Categories

A sample text widget

Etiam pulvinar consectetur dolor sed malesuada. Ut convallis euismod dolor nec pretium. Nunc ut tristique massa.

Nam sodales mi vitae dolor ullamcorper et vulputate enim accumsan. Morbi orci magna, tincidunt vitae molestie nec, molestie at mi. Nulla nulla lorem, suscipit in posuere in, interdum non magna.

WORDS MATTER

Some students in our group have begun using the word Apartheid to talk about the Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza. Obviously, they are not the first people to use this claim against the country and unfortunately, they will not be the last. I would like to talk about why this label is simply erroneous for Israel and why it is extremely detrimental to the peace process (or as Suleiman says, “the Beace Brocess”). In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly agreed upon a definition of apartheid, as defined below, from the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA): “The practice of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in Southern Africa […] committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over any other racial group […] and systematically oppressing them[.]”

Picture 1

Picture 6

(next page)

Picture 4

First of all, if one is to apply this to the Israelis in the West Bank that would be assuming that all Israelis are Jewish. And that Judaism is a race. It is not a race. Yes, the Jews are a nation that shares a common heritage, but Jews come from all over the world and are not a race. There are Jews from Egypt, just like there are Arabs from Egypt. There are Jews from Poland (not many thanks to Hitler) and Jews from Spain. FOR ISRAEL TO BE APARTHEID, BASED ON THE U.N. DEFINITION OF APARTHEID ACCEPTED INTERNATIONALLY, JUDAISM WOULD HAVE TO BE A RACE. AND IT SIMPLY IS NOT. Also, those who are claiming “Israeli Apartheid” are talking about the State of Israel. We all know (and it has been drilled into our heads many times) that 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arab and have full and equal rights under Israeli Law. So are the Arab citizens of Israel oppressing the Arabs of the Palestinian territories? You decide. The same law that supposedly only protects the Jewish population allows for this 20% minority to exist alongside the Jews, and also the Christian, Druze, and Bedouin populations of the Country.
Ahhhh, but you say you are talking only about the West Bank and Gaza territories. OK, so even though Israel has Arab citizens who are not under an “Apartheid” regime, you say Israel is instituting this Apartheid in the territories. I have a few issues with that.

1. First of all, if you’re a racist, (I’m using “you” as the state of Israel, or more clearly, the “Apartheid” government of Israel), and instituting Apartheid policies, you don’t get to pick and chose where you are racist and where you are not. You would be “oppressive” everywhere. You would not have a 20% minority (that you gave citizenship to) in one part of the country that enjoys freedom and another group in a different part of the country that does not have equal rights.
I. Or maybe the territories with Palestinian populations are not part of the country of Israel. That is not for me to                      decide. But since the Palestinian Territories are not yet a country of their own, I have no choice but to label them as                 such, although I realize they are different than “Israel-1948 borders.” However, I can guarantee you that Israeli                       soldiers want to be there as much as the Palestinians want them to be there.

2. The so-called “Oppressed” minority would not be allowed to self-govern if it were indeed living under an apartheid regime, but we all know that in area A (all the major Palestinian cities in the West Bank are in Area A) the government and military are under complete Palestinian control. Also in Gaza.

3. Part c of Article II of the ICSPCA states that an Apartheid regime would “prevent a racial group from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country.” (See above) Like I said in #2, Area A is under Palestinian Government control, as is Gaza. If Israel were really an Apartheid regime, Israelis would be allowed into all of Area A and that is clearly not the case, and Israel would be controlling Palestinian life there. Within Area A, Palestinians are in control of their own politics, their own social life, etc. Nothing is said about military control of the borders, but that is an entirely different issue that I choose to not delve into. I recognize the fact that Palestinians are not citizens of Israel but we all see what happens in East Jerusalem when Palestinians were offered citizenship and refused it outright and refuse to participate in the city government.

4. But then you come to the issue of a country. I mentioned above that an Apartheid regime would “prevent a racial group from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country.” And unfortunately, the Palestinian territories are not a country. Even though there have been numerous times the two-state solution was proposed (and they have been rejected by the Palestinians and also at some points by the Israelis), ISRAEL IS STILL COMMITTED TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF PALESTINE in the Palestinian Territories. It does not wish to remain in control of their movement from city to city. An apartheid regime would be the opposite, wishing to remain sovereign over the group it were oppressing because it would likely be benefiting from the forced labor of the citizens. Israel has had to establish the policy of strict control only in recent years as a result of Palestinians blowing up innocent Israeli civilians (which of course did not happen in South Africa) and therefore the necessities for a solution are even more important, and Israel remains dedicated to finding a solution within the parameters that allow for the Jewish state to remain in existence alongside a future Palestinian state.

There is so much more to say, but I think I have made my point clear. I would like to finish with a letter from the Vanguard Leadership Group to Students for Justice in Palestine about their misuse of the word Apartheid in reference to their annual “Israeli Apartheid Week”. From the Vanguard Group’s website, the group is a leadership development academy and honor society for top students at the nation’s [USA’s] historically black colleges and universities. They wrote to the Students for Justice in Palestine about the “deliberate misrepresentation of words and the mischaracterization of the state of Israel[.]” Their letter was published in numerous College newspapers across the U.S. including Brown University, University of California- Los Angeles, University of Maryland and Columbia University.

Here is the letter:

vanguard-letter

A Jerusalem Post article about the letter:
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=215811

-Katy

2 comments to WORDS MATTER

  • Shalom Dear Katy,

    Try walking around Jerusalem looking like a Palestinian/Muslim and detail what happens. Despite being to speak English [and not Arabic] or being American and/or Jewish will not shield you from the overt discrimination you will receive.
    Heck, I tried it myself. My mother is Sabra [American Israeli born Jewish woman] and I was raised in a household of proud Zionists and patriots. However, because I was seen as a Palestinian/Muslim I was slapped in the face with discrimination and mistreatment.
    Playing around words such as ‘apartheid’ speaks of such academic and outsider privilege. And instead of owning up to that privilege and taking up the responsibility of noting the lack of human dignity allocated to the clearly systematically disprivileged [yes, they are the oppressed and how can one with a clear conscious mock it when you can’t even imagine it–in fact how dare you], I see irresponsibly using semantics to avoid the fact that what is being done by the Israeli state is wrong. Discrimination is clearly there against non-Jews and those who ally themselves with non-Jews and it is not only there–it’s palpable.
    It’s a fact, it’s the only way the Israeli state stays Jewish.

    From a deeply disappointed fellow Smithie,
    Ilana

  • mlurie

    To those of you who endorse the use of the word “apartheid” to describe Israel, I invite you to read how the use of that word for this situation affects young black individuals:

    http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=215811