.Africa, as you know and stated above. Nothing like that was imposed on W.Bank Palestinians by Israel.

Palestinians are not Israelis - and they were never once Israelis but then disowned and placed in fake islands in order to create the impression that they were/are no longer Israelis so that they could be treated differently.

You're conflating once again - trying really hard to accuse Israel of racism when this is a conflict clearly based on nationalism (which S.Africa was not).

So please explain clearly, what is mind-numbing-idiocy on Kadalie's part with respect to your quote above?

[FarrenH]

19. Person living in reality to person living in their own special universe:

"This is a car. See it has 4 wheels coupled to an internal combustion engine and a steering column"

Person living in their own special universe:

"But it doesn't have windscreen wipers! Its not a car!"

Do you honestly believe the differences you describe have any bearing on the definition of Apartheid? Do I have to remind you that the UN has a convention on Apartheid, which describes the agreed features of what is considered the Crime of Apartheid - and it's NOT "an exact replica of the configuration of the South African state, circa 1970"? Do you realise that that definition represents a carefully considered judgement of the ethically salient features of the crime that, in combination, are considered morally repugnant and worthy of the label "Apartheid"? That 107 nations, including basically every developed nation in the world, has ratified that convention?

At this point your argument seems to consist of simply repeating fallacious arguments that have already been addressed, multiple times.

Again, for the umpteenth time:

Israel’s practices in the OPT can be defined by the same three ‘pillars’ of apartheid. The
first pillar derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law
and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews. The product of
this in the OPT is an institutionalised system that privileges Jewish settlers and discriminates
against Palestinians on the basis of the inferior status afforded to non-Jews by Israel. At the root
of this system are Israel’s citizenship laws, whereby group identity is the primary factor in
determining questions involving the acquisition of Israeli citizenship. The 1950 Law of Return
defines who is a Jew for purposes of the law and allows every Jew to immigrate to Israel or the
OPT. The 1952 Citizenship Law then grants automatic citizenship to people who immigrate
under the Law of Return, while erecting insurmountable obstacles to citizenship for Palestinian
refugees. Israeli law conveying special standing to Jewish identity is then applied extraterritorially
to extend preferential legal status and material privileges to Jewish settlers in the OPT
and thus discriminate against Palestinians. The review of Israel’s practices under Article 2 of the
Apartheid Convention provides abundant evidence of discrimination against Palestinians that
flows from that inferior status, in realms such as the right to leave and return to one’s country,
freedom of movement and residence, and access to land. The 2003 Citizenship and Entry into
Israel Law banning Palestinian family unification is a further example of legislation that confers
benefits to Jews over Palestinians and illustrates the adverse impact of having the status of
Palestinian Arab. The disparity in how the two groups are treated by Israel is highlighted through
the application of a harsher set of laws and different courts for Palestinians in the OPT than for
Jewish settlers, as well as through the restrictions imposed by the permit and ID systems.

The second pillar is reflected in Israel’s grand policy to fragment the OPT for the purposes
of segregation and domination. This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of
Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the
hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate
severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and
construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced
network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and noncontiguous
enclaves for Palestinians. That these measures are intended to segregate the
population along racial lines in violation of Article 2(d) of the Apartheid Convention is clear
from the visible web of walls, separate roads, and checkpoints, and the invisible web of permit
and ID systems, which combine to ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves
designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy
freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory.
Whether the confinement of Palestinians to certain reserves or enclaves within the OPT is
analogous to South African ‘grand apartheid’ in the further sense that Israel intends Palestinian
rights ultimately to be met by the creation of a State in parts of the OPT whose rationale is based
OCCUPATION, COLONIALISM, APARTHEID? | 15
on racial segregation engages political questions beyond the scope and method of this study.
Within the scope of this study is that, much as the same restrictions functioned in apartheid
South Africa, the policy of geographic fragmentation has the effect of crushing Palestinian socioeconomic
life, securing Palestinian vulnerability to Israeli economic dominance, and of enforcing
a rigid segregation of Palestinian and Jewish populations. The fragmentation of the territorial
integrity of a self-determination unit for the purposes of racial segregation and domination is
prohibited by international law.

