THE APARTHEID
EPITHET and BDS
The word “apartheid”
is widely used as a pejorative propaganda epithet in the full knowledge that the description is unjustified. As with every country in the world, there is much about Israel that justifies criticism, but
apartheid is not among its warts. Even the most vocal critic of Israel,
Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel
movement (BDS), admits that the apartheid description is inaccurate. In an interview with Electronic Intifada on May 31, 2009,
he said,” We don’t have to prove that Israel is identical
to apartheid South Africa in order to
justify the label “apartheid.”
In fact, real apartheid enforced by legislation is currently practiced in many
countries including Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, but not in Israel.
Even the new South Africa has been criticized
for apartheid by none other than Al Jazeera. In a TV program Riz Khan asked “Is
class-based discrimination South Africa's
new apartheid?” http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2010/11/2010112362142630788.html
In the Guardian of June 24, 2010, American Palestinian writer Ahmed Moor wrote
that the vast majority of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees born and raised in Lebanon
don’t have anything approaching the privilege that he enjoys in the US.
He said Lebanon is the most hostile country to Palestinian refugees after
Israel. “They are second-class
citizens here. Racism is so widespread that African and Asian guest workers are openly barred from attending the beaches where
Lebanese people frolic. And that's saying nothing of the often inhumane working conditions they are subjected to on a daily
basis”.
See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id289.html
Former US Ambassador to the
UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared categorically that the situation in Israel
is not apartheid. He added that racism under apartheid was skin color. “Applied to Israel that's a joke: for proof just look at a crowd of Israeli Jews and their
gradations in skin-color from the blackest to the whitest”.
In “The apartheid analogy: Lessons for Israel” (Jerusalem Post Feb.
20, 2011), Professor Gideon Shimoni, an acknowledged expert on the subject, wrote “While Israel's democratic constitution
is certainly flawed, only hostile prejudice explains the ever-growing trend of comparing it with apartheid South Africa..in
the propaganda war against Israel an equation is fabricated insidiously
between the present State of Israel and the former apartheid state of South Africa. This must be exposed as a malicious
slander, and utterly refuted”.
What BDS Organizers should have told us but didn’t
Labeling Israel as an apartheid
state comparable with the old South Africa
is the most potent weapon in the armory of BDS promoters. The argument goes like
this. Sanctions were effective against South African apartheid. Therefore if we merely associate Israel
with apartheid, no matter that the appellation is unjustified, the world will simplistically support sanctions against apartheid
Israel.
But did you know that BDS opposes the two state solution?
Many well-intentioned people believe the BDS movement is worthy of support because
they mistakenly believe that BDS advocates the common goal to which the UN, the US, the EU and Russia as well as Israel all
subscribe, namely two states, Israel and Palestine, existing side by side within agreed borders. But these supporters will
be shocked to learn that in reality the BDS organizers actually oppose the two state solution.
Omar Barghouti, a leader of the BDS movement disclosed in an article in The
Electronic Intifada in 2004, that the true aim of BDS in his words is “euthanasia” for Israel. The objective of BDS, he said, is one state to which all Palestinian refugees
and their descendants will “return”. Barghouti is not referring to the original number of approximately 700,000
to whom the word “return” may apply but to the estimated 4.7 million presently defined by UNRWA as Palestinian
refugees so as to achieve in his words “The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is really dead.
Good riddance”
See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id130.html and
http://electronicintifada.net/content/relative-humanity-fundamental-obstacle-one-state-solution-historic-palestine-12/4939
While most well-intentioned BDS supporters consider calls to end the occupation
as meaning adjustment of the 1967 lines in terms of resolution 242, Barghouti rejects this concept outright. He doesn’t
recognize Israel’s right even to
the pre-‘67 borders.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/boycotts-work-interview-omar-barghouti/8263
These well-intentioned supporters of BDS will also be shocked to learn the real
attitude of BDS organizers to the Palestinian Authority. In the above interview Barghouti stated “In the West Bank
you have a largely quisling [traitor] government that is completely supporting Israel
in anything it wants to do. They get immediate support from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, which is an unelected
authority imposed by an American general” adding that a return of the refugees would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.
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ADDENDUM
MORE ABOUT ISRAEL and APARTHEID
(See also http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id32.html )
It is interesting how the use of slogans in the advertising world has been successfully
adopted by propagandists. Avis' "We try harder" and Coca Cola's "Pause that refreshes" have been effectively adapted to "Israel apartheid” and similar pithy, but not necessarily
truthful messages
A
serious study will convince any impartial observer, that allegations of a similarity between the old South Africa’s apartheid regime and the Israeli system are spurious. Moreover,
such false allegations are used as propagandistic slogans, unworthy of consideration by anyone who values moral integrity.
