Top Israelis Have Warned of Apartheid, so Why the Outrage at a UN Report?

Israel doesn’t allow the Arabs to come into their land and kill them and they are called an “Apartheid” state for it? any restriction Israel has is founded in security not racism

How refreshing to read that isn’t something apologizing or justifying Israeli apartheid. It’s sad to think what Israel’s policies are doing to its children’s future. Unless they make peace, they will be locked in wars of racist hatred forever. Unfortunately, they must compromise. Jews have been in the area for thousands of years, so have Arabs, neither has more claim to the land. Israel was built on ethnic cleansing, it won’t be able to move forward and resolve its conflicts until it acknowledges its crimes and recognizes Palestinians’ fundamental humanity, dignity and rights.

David Ben Gurion:

“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

The Anti-Colonial Radical Left

Virginia Tilley and Richard Falk support an anti-colonial agenda i.e., righting the wrongs of the European colonial period. Their long time anti-Israel activism and support for the one state solution is underpinned by their view that Zionism was a nineteenth and twentieth century colonial project in the same mold as white settlements in Africa which formed the racist regimes in (apartheid) South Africa and former Rhodesia. Virginia Tilley specializes in “in the comparative study of ethnic and racial conflict”.

“…….After finishing her MA in Arab Studies at Georgetown, she had served as Assistant Director of the International Organisation for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) in Washington DC, where she developed a second field in the politics of indigenous peoples.[2] This interest led her to focus her doctoral dissertation on the politics of ‘being Indian’ or indigeneity in Latin America, published in 2005 as Seeing Indians: A Study of Race, Nation and Power in El Salvador (University of New Mexico Press)…….. At the HSRC [Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa)], Tilley coordinated a team research project in international law which found that Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are consistent with colonialism and apartheid as these regimes are codified in international law……….Tilley is coauthor, along with Richard Falk, of a controversial report on Israel………This report accused Israel…………of an “apartheid system” with regards to its relations with Palestinians inside and outside its borders…….” – Wikipedia. My insert in brackets

Tilley views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through colonialism. This is also consistent with how the world is viewed by the radical left. Jon Schwartz writes at the Intercept (“Columbus Day Is the Most Important Day of Every Year” http://interc.pt/1Mn0VQ9 by @tinyrevolution):

“………..Thus European colonialism is the central fact of politics on earth………If we maintain the social silence around colonialism, our past and present will always be bewildering, like the above list. But if we break the silence, and talk about what truly matters, the confusing swirl of war and conflict can suddenly makes sense…….”

Effectively, Schwarz blames much of the world’s problems on the colonial period – a long period of conquest and intense globalization led by the European powers. It is with this perspective that the radical left views Israel today – pointedly (and politically) referring to the Palestinians as “indigenous peoples”. That is an extremely important concept in “colonialism” which attempts to negate the Jewish connection to Palestine. Falk and Tilley want to right the “wrongs” of the colonial period presumably everywhere in the world, but especially in Palestine. The UN report (falsely) labels Zionism a colonial project because the mass immigration to Palestine originated in Europe and the partition of Palestine was conducted under the auspices of the colonial power, Britain. By comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, they redefine Zionism to meet their anti-colonial agenda. The UN report – for all intents and purposes – resurrected UN resolution 3379 which equated Zionism to colonialism and compared Israel to apartheid South Africa. The resolution passed at the UN in 1975, but was repealed in 1991. Calling Zionism a colonial project is used to delegitimize Zionism (Jewish self-determination) as well as deny the history of anti-Jewish bigotry which motivated the Zionist movement.

Zionism and colonialism are related only because the great colonial power of the day helped Jews realize their dream of self-determination in Palestine – in much the same way as South Ossetia and Abkhazia have used Russia to protect their autonomous regions in Georgia. Zionism differs from colonialism in several important ways. Jews have a three thousand year connection to Palestine, and Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism (unlike white settlements in South Africa). Europeans were motivated by conquest and trade while Jewish people were motivated by anti-Jewish bigotry and persecution. Jewish immigrants did not claim Palestine in the name of the colonial powers. There was no war of independence conducted against Britain (as in America). Finally, immigration was for the most part peaceful. Land was mostly purchased from absentee land owners. There was no conquest of the local Palestinian population – and no ethnic cleansing until the war of independence.

Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley cite the 2004 ICJ decision (rightly) recognizing the Palestinian right to self-determination while at the same time the authors of the UN report apparently don’t agree that Jews have the same right – a clear double standard applied only to Israel. Tilley and Falk cite immigration and land laws that favor Jews to maintain a Jewish majority population, but Jewish people are a small minority world-wide requiring laws to maintain a Jewish majority. Jews have lived for thousands of years as a minority population withstanding second class citizenry, anti-Jewish bigotry and murderous pogroms including the Holocaust. Jewish nationalism arose because of persecution – precisely because they were always a minority population.

The UN report attempts to equate Israel to apartheid South Africa. The report crosses the line from (rightly) criticizing Israel for denying the Palestinians their right to self-determination to denying Jews the very same right. Tilley and Falk falsely equate Zionism to colonialism for political reasons to undermine and delegitimize the Jewish state. The authors showed their extreme bias and blatant hypocrisy in their attempt to right the “wrongs” of colonialism.