The third pillar upon which Israel’s system of apartheid in the OPT rests is its ‘security’
laws and policies. The extrajudicial killing, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and
arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of Palestinians, as described under the rubric of Article 2(a) of
the Apartheid Convention, are all justified by Israel on the pretext of security. These policies are
State-sanctioned, often approved by the Israeli judicial system, and supported by an oppressive
code of military laws and a system of improperly constituted military courts. Additionally, this
study finds that Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian
freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement appears to mask an
underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination, and thereby maintain control
over Palestinians as a group. This study does not contend that Israel’s claims about security are
by definition lacking in merit, but rather that Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate severe
policies and disproportionate practices toward the Palestinians is operating principally to validate
suppression of Palestinian opposition to a system of domination by one racial group over
another.
Thus, while the individual practices listed in the Apartheid Convention do not in
themselves define apartheid, these practices do not occur in the OPT in a vacuum, but are
integrated and complementary elements of an institutionalised and oppressive system of Israeli
domination and oppression over Palestinians as a group: that is, a system of apartheid.
In summary, this study finds that Jewish and Palestinian identities function as racial
identities in the sense provided by ICERD, the Apartheid Convention, and the jurisprudence of
the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Israel’s status as a
‘Jewish State’ is inscribed in its Basic Law and it has developed legal and institutional
mechanisms by which the State seeks to ensure its enduring Jewish character.

Its Apartheid.

[shira]

20. I've asked now several times for your one best example proving racism is behind Israel's policies

in the OPT. You must not be all too confident with any of the examples in that 300 page scholarly masterpiece you continue to tout. Not even one. Why is that? Surely there's at least ONE example there aside from the false and libelous propaganda you tried to push here with Jew-only roads, RoR, etc... that you can find?

I find it unbelievable you don't understand the difference between the S.African govt. treating their OWN citizens one way due to blatant state-sanctioned racism as opposed to Israel's policies regarding hostile FOREIGNERS (aided by Syria, S.Arabia, Iran) due to an ongoing state-of-war the past 60 years (which your vaunted study ignores in its dishonest, rank-amateur analysis posing as scholarship). I think you're too intelligent not to know the difference between the 2 situations. Racism vs. 2 nations in a state of war.

"To seek simplistic comparisons to an evil regime while ignoring intrinsic differences between the situations and their causes is unhelpful and intellectually dishonest. Describing one party to the conflict as racist (hence immoral and wrong) absolves the other of any responsibility."
Tova Herzl, former Israeli ambassador to South Africa

In the hopes you'll learn something, here are some critical articles of the 300-page magnum-opus you're so fond of:
http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2009/06/dept-of-foreign-affairs-funds-apartheid-israel-study.html
http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2009/06/official-jewish-community-responds-to-hsrc-witch-trial.html

One thing you also repeat is that Israel has done nothing to try to end the occupation (what you claim is apartheid). That's completely false as they agreed to Clinton's Parameters in 2000 and Olmert offered even more in 2008. It is the Palestinians who insist on keeping the status quo (apartheid in your view). It's an existential conflict - Palestinians (leadership) still want Israel destroyed (unlike blacks in S.Africa who only wanted the system destroyed) and that is why this occupation (apartheid) continues - there is no other reason - and for you to deny it is dishonest to the extreme. Incidentally, in poll after poll, Israeli Arabs (Palestinians) prefer that the Israeli territory they live in remains Israeli territory and is not transferred over to Palestinian control once a state is established. If Israel really practices a system of racial apartheid, this makes zero sense, don't you think?

Have you heard of Ben White's latest book on apartheid? What do you think of Ben White? There's a reason I'm asking, which is directly linked to your 300-page study.

[FarrenH]

21. I'm sorry,

theres nothing in your purported response that actually responds to the post you replied to? I told you there is a definition for Apartheid, as defined by the Convention on Apartheid ratified by 107 nations. I've shown you how Israel's policies fit that definition. You have not refuted that. By definition, Israel is an Apartheid state.

In my preceding post I explained, again, via a rhetorical question, that "The Crime of Apartheid", as defined by international convention, does not mean "The exact political configuration of South Africa in the 1970s". It refers to specified, prominent aspects of that configuration that taken together are considered Apartheid. Exactly how the Israel/West Bank configuration mirrors that configuration has been explained to you, with examples, and instead of addressing that you hare off about distinctions between SA and Israel that are irrelevant.