Let's examine the FACTS.
In South Africa,
apartheid was entrenched in the law and strictly enforced. The law not only denied the vote to Black citizens, it legislated
to force discrimination in almost every aspect of daily life. In stark contrast, Israel’s Declaration of Independence specifically ensures complete equality
of social and political rights to all inhabitants irrespective of religion, race, or gender. Israeli Muslims, Christians,
Druse and other minority groups enjoy exactly the same civil and political rights as Jews. They serve in the Knesset and speak
freely against the government.
Unfortunately, as in every country, injustices do occur but Israelis are proud
of the fact that human rights organizations operate freely in Israel and that by contrast with neighboring states, they frequently
win arguments even against the state. The litmus test is that in complete contrast to the despised South African laws, which
enforced apartheid, the Israel high court
upholds the civil rights of all citizens without distinction.
However, if the intention is to justify an opinion, formed before examining
the relevant facts, one can always find spurious parallels between almost any country and apartheid; even Britain, to take an extreme example. In March 2007, the Guardian reported that
Black and Asian women face significantly greater employment barriers than white women even in areas with high ethnic minority
populations. On April 30 2007 the Guardian, reported that ethnic minorities suffer much greater levels of poverty than White
Britons. Only one in four white children live in poverty compared with 74% of Bangladeshi children, 60% of Pakistani children,
and 56% of black African children and that a baby born today will have its future dictated by race, not abilities or efforts
and that ethnic minority groups are overlooked for jobs and are paid lower wages.
Of course, any informed logical person realizes that these statistics, quoted
out of context, reflect a completely unrealistic picture of Britain,
with its laudable history of racial tolerance, universal justice and strenuous efforts to ensure racial equality.
Parallels drawn between Israel
and apartheid are as unjustified as they are offensive. Such comparisons, repeated by persons who should know better are not
only intellectually dishonest; they are often lazy repetitions of catch phrases propagated by cynical propagandists.
Israeli hospitals and unbiased medical care
Before reading further it is worth viewing a CNN video clip about how Dr. Yuval
Roth and his organization transport sick Palestinians into Israel
to receive quality medical care. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dd2_1296461875
An unblinkered visit to an Israeli hospital will convince the most biased individual
about the complete absence of any form of racial discrimination. Arab and Jewish doctors collaborate easily and in some hospitals
Arabs outnumber Jewish patients. Especially noticeable after bombing incidents, is the equal treatment given to victims and
perpetrators.
The Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem,
treats thousands of patients of diverse ethnic backgrounds annually, without any trace of discrimination. Its international
reputation for promoting peace in the Middle East region by providing equal treatment to
Palestinians and Israelis was recognized by nomination for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
A study, published in Pediatrics, reported that from 1990-2000, Arab Israeli
children received 66 kidneys from cadavers and Jewish children received 64. The waiting times for a kidney and the long-term
outcome of surgery were identical for both By comparison, studies carried
out in the United States and other countries showed that minority groups in those places had significantly lower rates of
kidney transplantation compared to the population's majority; apparently due to reduced access to medical care for minorities.
In Israel, which has a system of universal
health insurance, transplant surgery is covered by health funds and computers select patients on the basis of objective data.
Since its establishment in 1991, the Schneider Children’s Hospital like other Israeli hospitals, provides equal specialized treatment to children from
Israel, the Palestinian Authority and
neighboring countries. Some 30% of patients come from the Arab sectors of Israel
or from neighboring countries in the Middle East. Even in times of terror, the hospital welcomes
Palestinian Arab children in the spirit of realizing peace, co-existence and mutual respect.
The Hospital’s ongoing unpublicized program to conduct cardiac catheterizations
on critically ill Palestinian children from Gaza and the West Bank
has enabled many Arab youngsters to undergo life-saving treatment in spite of political divides.
Typically, with the cooperation of the Israeli security forces, even during
a wave of Arab violence, a three-week-old Palestinian baby, Mustapha Zaid was brought from the Palestinian town of Kalkiliya, suffering from severe respiratory distress. A CT scan showed the infant had a double oesophagus, a rare congenital defect. Senior
surgeons operated immediately to alleviate the pressure, after which the baby was able to breathe for the first time without
the assistance of a mechanical ventilator. Does this remotely resemble “apartheid”?
Israel’s achievements in providing healthcare and
medical support to Palestinian society over past decades are highlighted in an article available at http://www.beyondimages.info/b110.html
