It’s arguable that Benjamin Netanyahu has been as determined to turn Israel into an apartheid state for Palestinians as Hendrik Verwoerd was to turn South Africa into one for Blacks. This is why I’ve been in the vanguard of those decrying the way Israelis keep voting for Netanyahu.
Most notably, former President Jimmy Carter wrote an entire book pleading for ‘Palestine Peace Not Apartheid’. I have written numerous commentaries pleading for the same, including “Instead of Peace Israel Settling for Apartheid?” May 1, 2014, “Netanyahu’s Call for Jewish Exodus more Sharpton than Moses,” February 23, 2015, and “Israel Votes to Become more like Apartheid South Africa,” March 18, 2015.
The last of those commentaries includes the following excerpt:
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I couldn’t care any less who governs Israel. My only concern is that, in voting for Netanyahu, Israelis have consigned their country, for the near term, to international pariah status worthy of South Africa at the height of the Apartheid regime.
In fact, one can fairly think of Palestinians in the occupied territories as the Blacks who wallowed in South African townships; Arab Israelis as the “Coloureds” who lived like “house niggers”; and right-wing Jews as the White Afrikaners who lived atop the Apartheid caste system.
Ultimately … to avoid charges of rank hypocrisy (if not complicity), fair-minded world leaders must now shun Netanyahu’s government, just as they once shunned South Africa’s. What’s more, multinational corporations must now divest from Israel for the same humane and moral reasons they divested from South Africa.
To be fair, Arab leaders have been calling Netanyahu the racist spade he has now revealed himself to be for years. Moreover, even I am on record, in such commentaries as “Neverending Story: Territorial (Holy War) between Israelis and Palestinians,” January 3, 2009, pooh-poohing any prospect for peace.
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I share that to explain why I am heartened and frustrated in equal measure by this news:
An international rights watchdog accused Israel on Tuesday of pursuing policies of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians – and against its own Arab minority – that amount to crimes against humanity.
New York-based Human Rights Watch published a 213-page report which, it said, was not aimed at comparing Israel with apartheid-era South Africa but rather at assessing ‘whether specific acts and policies’ constitute apartheid as defined under international law. …
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the report.
(Reuters, April 27, 2021)
I am heartened because this report vindicates my years championing the Palestinian cause. But I am frustrated because, while accusing Israel of “apartheid” crimes and policies, it refrains from calling this spade a spade, namely an apartheid state.
I mean, this is rather like accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of acts and policies that systematically neutralize his political opponents, but refraining from calling him a killer. Well, President Joe Biden famously showed that it if looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, not only is it a duck, you should call it a duck.
Related commentaries:
Israelis vote apartheid…