And I just love the way you pepper your response with even more lies. I never claimed there were "Jew only roads" in the West Bank. To be fair, I don't think you're a deliberate liar, just that you have some cognitive shortcomings grasping what's put in front of you. Blind nationalism does that to people.

[shira]

22. your claims are sorry

As anyone can see, you've left countless questions and points of mine unanswered - questions, points (and articles) that your 300-page magnum opus either ignores or dishonestly addresses. Your evasiveness to my questions clearly points to the weakness of your position. It appears you're now careful not to bring up even one example of blatant racist Israeli policy for fear that it, like your other accusations, will be refuted and expose either your ignorance or your motives.

And an appeal to (non-credible) authority, which is all you seem relegated to now, is nothing but a common logical fallacy. I've rebutted many of the paper's major points, as well as yours.

Which is why I ask again for just one example - previously brought up by you or an entirely new argument - which you believe proves your point - and points to racism against a certain ethnic group (which you won't even specifically identify). The fact you're reluctant to do this or just too embarassed to even try speaks volumes.

[shira]

23. addressing the executive summary

My comments will be in bold

http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml

Regarding colonialism, the team found that Israel's policy and practices violate the prohibition on colonialism which the international community developed in the 1960s in response to the great decolonisation struggles in Africa and Asia. Israel's policy is demonstrably to fragment the West Bank and annex part of it permanently to Israel, which is the hallmark of colonialism.

Has nothing to do with Jordan attacking Israel in 1967, does it? Or UNSCR 242 which stipulates that Israel is entitled to safe and secure borders - meaning some land would be annexed and Israel would not be expected to go back to the 1949 armistice lines.

Israel has appropriated land and water in the OPT, merged the Palestinian economy with Israel's economy, and imposed a system of domination over Palestinians to ensure their subjugation to these measures.

Subjugation for the sport of it? An ongoing 60 year war has nothing to do with it?

Through these measures, Israel has denied the indigenous population the right to self-determination and indicated clear intention to assume sovereignty over portions of its land and natural resources. Permanent annexation of territory in this fashion is the hallmark of colonialism.

Israel offered an end to this in 2000 when they agreed to Clinton's parameters, which would have satisfied UNSCR 242. In 2008, Olmert offered an even better deal. Both offers were rejected by the Palestinians. Denying the indigenous population self-determination is a lie.

Regarding apartheid, the team found that Israel's laws and policies in the OPT fit the definition of apartheid in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Of course this is what they found - consider the biased sources.

Israeli law conveys privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantages Palestinians in the same territory on the basis of their respective identities, which function in this case as racialised identities in the sense provided by international law.

there's nothing preventing Arab Israelis from settling in the territories....if Arab Israelis were restricted from becoming settlers in the OPT, then the accusation would be justified. In any case, Israel offered to end this with a peace deal in 2000 and 2008, which would have resulted in land swaps an and end to the problem. Palestinians refused the deal in 2000 and waged war on Israel instead.

Israel's practices are corollary to five of the six 'inhuman acts' listed by the Convention. A policy of apartheid is especially indicated by Israel's demarcation of geographic ‘reserves' in the West Bank, to which Palestinian residence is confined and which Palestinians cannot leave without a permit. The system is very similar to the policy of ‘Grand Apartheid' in apartheid South Africa, in which black South Africans were confined to black homelands delineated by the South African government, while white South Africans enjoyed freedom of movement and full civil rights in the rest of the country.

This confinement with checkpoints is a result of the 2000 intifada. Without it, we know the history - thousands of dead and maimed Jews due to Palestinian human bombs. Before 2000, there were no checkpoints or wall.

The Executive Summary of the report says that the three pillars of apartheid in South Africa are all practiced by Israel in the OPT. In South Africa, the first pillar was to demarcate the population of South Africa into racial groups, and to accord superior rights, privileges and services to the white racial group. The second pillar was to segregate the population into different geographic areas, which were allocated by law to different racial groups, and restrict passage by members of any group into the area allocated to other groups. And the third pillar was "a matrix of draconian ‘security' laws and policies that were employed to suppress any opposition to the regime and to reinforce the system of racial domination, by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination."