“real democracy” is the one true scotsman argument against israel

democracy in general is a barely proven political philosophy, many western democracies simply export to less developed countries the practices that israel engages in domestically

people can in fact democratically elect a nondemocratic goverment, or vote to move cancer causing industries to china

and then the kicker .. any time your government does something you disagee with, you can claim that government is not a “real democracy”

thus a government that cancels XL is “responding to the people”, while a govenment that sends money to israel is “controlled by zionists”

“Inside the Green Line…, it is, admittedly, less clear-cut.” It’s actually very clear. Not only can Arabs run for parliament, there are currently 17 Arab members of the Knesset. How is this apartheid? How many Jewish members of parliament are there in Israel’s neighbors’ governments? Several of its neighbors won’t allow an Israeli Jew to enter their borders. Hamas’ charter specifically rejects a 2-state solution and the right for Israel to exist. Which of its neighbors has a better record on women’s rights and the rights of homosexuals to not be persecuted? It’s curious that Mr. Hasan failed to mention all the enlightened, progressive Arab nations that offer such a contrast to “terrible” Israel. Israel isn’t perfect, but it is hardly the worst actor in the Middle East.

The fundamental issue that those supporting the Israeli status quo are unable to cope with is very basic: separation of church and state, i.e. a ban on any “religious test” is a requirement for any real democracy.

Notably none of the pro-Israeli apartheid commentators had an answer to this:

“The Zionist belief promoted by the likes of Chaim Weizmann (himself a product of the religious segregation system, i.e. “Pale Settlements” in Tsarist Russia) was that separation of church and state was undesirable, that they should go back to the medieval European model of states adopting religious identities and segregating by religion, be it Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, Jewish, etc. This is just a throwback mentality, one with no place in the modern world, and certainly not a democratic concept.”

The fact that two of America’s closest allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, reject this basic notion of democracy should make any honest person question what American foreign policy is really all about – because it sure isn’t about “promoting American values.”

Three different times on this thread, Mona called Jack Green a troll. Yet not a word about Barabbas who is not only a troll, but has posted numerous anti-Jewish comments. To call Jack Green a troll while ignoring the comments of barabbas is simply politically motivated. Mona has very little credibility monitoring these threads.

israel is engaged in a war of occupation against a much weaker combatant, not the construction of apartheid

the UN engages in a massive overfocus on israel … those who notice this are labled by UN supporters as whatabouters

Person Israel is an apartheid state.
Hasbara Specialist You’re an anti-semite.
Person No I’m not.
Hasbara Specialist You’re an anti-semite.Person Okay, fine. But what does that have to do with whether Israel is an apartheid state or not.
Hasbara Specialist You’re an anti-semite.Person Yeah, yeah. I got that. But what does that have to do with Israeli behavior.
Hasbara Specialist You’re an anti-semite.Person Fuck off.
Hasbara Specialist You see, you’re an anti-semite. You dropped your mask. Goddamn my hasbara still works.

For the past few days, posts in TI comments have been, seemingly randomly, appearing in the “Latest” list without appearing in the “Threads.”

It’s not worth the trouble to write and post under these conditions. Someone let me know if/when it’s fixed, please.

Israel is obviously a highly apartheid state that runs a South African-like Bantustan system in Gaza and the West Bank. There are obviously apartheid laws on land ownership and leasing, as well as on immigration rights, and clear discrimination in government employment. Forgetting about the military control of the West Bank and Gaza for a moment, consider the internal legal situation inside Israel:

https://imeu.org/article/discrimination-against-palestinian-citizens-of-israel

INSTITUTIONALIZED DISCRIMINATION
(1)There are more than 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, directly or indirectly, based solely on their ethnicity, rendering them second or third class citizens in their own homeland.

(2) 93% of the land in Israel is owned either by the state or by quasi-governmental agencies, such as the Jewish National Fund, that discriminate against non-Jews. Palestinian citizens of Israel face significant legal obstacles in gaining access to this land for agriculture, residence, or commercial development.

(3) More than seventy Palestinian villages and communities in Israel, some of which pre-date the establishment of the state, are unrecognized by the government, receive no services, and are not even listed on official maps. Many other towns with a majority Palestinian population lack basic services and receive significantly less government funding than do majority-Jewish towns.

(4) Since Israel’s founding in 1948, more than 600 Jewish municipalities have been established, while not a single new Arab town or community has been recognized by the state.

(5) Israeli government resources are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all socio-economic indicators.

(6) Government funding for Arab schools is far below that of Jewish schools. According to data published in 2004, the government provides three times as much funding to Jewish students than it does to Arab students.

(7) According to the 2009 US State Department International Religious Freedom Report, “Many of the national and municipal policies in Jerusalem were designed to limit or diminish the non-Jewish population of Jerusalem.”

(8) In the Spring of 2011, Jerusalem city councilman Yakir Segev stated: “We will not allow residents of the eastern [occupied Palestinian] part of the city to build as much as they need… At the end of the day, however politically incorrect it may be to say, we will also look at the demographic situation in Jerusalem to make sure that in another 20 years we don’t wake up in an Arab city.”

(9) The Nationality and Entry into Israel Law prevents Palestinians from the occupied territories who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel from gaining residency or citizenship status. The law forces thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel to either leave Israel or live apart from their families.

(10) In October 2010, the Knesset approved a bill allowing smaller Israeli towns to reject residents who do not suit “the community’s fundamental outlook”, based on sex, religion, and socioeconomic status. Critics slammed the move as an attempt to allow Jewish towns to keep Arabs and other non-Jews out.

(11) The so-called “Nakba Bill” bans state funding for groups that commemorate the tragedy that befell Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948, when approx. 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were ethnically cleansed to make way for a Jewish majority state.

