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The Russell Tribunal on Palestine Dishonors Victims of Apartheid
(Mail and Guardian-South Africa) Robin Shepherd - This weekend's Russell Tribunal on Palestine, held in South Africa, will designate Israel an "apartheid" state. It's a kangaroo court, run by the usual suspects. The attempt to smear the world's only Jewish state with a label designed to leverage hatred and disdain is simultaneously to insult the memory of apartheid South Africa's victims by adopting a strategy that inevitably sanitizes the word "apartheid" itself. The animating idea behind apartheid was white supremacy. The more cunning operators inside the Israeli-apartheid brigade know that no Israeli leader has ever believed that Jews are racially superior to Arabs. They know that Arabs vote just like Jews do, and that Arabs sit in the Israeli Parliament. They know that Arabs and Jews can ride in the same buses, lie on the same beaches, and eat at the same restaurants. The writer is director of international affairs at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think-tank.