The Report finds that Israeli practices in the OPT exhibit the same three 'pillars' of apartheid:

The first pillar "derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews".

Just like the Greek law of return. It's preferential treatment to persecuted Jews who can at least go to the land for Jews and not have to deal with such persecution. Being against this is racist against Jews.

The second pillar is reflected in "Israel's 'grand' policy to fragment the OPT ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel's extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians".

again, the dishonesty here is that the context is completely absent - a little matter like a 60 year ongoing war.

The third pillar is "Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group."

All this was given as rights to Palestinians once Israel took over the territories from Egypt and Jordan - who DENIED these rights to Palestinians before (so did the colonialist Turks and Brits). Ironically, Israel was the first country ever to grant Palestinians these rights. These freedoms expanded until the 2000 Intifada.

The research team included scholars and international lawyers based at the HSRC, the School for Oriental and African Studies (London), the British Institute for International and Comparative Law, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (Durban), the Adalah/Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and al-Haq/West Bank Affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. Consultation on the study's theory and method was provided by eminent jurists from South Africa, Israel and Europe.

I cited 2 articles a few posts up that expose the "scholars" responsible for this travesty of a report.

The HSRC serves as the national social science council for South Africa. The Middle East Project of the HSRC is an independent two-year project to conduct analysis of Middle East politics relevant to South African foreign policy, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Government of South Africa. The analysis in this report is entirely independent of the views or foreign policy of the Government of South Africa and does not represent an official position of the HSRC. It is intended purely as a scholarly resource for the South African government and civil society and the concerned international community.

this is nothing but propaganda for haters and useful idiots

[FarrenH]

24. I've clearly identified that group, they are Palestinians

[shira]

25. where does someone like Uri Davis fit? Is he one of the oppressors or the oppressed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Davis

He is described as a Palestinian Jew, born in 1943 Jerusalem, but being a Jew, he is not considered a Palestinian by his fellow Fatah members. An example like Davis destroys the foundation of your biased study. It's easy to distinguish between black/white in the context of South Africa. It's not so easy with Jews and Palestinians. In fact, any Jew and his/her offspring born before the establishment of the state of Israel within the Palestinian territories is, by definition, Palestinian - and was ironically identified as Palestinian before 1948 - therefore to exclude these Jews from being part of the Palestinian "race" is racist in itself. In fact, Jews do not have equal rights in the Palestinian territories, much less throughout the Arab world, so to accuse Israel of racism and apartheid is the height of perverted immoral inversion (Arabs/Palestinians within Israel are treated equal by law - not so much Jews in Arab/Palestinian territories). Palestinians are a nationality - not a race - just as Greeks, Italians, and Syrians are nationalities and not races. In fact, any Palestinian can become a Jew if he/she converts. Palestinian Jews are a reality. Black whites or White blacks are not reality. This is basic common sense 101 and to argue against it is idiotic - but idiocy is what you tout as credible scholarship.

What do you expect from a study "researched" by biased, anti-Israel, idealogues? It's like expecting a fair study on global warming by a team of 'experts' who deny it. But in this case it's worse - it's an idiotic hateful screed that is logically incoherent and laced with moronic arguments. It's simplistic aim is to conflate and to make atrocious reductionist arguments. Like their colonialism charges - what kind of race-based colonialism are we speaking of when the term "Jew" originates from occupied Judea? I know of no other colonialists who had such historical ties to their colonialist enterprises - especially when such jewish 'antagonists' never tried to exploit and profit from those they took 'advantage' of. It's idiocy.

Really - why do you think this study is fair and objective, when it virtually ignores the context (ongoing war the past 60 years) and it's security challenges to Israel's citizens? Unlike S.Africa (which was not under security threat from blacks) and unwilling to honestly negotiate a settlement, the biased authors of your study actually lie and have the nerve to claim that Israel has not worked towards a peaceful 2-state resolution to the conflict (Clinton Parameters 2000 and Olmert 2008 fly in the face of their bullshit). They do not include one word about Hamas' genocidal goals/actions and the certain genocide - or at best - apartheid - that would result if Hamas (and for that matter, Fatah) were the dominating power in this conflict. Even better, they do not give any useful council on how Israel is to properly and legally address BOTH their security concerns AND Palestinian human rights. However bad the situation is, they do nothing but condemn Israel and offer nothing in the form of resolving Israel's security concerns, as though there are none.