(12) The British Mandate-era Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance law allows the Finance Minster to confiscate land for “public purposes.” The state has used this law extensively, in conjunction with other laws such as the Land Acquisition Law and the Absentees’ Property Law, to confiscate Palestinian land in Israel. A new amendment, which was adopted in February 2010, confirms state ownership of land confiscated under this law, even where it has not been used to serve the original confiscation purpose. The amendment was designed to prevent Arab citizens from submitting lawsuits to reclaim confiscated land.

(13) Over the entirety of its 63-year existence, there has been a period of only about one year (1966-1967) that Israel did not rule over large numbers of Palestinians to whom it granted no political rights.
Former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have both warned that a continuation of the occupation will lead to Israel becoming an “apartheid” state. Barak stated: “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic… If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”

(14) Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, heroes of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, have both compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid.

(15) Today, there is a virtual caste system within the territories that Israel controls between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, with Israeli Jews at the top and Muslim and Christian Palestinians in the occupied territories at the bottom. In between are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel’s oft-repeated claim to being “the only democracy in the Middle East” is just dishonest propaganda. Israel, in reality, has all the hallmarks of medieval pre-democratic European theocratic states, and no more claim to democratic rule than has Saudi Arabia (where women “recently gained the right to vote,” according to the Saudi-American PR machine) or Iran.

Doug Salzmann

“……..You might start by addressing Mona’s historically-correct observation that Zionist leaders, going back to the turn of the previous century, saw and used fear of, and reaction to, antisemitism as a major driver of support for the Zionist cause…….”

Large-scale immigration into Palestine coincided with anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe (Wikipedia):

“……..Beginning in the 1880s, waves of anti-Jewish pogroms swept across different regions of the empire for several decades. More than two million Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920, mostly to the United States……The chaotic years of World War I, the February and October Revolutions, and the Russian Civil War had created social disruption that led to Anti-Semitism. Some 150,000 Jews were killed in the pogroms of 1918-1922, 125,000 of them in Ukraine, 25,000 in Belarus.[11] These were probably the largest-scale European massacres of Jews to date.[12]…..”

Of course, figures vary on how many Jews were killed. However, I an quite certain that Zionist leaders made up all of those stories about Russian pogroms at the turn of the century. Those were actually Zionist pogroms of Jews to increase support for Jewish immigration to Palestine.

Mona is an anti-Zionist nutcase. She is obsessed with the topic and is more than willing to call Adolf Eichmann a Zionist.

Iraqi Jews reject ‘cynical manipulation’ of their history by Israel, Zionists

Israeli diplomats, Haaretz reported last week, “have been instructed to raise the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries at every relevant forum. This is part of a new international campaign to create parity between the plight of Jewish and Palestinian refugees, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon announced on Monday.”

“The way the Israeli establishment uses our history from the 1950s, is not in order to give us our rights back, but in order to get rid of the rights of the Palestinians, and avoiding a peace agreement with them,” [Iraqi Jew Almog] Behar wrote to The Electronic Intifada.

The idea is that Palestinian refugee and property rights are negated by equivalent claims from Jews from Arab countries, thus absolving Israel of having to make any restitution to Palestinians. Jews who left Iraq and some other Arab countries in the 1950s for Israel were deprived of their property and citizenship.

And, indeed, one sees this attempt to create moral parity all the time from Israel apologists, including in this comment space. Zionists/Israel have used the Jews of the rest of the world in false and propagandist ways for many decades. Mr. Behar has started a committee of Iraqi Jews:

We demand the establishment of an investigative committee to examine:

1) If and by what means negotiations were carried out in 1950 between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said, and if Ben-Gurion informed as-Said that he is authorized to take possession of the property and assets of Iraqi Jewry if he agreed to send them to Israel;

2) who ordered the bombing of the Masouda Shem-Tov synagogue in Baghdad, and if the Israeli Mossad and/or its operatives were involved. If it is determined that Ben-Gurion did, in fact, carry out negotiations over the fate of Iraqi Jewish property and assets in 1950, and directed the Mossad to bomb the community’s synagogue in order to hasten our flight from Iraq, we will file a suit in an international court demanding half of the sum total of compensation for our refugee status from the Iraqi government and half from the Israeli government.

Further:

Naiem Giladi, an Iraqi Jew who joined the Zionist underground as a young man in Iraq and later came to regret his role in fostering the departure of some 125,000 Jews from Iraq, wrote that, “Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country.” But “the terrible truth,” Giladi said, “is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.”

Zionists have long done all they could to promote misery among Jews who have the gall not to move to Israel and help colonize the land. Arab Jews like Mr. Behar are entirely fed up with it.

Zionist lie and commit atrocities. Their ideology is entirely built on falsehoods peddled to the world.

19-YEAR-OLD WITH AMERICAN-ISRAELI CITIZENSHIP ARRESTED IN THREATS AGAINST JEWISH CENTERS

An Israeli National Police spokesman said the teen “is a main suspect behind the numerous amount of threats which were made to different Jewish communities and organizations around the world.”

As Ali Abunimah observed, “This teen apparently absorbed Israel’s message that in order to survive Zionism needs Jews to always live in fear.” Certainly that’s how prominent Zionist saw and used antisemitism, from the beginning and to the present. Zionists have always seen antisemitism as critical to their ethno-religious supremacist project, even when that very project increases justified anger at Zionist Jews.

@GilG says of Former Foreign Ministry chief Alon Liel, who also served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa:

I have no problem with what he is saying.

