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Calling Israel an Apartheid State Insults Black South Africans

(The Oregonian) Leon Jamaine Mithi - I am from Zimbabwe and grew up under the strictest regime of apartheid in South Africa. I used to support the BDS movement, but I withdrew my support after I visited Israel and the West Bank. Having been there, having seen what the BDS movement calls "apartheid," I have to say that calling Israel an apartheid state is an insult to black South Africans who suffered under the now-defunct system of strict racial segregation. And I feel a terrible loss of the true black South African apartheid narrative, because the term has been appropriated to wrongly label Israel. For Israel to be an apartheid state, it would have to be a colonial entity. It is ahistorical to consider a people, with ties stretching over thousands of years to an area, as a colonizer after being expelled in 1948 and returning home 19 years later, in 1967. Israelis are not some colonizers from Europe. They are a community that is nation-building in an area where they have always lived. Another difference is that - unlike South Africa, where oppressed blacks were mostly peaceful - Israel has faced multiple wars started by its neighbors and faces ongoing attacks against Jewish Israelis by a significant segment of the Palestinian people. This war-zone environment sets true apartheid apart from the Israel-Palestine conflict. The writer, a law student at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, is ranked first in Africa and fourth globally in the World Universities Public Speaking Championship.
2016-05-20 00:00:00
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