It's as bad as HRW dishonestly neglecting to include in its reports on alleged Israeli warcrimes that the IDF's actions are dictated by their enemy's primary strategy (human shielding, boobytrapping homes and schools, child combatants, etc...). Without including the reasons for IDF actions or their preparations for such actions - and to deny Hamas deliberate utilization of these tactics - makes it far easier to accuse Israel of deliberate, criminal intent. It's easy but immoral and disgusting.

I don't buy that you're not smart enough to realize the outright dishonesty and hatred that lie behind these reports. Why do you disgrace yourself by supporting this trash? To call this situation apartheid is an insult to those who actually suffered under the regime.

The only reason to call Israel racist, apartheid, colonialist, nazi-like, etc... is to deligitimize the Jewish state - all these hateful descriptions come mostly from those who wish for the destruction of Israel - from one-state advocates like Virginia Tilley (who is behind this study) and Ronnie Kasrils. You should be distancing yourself from all this - not heartily embracing it.

[shira]

26. about that ethnic group, FarrenH.....

A different question....

There's a law against Palestinian landowners in the OPT that prohibits Jews from buying land in the W.Bank and Gaza - with the death penalty proscribed to those who do. In addition, Palestinian media is saturated with stories and programs openly anti-semitic and hostile - to the point of inciting genocide against Jews. By word and deed, the ethnic group in your study is a clear security threat to not only Jews but all Israeli citizens who they target indiscriminately (and by the way, the ANC didn't operate like this).

This incitement, as well as the violence that proceeds from it, has been a constant since well before 1948 (think Hebron riots in 1929) so let's not confuse cause and effect, as though Palestinian violence is a reaction to the racist zionist enterprise. This isn't like the S.Africa model where violence was directed at whites after centuries of colonialism and racist policy. The opposite is actually the case here. Note relations between Jews and Arabs in the region BEFORE the grand Mufti and after he was installed in the early 1920's. The two situations are not comparable.

Your study fails to mention all this - why?

==========

Check out this refutation to Israeli apartheid and let me know what's wrong with it, in your view:
http://www.mesi.org.uk/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=106

[shira]

27. I contacted Israel's MFA about your study's claim of favoring Jewish settlers over Palestinians

their response:

"Arab Israelis have the same citizenship rights as all Israelis, and are therefore able to live wherever they want.
Information and Internet Department Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem"

so much for one ethnic group - "Jews" - being favored as settlers over another ethnic group, hmm? Israel's million plus indigenous Arab "Palestinian" citizens can be just as "favored" as the Jooz. Another myth shattered.

:eyes:

Your 2-year, taxpayer funded, highly touted 300-page magnum opus is fatally flawed hate garbage masquerading as scholarship.

But then, you already knew this - based on the report's lies like the one about Israel denying Palestinians self-determination via a 2-state solution (which occured in 2000 and 2008 and was rejected by Palestinian leadership).

==========

Now what do you have to say about this latest and racist hate screed against Jews - which has the added bonus of helping to incite violence against Jews worldwide? Do you wish to distance yourself from it and condemn it in the harshest of terms - as you did apartheid?

[FarrenH]

28. You are wrong

Basic Law: Israel Lands (759) provides that ownership of real property held by the State of Israel, the Development Authority and the Jewish National Fund must not be transferred but held in perpetuity for the benefit of the Jewish people. About 93 percent of land inside Israel falls into this category and cannot be leased by non-Jewish citizens of Israel (760). This law applies to any land in the OPT that is declared ‘state land’. Article 1 of the State Property Law of 1951(761)

As all Jewish settlements in the OPT are ostensibly built on state land (although this is only partly true, as discussed in I.C.5(c)) and large areas of the West Bank have been declared state lands and closed to Palestinian use, this places much of the West Bank under the authority of an Israeli state institution that is legally bound to administer state land for the benefit of the Jewish people.