Great! Let’s repeat it:

“In the situation that exists today, until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state — in the hope that the status quo is temporary — is an apartheid state.”

He also had this to say:

“If you, President Obama, intend to come here for a courtesy visit — don’t come. Don’t come! We don’t need you here for a courtesy visit,” Liel said. “You cannot come to an area that exhibits signs of apartheid and ignore them. That would simply be an unethical visit. You yourself know full well that Israel is standing at the apartheid cliff. If you don’t deal with this topic during your visit, the responsibility will at the end of the process also lie with you.”

(Of course, Gil then tries to change the subject, with the usual Zionist ploy of whataboutery. What he imagines happens if a Palestinian politician disagrees with Fatah or Hamas. )

But overall, it’s great news. Hardcore Israel apologist, GilG, has “no problem” with Ambassador Liel’s admission that Israel is an apartheid state. So much is Liel sure and alarmed about this reality, that he warned Obama away, to avoid giving the appearance of countenancing apartheid.

So what do you other Zionists think? Is Liel “Israel bashing?” Is he “antisemitic?” Or is it possible that intelligent and moral people grasp that Israel is, in fact, an apartheid state?

Max Blumenthal in 2013 saying peace process is a farce and how the Palestinians were never offered a viable two state solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7122wGOvFs

Max is Truth!

Anyone else notice that Mehdi Hasan’s report directly counter Glenn’s claim that Rima Khalef was ousted by the Trump administration to protect Israel?

Wasn’t that the whole point of Glenn’s article? Can the cadre of the Glenn G supporters please clear this up for me?

Allowing israeli zionist likuds to do their murderous genocidal land theft is a curse upon the planet and a fire that burns souls. If this matter is allowed to settle in this perverted victory for those israelis, future generations will inherit the same horrible methods practices and goals that also afflict North America which, not surprisingly, supports israel.

Jesus would not have it. Moses would not have it. Mohammed would not have it. Buddha would not have it. Krishna would not have it. Why would you oppose them?

Israel does not want peace; it wants to steal the land it calls “Greater Israel”

Among the many pieces of evidence is Israel’s the constant demand that before they’ll negotiate with Palestinians, the latter must recognize Israel’s “right to exist.” There is no such right that inheres in any state. Moreover:

Palestinians will never agree to the demand made of them by Israel and its main benefactor, the U.S., to recognize Israel’s “right to exist”. To do so is effectively to claim that Israel had a “right” to take Arab land, while Arabs had no right to their own land. It is effectively to claim that Israel had a “right” to ethnically cleanse Palestine, while Arabs had no right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in their own homes, on their own land.

The constant use of the term “right to exist” in discourse today serves one specific purpose: It is designed to obfuscate the reality that it is the Jews that have denied the Arab right to self-determination, and not vice versa, and to otherwise attempt to legitimize Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, both historical and contemporary.

As I write this, the West Bank is being swallowed up completely by illegal colonial-settlers. That won’t be the end of Israel’s expansionism, unless and until the world makes them end it.

This is such an interesting fact in those comment sections. Many commenters essentially write their own articles: long essays about UN resolutions, Zionism, the history of Palestine etc. But shockingly they cannot even clarify their own goals. Some of them does not even understand what “occupation ” means, and they have absolutely no idea about what to do with the hostile occupying force.

Beueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Anyone else notice that all the detractors who question we who criticize Zionism and Israel have not addressed Mehdi Hasan’s question? Hasan recites a litany of Israeli Jews who speak of Israel being an apartheid state. Examples include:

Former Foreign Ministry chief Alon Liel, who also served as ambassador to South Africa, has said that “until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state…is an apartheid state.”

Are we expected to dismiss all of these former Israeli officials as Israel-haters?

Are these people all “Israel-bashers?” Are they all wrong, as I purportedly am, about what “apartheid” means?

Hasbara troll, Jack Green

Hypocritical for Arabs to complain about a Jews only policy when Arabs had an Arabs only policy first.

Before Zionism: The shared life of Jews and Palestinians:

The idealistic reality described by Klein seems almost like a dream today. He quotes the memoirs of Ya’akov Elazar from Jerusalem, who remembers how “the Muslim women cooperated respectfully with the customs of the Jewish religion…the Muslim neighbors allowed the Jewish women to pump water necessary before the Sabbath.” Klein also describes how some Muslims even joined their Jewish neighbors in reciting religious prayers. He describes the cheder (a traditional elementary school where the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language were taught) run by Hacham Gershon in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Arab parents brought their children so that they would learn how to behave properly. Klein also writes that sexual relations and marriages between Jews and Arabs were not unheard of, even if they were not considered legitimate.

The European foreigners who came here were the ones to form a wedged between the partners to this quasi-utopia. Yeshayahu Peres, who put together the historical-geographical encyclopedia of the Land of Israel, complained that when the Ashkenazi Jews immigrated they brought with them their customs, clothing, and lifestyle, and did not adapt to the cultures of Palestine: “They speak Yiddish and maintain the Jewish street accent of their home countries. They are different from their Sephardic brothers not only in language and appearance but also in their worldview.” Or take Palestinian activist Ghada Karmi, who says: “We knew they were different from ‘our Jews,’ I am talking about the Arab Jews. We saw them as foreigners who came from Europe more than as Jews.”

And this was so. Zionism was and is a European, colonial movement. The settlers were not arriving to get along with the natives as the other Jews generally did quite well; they were coming to take the land over.

