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Israel Does Not Have Apartheid

[Sunday Times of Johannesburg-South Africa] Warren Goldstein - It is wrong to describe Israeli policies towards Palestinian Arabs as a form of apartheid. These accusations defame the Jewish state, and also diminish the victims of the real apartheid who suffered for centuries under arrogant, heartless colonialism, and then for decades under the brutal apartheid policies of racial superiority, oppression and separation inflicted by the National Party. If everything is apartheid, then nothing is apartheid. In Israel, all citizens - Jew and Arab alike - are equal before the law. Israel has none of the apartheid legislative machinery devised to discriminate against and separate people. It has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality Act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any of the other myriad apartheid laws. Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy, which accords full political, civil and other human rights to all its peoples, including its one million-plus Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority throughout the Jewish state, including that of cabinet minister, member of parliament, and judge at every level of the judiciary. All citizens vote on the same voters' roll in regular, multiparty elections, and there are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in Israel's parliament. Arab Israelis can express themselves and act freely as members of a transparent and open democratic society where criticism of the government in a free press is the norm. In 1967, as a result of a defensive war thrust upon it, Israel captured the territories known today as the West Bank and Gaza. Since then, the status of these territories and their occupants has been unclear. It is incorrect legally, factually and even morally to speak of an occupation that implies there was once a Palestinian entity in these territories, and that this is now occupied by Israeli forces. Before 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza part of Egypt. It is more accurate to speak of disputed territories. For decades Israel has tried to negotiate with various parties to permanently resolve the future of the disputed territories, but is still in search of a genuine peace partner to represent Palestinian Arabs. There has never been a Palestinian state in all of history. By contrast, Israel is the third Jewish state, the first dating back 3,280 years. Israel has strong claims to the land herself, because the West Bank was a part of Biblical Israel in which the Jews have always lived. Israel is a tiny country, less than one quarter of 1 percent of the size of all Arab lands, and has faced numerous and ongoing attempts by the surrounding Arab countries to destroy it. After nearly 2,000 years of exile, persecutions and genocides, the Jewish people are surely entitled to a tiny strip of barren country to call their own. If there is an analogy to the South African situation, it is that Israel is like the ANC, which was forced into the armed struggle because it had no partner for peace. As soon as the National Party came around to wanting to genuinely negotiate, the situation was resolved. Our South African experience has taught us that you cannot make peace unless both parties to the conflict wish to resolve it. When the Arab world is ready to make peace, Israel will be there immediately. The writer is Chief Rabbi of South Africa.
2008-08-11 01:00:00
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