Similar discrimination is authorised by the 1952 Status Law, cited earlier, which confirms the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organisation (hereafter JA-WZO) as the ‘authorised agencies’ of the state to administer Jewish national affairs in Israel and in the OPT.(762) Their authority is detailed in a ‘Covenant’ that provides for a Co-ordinating Board—composed half of Government and half of Jewish Agency members—and grants them broad authority to serve the Jewish people, including:

The organising of immigration abroad and the transfer of immigrants and their property to
Israel; co-operation in the absorption of immigrants in Israel; youth immigration; agricultural
settlement in Israel; the acquisition and amelioration of land in Israel by the institutions of the
Zionist Organisation, the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael and the Keren
Hayesod ; participation in the establishment and the expansion of
development enterprises in Israel; the encouragement of private capital investments in Israel;
assistance to cultural enterprises and institutions of higher learning in Israel; the mobilisation
of resources for financing these activities; the co-ordination of the activities in Israel of
Jewish institutions and organisations acting within the limits of these functions by means of
public funds. (763)

...

Relevant to the present study is that, in 1978, the head of the JA/WZO Settlement Department,Mattityahu Drobles,(765) declared that the entire West Bank is an integral part of the Land of Israel and proposed a ‘master plan’ for settling Jews in the territory to consolidate this status.(766) From this time, the JA-WZO extended its mandate into the OPT to serve Jewish-national interests according to the terms of the Covenant. Legal restrictions require that the Jewish Agency operates inside Israel and the World Zionist Organisation in the OPT, but this division of geographic ambit operates structure the partnership between the two agencies in building infrastructure that completes the fusion of the OPT into Israel: for example, by jointly building settlements that straddle the green line around the West Bank and the highway system that integrates Israeli cities and towns with West Bank Jewish settlements. Thus Jewish settlements in the OPT, built on ‘state land’ managed for Jewish-national interests by the Israel Lands Authority, are planned and established by institutions that are authorised by the State of Israel to serve the Jewish nation exclusively.

REFERENCES:

(759) Passed by the Knesset on the 24th Tammuz, 5720 (19th July, 1960) and published in Sefer Ha-Chukkim No.
312 of the 5th Av, 5720 (29th July, 1960), p. 56 ; the Bill and an Explanatory Note were published in Hatza'ot
Chok No. 413 of 5720, p. 34.

(760) Israel Land Administration., ‘General Information: Background’, available at:
http://www.mmi.gov.il/Envelope/indexeng.asp?page=/static/eng/f_general.html.

(761) State Property Law (5711-1951), passed by the Knesset on the 30th Shevat, 5711 (6th February, 1951) and
published in Sefer Ha-Chukkim No.68 of the 9th Adar Alef 5711 (15th February, 1951); the Bill and an
Explanatory Note were published in Hatza'ot Chok No.54 of the 2nd Cheshvan, 5711 (13th October, 1930), p.
12.

(762) The Status Law was amended in 1975 to restructure this relationship: see World Zionist Organisation–Jewish
Agency for Israel (Status) (Amendment) Law, 5736–1975.

(763) Covenant Between the Government of Israel and The Zionist Executive called also the Executive of the
Jewish Agency, signed 26 July 1954.

(765) As the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organisation operate in tandem, particularly in the Settlement
Department which shares one office, Drobles is sometimes listed as head of one or the other. The distinction is
essentially meaningless.

(766) World Zionist Organisation Department for Rural Settlement, ‘Master Plan for the Development of
Settlement in Judea & Samaria 1979–1983, October 1978; available as U.N. Doc. S./13582 Annex (22 October
1979).

[shira]

29. LOL - now you're changing goalposts again - from favoring jews in settlements over palestinians

to this latest nonsense.

With their credibility shot several times, you refer to the same racist, shitty study (against jews) to make even more preposterous claims!

:eyes:

Statements that Israel refuses to sell state-owned land to Israeli Arabs are extremely misleading, since, as stated above, such land is not sold to Israeli Jews either, but is instead leased out by the ILA and is equally available to all citizens of Israel.