Considering that Israeli Jews & Palestinian Arabs are both “Semites”
and the Rome Statute defines apartheid as the domination of one racial group over another, is Israel technically (not morally) not guilty of apartheid ?
Either way, the state of Israel, in my opinion, is hastening its own demise.

Excellent journalism Mehdi on a topic that needs to be dealt with in many more ways than just the BDS movement…post haste all you good people that still see humanity as a good thing…. BOYCOTT*DIVEST*SANCTION

Regarding the supposed 50 discriminatory laws.
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/adalah_s_database_of_laws_imagining_racism_to_demonize_israel_/

For further analysis of Israel’s purported “right” to exist, see this excerpt from Ali Abunimah’s book, The Battle for Justice in Palestine.

The most important tactic used for propaganda is to compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa as the authors of the UN report did. This almost solely based on Israel maintaining a Jewish majority state. Israel has land and immigration laws which favor Jews only because they are a small minority world-wide. The laws are discriminatory, but don’t define apartheid. Applying “apartheid” to Israel is strictly done for propaganda purposes by the radical left and far right to delegitimize the Jewish state.

Apartheid South Africa was a system of legal separation based on race. Laws were passed to enforce the separation of races. From Wikipedia:

1. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races
2. the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.
3 The Population Registration Act of 1950 formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of eighteen, specifying their racial group.
4. Also in 1950 the Group Areas Act partitioned the country into areas allocated to different racial groups. This law was the basis upon which political and social separation was constructed.
5. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks and was the first piece of legislation established to support the government’s plan of separate development in the Bantustans.
6. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 prohibited people of different races from using the same public amenities, such as restaurants, public swimming pools, and restrooms.
7. An act of 1956 formalised racial discrimination in employment
8. in 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1958 entrenched the National Party’s policy of nominally independent “homelands” for black people. So-called “self?governing Bantu units” were proposed, which would have devolved administrative powers, with the promise later of autonomy and self-government.
9. In 1953, the Bantu Education Act crafted a separate system of education for African students and in 1959 separate universities were created for blacks, coloureds and Indians. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students.
10. The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 marked a new phase in the Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of the black so that they were no longer citizens of South Africa, but became citizens of one of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure whites became the demographic majority within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans choose “independence”.

These laws are obviously not present in Israel. In addition Benjamen Pogrund writes at the Guardian:

“……I have now lived in Israel for 17 years, doing what I can to promote dialogue across lines of division. To an extent that I believe is rare, I straddle both societies. I know Israel today – and I knew apartheid up close. And put simply, there is no comparison between Israel and apartheid…….The Arabs of Israel are full citizens. Crucially, they have the vote and Israeli Arab MPs sit in parliament. An Arab judge sits on the country’s highest court; an Arab is chief surgeon at a leading hospital; an Arab commands a brigade of the Israeli army; others head university departments. Arab and Jewish babies are born in the same delivery rooms, attended by the same doctors and nurses, and mothers recover in adjoining beds. Jews and Arabs travel on the same trains, taxis and – yes – buses. Universities, theatres, cinemas, beaches and restaurants are open to all……..”

Israeli Arabs clearly face discrimination and racism, but that doesn’t define apartheid. Those same comparisons have been advanced for decades and it has never gained any traction because the designation is used for political purposes to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish-majority state. Yet, there clearly is no applicability to Israel.

Speaking truth is not a hate crime. Denouncing hate crimes is not a hate crime. Israel is an apartheid state.

Boycott
Divest
Sanction
This is the HUMAN solution to eliminating a certain collective of murderous thieves in the act of genocide to steal land.

Adolf Hitler resisted BDS and look where it got him.

@swisscheese

BDS is a strategy to get what [Palestinians] want. Tell us specifically what they want.

BDS is a strategy to achieve a three-pronged goal. A year ago, Greenwald interviewed BDS co-founder, Omar Barghouti. Barghouti — who is the husband of a Palestinian citizen of Israel — set forth the “three planks in our BDS call of 2005, which is ending the occupation, ending the racial discrimination in Israel and the system of apartheid and right of return.”

Mona is aware that Zionists tapped into British power because Britain had the geopolitical/military power to make Jewish nationalism a reality (in much the same way as Russia could give the Donbass separatists a state of their own). South Ossetia and Abkhazia are using Russian power to create their own autonomous region in Georgia. This is exactly how Zionists used the great Power of Britain to develop a state of their own.

“……..But no mere “comparison” is needed. Summers is entirely aware that Zionists themselves explicitly presented Zionism as a European, colonial project, which it was and is……..”

Zionism differs from colonialism:

1. Jerusalem is and was the holiest city in Judaism with a long history of Jewish settlement (Land of Israel). Although Palestinian Arabs far outnumbered the amount of Jews in Palestinian when immigration began in the late 1800s, there were Jews living in Palestine and throughout the Middle East (for thousands of years). Jews did not see themselves as “foreigners”. This is completely different than European settlements in North America, New Zealand, Australia, Canada etc.

2. Europeans were motivated by expansion and trade (economic benefits). Jews were motivated by centuries of anti-Jewish bigotry and pogroms (Wikipedia):

“……..Beginning in late 1895, Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), which was published February 1896 to immediate acclaim and controversy. The book argued that the Jewish people should leave Europe if they wished to………Only through a Jewish state could they avoid antisemitism, express their culture freely and practice their religion without hindrance.[19] …….”

Anti-Jewish pogroms and racism were common in Eastern Europe especially in Russia where much of the immigration originated. Tens of thousands of Jews were killed in Russia between 1918 and 1922. Jews were long second class citizens under Islamic rule (throughout the greater Middle East). Jews were motivated by creating a homeland for the Jewish people to escape persecution.