The availability of state-owned land to Israeli Arabs is true not just in theory, but also in practice. For example, about half of the land farmed by Israeli-Arabs is leased from the ILA. (Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel, Westview Press, p. 66, 1990)

Moreover, sometimes Israeli Arabs receive more favorable terms from the ILA than do Israeli Jews. Thus, for example, in new Jewish communities near Beersheva the ILA charged $24,000 for a capital lease on a quarter of an acre, while at the same time Bedouin families in the nearby community of Rahat paid only $150 for the same amount of land. (Israel's Dilemma, Shapolsky Publications, p. 97, 1989)

In another case a Jewish citizen applied to the ILA to lease land in a new Bedouin community under the same favorable, highly subsidized terms available to the Bedouins.

When the ILA refused to lease him land in the community under any circumstances, he sued. In Avitan v. Israel Land Administration (HC 528/88) the High Court ruled that ILA discrimination against the Jewish citizen Avitan was justified as affirmative action for Bedouin citizens. (Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel, p. 81)

more...
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=39&x_context=2

[FarrenH]

30. They're not referring to the SALE of land

learn to read. Then, stop tilting at windmills.

And you have been provided with actual laws, on Israel's statute books, that discriminate in favour of Jewish Israelis on land issues, both inside and outside of the OPT, as well as granting legally recognised administrative status to organisations with expressly discriminatory policies (in favour of Jews), both inside and outside of the OPT.

[shira]

31. try again

you cut-and-pasted the following from the HSRC study:

Basic Law: Israel Lands (759) provides that ownership of real property held by the State of Israel, the Development Authority and the Jewish National Fund must not be transferred but held in perpetuity for the benefit of the Jewish people. About 93 percent of land inside Israel falls into this category and cannot be leased by non-Jewish citizens of Israel (760).

My article precisely addressed this false claim and proved it to be yet another outright lie - in fact, my article shows the contrary, in that Arab citizens of Israel lease state land for less money under affirmative action laws - which makes claims of racist apartheid ludicrous! In addition, look at the hyperlink for their source (760) and show me in that link where land cannot be leased by non-Jewish citizens. That's not even shoddy scholarship, it's pernicious propaganda and they're hoping useful idiots won't check their sources.

As for settlement areas in the West Bank, that land is for the benefit of all Israelis - not just Jews. Any non-Jewish Israeli can sue the state of Israel and claim discrimination if he/she is excluded from benefitting like any other Jew on land in the W.Bank.

[FarrenH]

32. The JNF owns 13% of the land administered by the Israel Land Administration

That's "Jewish National Fund". A large proportion of JNF land is confiscated land. Although the rule is, in practise, sometimes bent, the JLF expressly cannot lease land to non-Jews, under its own rules. The JLF also acts as a quasi-governmental agency, under law. Furthermore, it has the right to nominate 10 of the 22 directors of the ILF, thus giving an organisation expressly tasked with settling Jews a disproportionate influence in the body that administers 93% of Israel's land. Furthermore the JNF, through its almost wholly owned subsidiary Himnuta, has bought land extensively in the West Bank, all of which was originally confiscated Palestinian land. Again, both JNF and Himnuta have the specific goal of settling Jews and are quasi-governmental entities under law.

Furthermore, legal beauracratic means are used to further discriminate against Arab Israelis. The ILA's regional building and housing committees, usually predominantly staffed by Jewish Israelis, use their power to disproportianately deny building permits to Arab Israelis, a phenomenon that has been documented by B'Tselem and others. This constitutes practical discrimination under a legal mantle that contains no checks to prevent such discrimination, not unlike many of the beauracratic means used to segregate black people and deny them political power in pre-civil-rights era USA in the southern states.

[shira]

33. are you now disregarding the study - can you admit it's full of shit?

How do you feel about the integrity of the authors and editors of that study now? If that piece of pseudo-scholarly propaganda doesn't turn your stomach, you have no right to tout yourself as a liberal on this board or anywhere else for that matter.

As for the JNF, you bring up a good point - finally legitimate and measured criticism where I'm able to agree with you!!!

The JNF had a reason for being 100 years ago but not now IMHO - however, it's not as if this is not being seriously dealt with - unlike S.Africa's racists who didn't give a shit and didn't have the world's most self-critical media like Israel has as an automatic checks and balances system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund#New_legislation

Anything else?

You think Israel still practices apartheid? If so - why? What smoking gun evidence do you have that hasn't already been thoroughly refuted like any other idiotic neo-nazi trash allegations?