3. Jewish people did not claim Palestine in the name of one of the era’s great powers like Britain or France. They did ride the coattails of the great powers to obtain their goal of a homeland through the British Mandate in Palestine, but no immigrant got off the boat and stuck a British flag in the ground claiming it for Britain. The British washed their hands of Palestine in May, 1948. There was no war against Britain to obtain independence.

4. Fourth, they didn’t fight or displace the natives like the colonial powers in the various locations around the world. They immigrated peacefully and obtained land mostly by buying from absentee land owners. There were no slaughters of the native population to obtain the land (although there was clearly tension interspersed with some violence). There was no ethnic cleansing prior to the war of Independence.

My question is why people say Israel’s domination of the Palestinians has only been going on 50 years. Israel declared itself a state in 1948. That is almost 70 years since they took the land over violently and suppressed the human rights of the Palestinians who lived on that land. SEVENTY YEARS not FIFTY! Too long. This must end. #FreePalestine and turn it into a state of all its inhabitants with equal rights for all. Then we can talk about it being a democracy.

Mona writes to Galacticus:

“…………The United Nations proposed a “Partition Plan” that was merely a non-binding proposal, one that was rejected by the Palestinian for very good reasons — their land was not the UN’s to give away. So, the plan was not implemented.

Instead, Zionist terrorists began to increase their murders of Arabs, British, UN officials and politically “wrong” Jews, and to ethnically cleanse the Arab land they stole via terrorism. And they stole a very great deal more than the partition plan had contemplated for a Jewish state — and still are stealing it……..”

Here is classic Mona twisting the truth. The Palestinians (and Arab countries) rejected the partition with violence whereas Israel accepted the partition plan. The military actions by Jews against the Palestinians and Arab countries was a reaction to violence committed by the Palestinians (and Arab militias) and the invasion by Arab armies after the partition was announced by the UN.

Mr. Hasan

Just like the article by Greenwald, this is another disingenuous and dishonest article about Israel.

“………..Last week, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) became the first U.N. agency to publish an official report documenting how “Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole,” and this provoked — as my colleague Glenn Greenwald has noted — a huge furor which led to the U.N. secretariat removing the report from its website and the Jordanian head of the UNESCWA, Rima Khalef, quitting in protest………”

Ms. Khalef is a Jordanian which has a population of about 3,000,000 Palestinians – so she is certainly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. The UN report was written by two well known, long time anti-Israel activists that support the one state solution. It’s clear that Ms. Khalef was looking for a particular (controversial) result by the choice of authors. There was no attempt to understand or defend the underlying reasons for Zionism. In other words, this was clearly a politically-motivated, one-sided report – an attack on the majority Jewish population of Israel (itself). Thus, the “occupation” (West Bank) is irrelevant to the conclusions.

Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley cite the 2004 ICJ decision rightly recognizing the Palestinian right to self-determination while at the same time the authors of the UN report apparently don’t agree that Jews have the same right (although the 2004 ICJ decision clearly grants Jews the same right to self-determination). Tilley and Falk compare Israel to apartheid South Africa because of land and immigration laws which favor Jews. This is because Jews are a small population world-wide which requires laws to maintain a majority Jewish population. Israel is compared to apartheid South Africa to delegitimize Zionism by equating Zionism to colonialism despite the very different reasons for the immigration by Jews to Palestine. At the same time, the comparison to “colonialism” ignores the fundamental 3000 year Jewish connection to Palestine (Jerusalem). Additionally, Jewish people endured centuries of antisemitism from Christians and Muslims which motivated Jewish nationalism in the first place. Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian empire at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, in particular, motivated mass immigration to Palestine.

Ms. Khalef is attempting to revitalize UN resolution 3379 passed in 1975 which wrongly called Jewish immigration to Palestine a colonial venture and falsely compared Israel to apartheid South Africa. The resolution was revoked in 1991 simply because the comparison doesn’t apply.

This was a really poor report which crosses the line from (rightly) criticizing Israel for denying the Palestinian right to self-determination to denying Jews the very same right. The authors showed their bias and blatant hypocrisy. The UN is better off without Ms. Khalef.

@Galactus who continues to err

Every state has an identity. Muslim countries are predominately Muslim, Christian countries are predominately Christian, etc. So what.

Israel holds itself out as a “modern liberal democracy,” which it in fact is not. It is by mandate of law an ethno-religious supremacist state, unlike any other Western democracy. It has an established religion — the Orthodox rabbinate controls much of Israeli civil law. And it prohibits non-Jews from constituting more than about 30% of the population, and does this in large part by maintaining the Arabs it ethnically cleansed in the Bantustans of Gaza and the West Bank.

That is not a democracy. It is an ethno-supremacist state, and as such is admired by many white supremacists, including many neo-Nazis. These in, e.g., the U.S., aspire to do here for whites of Christian heritage what Zionists have done for Jews in Israel.

Mr. Hasan writes:
“as my colleague Glenn Greenwald has noted — a huge furor which led to the U.N. secretariat removing the report from its website and the Jordanian head of the UNESCWA, Rima Khalef, quitting in protest.”

Actually what Glenn Greenwald wrote was that the Trump Administration Ousted Rima Khalef. Glad to see Mr Hasan correct the record and confirm that she quit in protest.

Discrimination, Segregation–> yes, but not Apartheid. Apartheid is racial, not religious, Jews and Muslims share many same genes! No choice in apartheid targetting.

I wonder what would happen if the trolls didn’t get their oxygen (responses).

I think most Americans would just like to stop hearing about Israel. A little less than half the population is probably fine with Israel wiping out all the Palestinians and taking whatever they want. Another minority thinks Israel should give up its ethnocentric view and absorb the Palestinians (probably a fantasy). At the end of the day, however, we will continue to eat nachos and drink beer, finally relieved of something that makes no difference at all in our daily lives.

@Galactus, who errs

Actually, [Israel was founded] by UN resolution.

That is flatly false.

The United Nations proposed a “Partition Plan” that was merely a non-binding proposal, one that was rejected by the Palestinian for very good reasons — their land was not the UN’s to give away. So, the plan was not implemented.

Instead, Zionist terrorists began to increase their murders of Arabs, British, UN officials and politically “wrong” Jews, and to ethnically cleanse the Arab land they stole via terrorism. And they stole a very great deal more than the partition plan had contemplated for a Jewish state — and still are stealing it.

The British were so overwhelmed by the constant Zionist terrorism killing people they abandoned Mandate Palestine and turned matters over to the UN — that is, terrorism got the Zionist what they wanted. It pushed the British out, and then Zionist terrorists simply plundered the land of the native Arabs.

As the CIA reported in 1949:

IV. The United Nations

The United Nations is already completely discredited in the minds of the Arab
Governments and the Arab peoples. There are many reasons for this, but the
evidence usually is the failure of the UN or the Mediator to enforce UN orders
to Israel. For example:

(a) To prevent arms and Czechoslovakian airplanes from reaching Israel.

(b) To deliver the assassins of Count Bernadotte [a Swedesh UN mediator whom Zionist murdered], although their identity is known to hundreds of Jews.

(c) To repatriate or compensate over half a million refugees.

(d) To permit UN observers with Israeli forces when they are on the
offensive.

(e) To retire to the lines occupied at the October 14 “cease fire”
period.

(f) To evacuate areas given to the Arabs by the UN proposal of November 29, 1947; although at the same time insisting upon invading the Negeb, to excuse which they quote the same UN partition proposal. (The Arab areas occupied in defiance of the UN include Western Galilee, Jaffa, Nazareth, and villages over the Lebanon frontier.)

(g) To respect the international character of the Jerusalem area.

Read the whole thing. Zionist terrorists murdered the UN mediator and would not reveal the names of the murderers. The Zionist terrorists would not abide by most UN requirements, and treated the ethnically cleansed Palestinians worse than animals.

Israel was founded in Zionist terror and criminality. It is maintained that way.

many people here, being american citizens, have absolutely no moral standing to criticize ANY other country, let alone israel

the one legitimate action they could take would be electing antizionist legislators .. but at this task they are abject failures

the real issue is the inabilty of secular humanists to recognize theocratic goverments as legitimate

if the palestinians were afforded full citizenship rights tomorrow, the argument here would instantly move on to how quickly jewish theocracy could be dismantled

after saying apartheid over and over, the writer concludes that international law is the only thing that matters .. international law that other nations routinely violate

a military occupation is not a good thing, but it isnt apartheid, despite what world hero jimmy carter says

Galactus’ version of history

They had an offer in ’93 Clinton Accords that gave them everything they asked for, created a Palestinian government and a path to Final Status that could only lead to statehood with boundaries.

The said No, and declared war and began shelling Israeli civilians within a week as I recall.

Galactus keeps repeating this. I’m not saying he’s being deliberately misleading when he says things like this, because this as I remember was the media narrative.

However, history happened in a way that the media did not report. Here’s Shlomo Ben Ami, one of the negotiators saying that if he were Palestinian, he too would have rejected the Camp David Accords.

https://youtu.be/l-CiTT2OxlQ?t=22m12s

If you watch the whole video, it’ll give you a better understanding of what happened. I believe that you’re arguing in good faith Galactus. However, I think you give Israel too much moral weight, when they don’t deserve it. And I also think, that you personally, are okay with Palestinians living under a permanent state where they have to accept living under the shadow of Israel, as “sub-humans,” for lack of a better terminology.

@Galactus re: the inherent racism in Zionism

Several years ago, Jewish American, Mark Braverman, issued a challenge to liberal Zionists setting forth why they must reject Zionism as the racist ideology it is — if they want to save decent Judaism:

In her recent piece in Open Zion, “If you want two states, support BDS,” Kathleen Peratis freely admits that her commitment to two states has her standing “on very narrow ground…that the current peace process is at best a Hail Mary.” “Sad Zionists,” is how she describes herself and those who cling to “our liberal Zionist dreams.” My question to Peratis is this: how sad are you willing to be? Are you willing to tolerate the sadness of letting go of the concept that an ethnic nationalist entity, a concept carried over from the late nineteenth century, is the answer to anti-Semitism? Are you willing to mourn the understandable mistake of political Zionism as the solution to our historic suffering, a forgivable (if and when we acknowledge the mistake) but all the same catastrophic wrong turn? Are we willing to be sad enough? And having tolerated that sadness, are we then able to contemplate, as I wrote in my critique of Beinart, that “[t]he end of Zionism will not be the disaster that so many Jews – and some Christians — fear. Rather, it will open the Jewish people to a future where the Other is embraced, rather than back to a past in which armies are mustered, walls are built, and enemies, real and imagined, are vilified and attacked. “Saving” Zionism by trying to make it into something it is not takes us in precisely the wrong direction.”

More and more, especially younger, Jews are coming to Braverman’s conclusion. Ethno-religious supremacist nationalism — i.e., Zionism — is a deep corruption of Jewish ethics, the recovery from which is long overdue. Because at the moment Zionism is rapidly plunging Israel into irretrievable fascism, as I showed below with citation to, among other things, Yuval Diskin.

The obvious solution to the internal Arab-Christian-Jewish conflict inside Israel’s zone of control is to allow all voting-age people in the West Bank and Gaza to vote for members of the 120-seat Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Currently Arabs hold only about 10% of Knesset seats; but this change would add about 3 million Arab voters to the rolls. Given there are about 1 million voting-age Israeli Arab citizens and about 4 million voting-age Israeli Jewish citizens, this would create a voting parity situation in Israel between Arabs (generally Muslim) and various Jewish groups (western Europeans, Russians, Ethiopians, etc.), and the makeup of the Knesset would be split between Jewish and Muslim groups.

One can imagine that this could lead to an expansion of the “right of return” laws to Palestinian refugees in the surrounding region, and also reform of Israeli land ownerships laws, which ban non-Jewish citizens from buying land in most cases. These are the two issues in which Israel clearly has an apartheid state policy – immigration and land ownership.

There has also been a movement in Israel, led by right-wing Likud allies of Netanyahu, to strip citizenship and voting rights from all Arab Muslims who currently hold Israeli citizenship. This is of course what Germany did to its Jewish citizens in the 1930s. Such comparisons, we are told, are “anti-Semitic.” Really? Seems more like historical comparison.

Another feature of the Israeli system that’s very similar to South Africa has been the Bantustan approach, aka “the two-state solution”, which they pursue for the very same reason:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands

The Bantustans were a major administrative mechanism for the removal of Blacks from the South African political system under the many laws and policies created by Apartheid. The idea was to separate Blacks from the Whites, and give Blacks the responsibility of running their own independent governments, thus denying them protection and any remaining rights a Black could have in South Africa.

A restructuring of the Israeli system would mean one-state, one-vote, no discrimination on the basis of religious or ethnic or racial identity – which is what the Zionists call “the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel”. They try to portray this equalization as “another Holocaust” which is ridiculous; it would merely mean that they would finally have real democracy for the first time in their history. As in South Africa, this is unlikely to lead to “genocidal conflict” if properly managed (Truth & Reconciliation committees, for example).

One final issue would be that of the Israeli nuclear arsenal; with a 50-50 split in the Knesset between Jews and Arabs, one would expect many non-Jews to rise to high positions in the Israeli Army and other bureaucracies; this is no doubt an alarming issue for the United States and other regional powers; who would end up in control of Israel’s nukes and ballistic missiles?

Israel has a rotten, rightwing government, but the government is not its people, no more than we of the US are Trump. Isreal got a rotten, rightwing government since such governments live on Fear – so with their history and being surrounded by enemies, it is easy to stoke fear in the populace. Cue Trump, and the fear of Mexicans criminals and Muslim terrorists he stokes. And Hitler, of course, did it with the Jews, so you’d think they’d know better.

A better parallel example would be

comparing the creation and expansion of

Israel and Pakistan.

Both are corrupt creations which come from the same time period

and are the result of international manipulators who have used both

place to further religious separations and increase the sales

of military hardware.

Religious states – even and ESPECIALLY if they lie and pretend

to be democratic – are predatory fakeries.

Underneath all of them is a worship of the real religion which they have

in common – money and power over others.

That religion is what drives the faking U$A and it is why the faking U$A

and its allies have done so much to infect the world with that

diseased state of mind.

It is the core belief of both Pakistan and its great enemy, India

and it is why Israel and Saudi Arabia have so much in common.

I grew up in SA, and I fully agree with what those quoted politicians said. Israel’s version of apartheid is more extreme. As one example, black South Africans had significantly more freedom of movement. They were not penned into the Bantustans in the way that Palestinians are in the West Bank and Gaza.

It’s not the most important issue, and arguably beside the point, but it’s not unhelpful to occasionally put the level of indignities faced by Palestinians into this context.

Notice how the author evolves from Arab population…to native Palestinians….to Palestinians living in Israel. As long as such biased reporting goes on , no solution in sight for the Jewish and Muslim Semitic peoples living in Israel.

Yes, we are supposed to dismiss, and be outraged by, anyone and everyone that equates the Israeli policies of refusing residency and voting rights to half half it’s legal population, the discriminatory laws that the further quarter of Israel’s non-Jewish population endure, and the refusal of self determination to the Occupied Territories to the Afrikaner State’s policies known as Apartheid.
Just as we’re supposed to dismiss, and be outraged by, anyone and everyone that says Israel has an active nuclear weapons program, targets civilians in its attacks, sends death squads into countries in the region to kill opposition activists, tortures prisoners, including political prisoners, etc
Why? Because if the American population, media, and popular culture doesn’t do that, the house of cards that is American foreign policy in the region collapses under the weight of outrage by Americans at what the government is doing in their name.
And if that happens, if the American people demand that American foreign policy actually be based on human rights, promotion of democracy, opposition to racism, discrimination, and tyranny, half the lobbyists, spin doctors, basically half of the entire massive industry of manipulation of public opinion through lies, myths, and fear mongering will go the way of the tobacco lobby, and the conditions that allowed for the last election to go the way that it did disappear.

I don’t think anything is going to change until something drastic happens within Israel. They seem immune to world pressure.