Michael Curtis
May 21, 2012
May 21, 2012
Unlike Muslm countries, Israel has no state religion, but rather contains some 15 recognized religions, There are no segregated roads as there are in Saudi Arabia. If Jews and Arabs do live in different areas in the country it is not through state-imposed segregation, enforced by legal means. Discrimination does not exist on the basis of race, religion or sex, and all groups have equal protection under the law.
The time is now long overdue to recognize that Adolph Hitler's contribution to political wisdom -- the Big Lie --
has reappeared in the Palestinian narrative of the state of Israel as
an "apartheid state." "[T]he broad masses of a nation," Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf,
"will more readily fall victim to the big lie than to the small lie."
The constant repetition of the Big Lie, he explained, made it
acceptable, especially when it could be manipulated to appear to have a
certain credibility. The world is all too familiar with the success of
Hitler's Big Lie narrative that the Jews were internationally powerful,
responsible for World War I -- and, in his view, for most of the
problems of the world.
This
new Big Lie about Israel being an "apartheid state" that has been
trumpeted by the Palestinian narrative of Middle Eastern history and
politics has, in recent years, been accepted not only been accepted by
"the broad masses," but also by more educated and supposedly politically
sophisticated individuals in the media, the churches, and academia.
The official definition of the crime of
"apartheid" was first formulated in the International Convention on the
Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the
United Nations General Assembly on November 30, 1973. The definition was
"inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and
maintaining domination by one racial group…over another racial group…and
systematically oppressing them." A later version of the definition was
included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, of
July 17, 1998 which came into force in July 2002. The definition became
inhumane acts concerning an identifiable group on political, racial,
national, ethnic, cultural, religious grounds "committed in the context
of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination
by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with
the intention of maintaining that regime."
The change in legal terminology is
important for political reasons. Israelis and Palestinians can be
considered as "identifiable groups" and therefore the provisions of
international law in the 1973 Convention and the 1998 Statute can be
applied to them, thus opening the opportunity for a legal charge of the
crime of apartheid against Israel.
Yet this legal issue has little to do
with the real life political attempt to bring the charge against Israel.
That action began in the 1970s when the Soviet Union, for its own
political purposes, organized a coalition with Arab states and other
willing countries in what was then considered the group of "non-aligned"
countries of the world. The greatest success of the coalition was to
obtain an overwhelming majority, 72-35-32, for the infamous UN General
Assembly Resolution 3379 of November 10, 1975 which defined Zionism as a
form of racism and racial discrimination, and years later repealed only
after great efforts by American diplomats, including, fnally, the US
Ambassador to the Unted Nations, John Bolton.
Similar declarations followed. The most
forthright was the Declaration of the first Durban conference (The UN
World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance) in September 2001 that "We declare Israel as a
racist, Apartheid state in which Israel's brand of Apartheid as a crime
against humanity has been characterized by separation and segregation,
dispassion, restricted land access, denationalization,
'bantustanization' and inhumane acts." Since then an "Israel Apartheid
Week" has become an annual event on many college campuses in the United
States and elsewhere.
The declaration of Durban 1, which reads
as an indictment, was certainly applicable to the old, unlamented South
Africa where blacks were indeed segregated in many ways by legal and
other restrictions, and were treated as inferior human beings; but it
has no application to the state and society of Israel. Within the
state of Israel, Israeli Arabs, 20% of the population, have equal
political and social rights as Jews; full citizenship; members of the
Israeli Parliament, called the Knesset; a seat on the Supreme Court;
diplomatic representation at the most senior levels, a free press in
Arabic, which is, along with Hebrew, an official language; the capacity
to move freely; equal opportunity to enter universities, to be employed,
and to enter freely into marital relations with fellow Arabs or with
Jews. If Jews and Arabs do live in different areas of the country it is
not through a state-imposed segregation, enforced by legal means, but by
choice. There are no segregated roads, as there are in Saudi Arabia,
and there are no segregated schools, housing, drinking fountains, buses
or any officially imposed limits whatsoever. Discrimination does not
exist on the basis of race, religion, or sex; and all groups have legal
protection of the law. Unlike Muslim countries Israel has no state
religion, but rather contains some 15 recognized religions. Israel,
unlike the old South Africa, is a multiracial society.
In the absence of a peace settlement
between the parties that will determine the boundaries of territories
currently dispute, both the Palestinian Authority and Israel control
parts of the West Bank. Measures such as roadblocks, checkpoints and a
fence have been imposed not for the purposes of segregation, but for
security and for self-defense. Although it is true that these security
measures cause inconveniences and some hardship, they have been created
to prevent terrorist attacks, not to impose discrimination by an
oppressive regime. It is a tribute to the nature of democracy in Israel
that its Supreme Court on a number of occasions has ordered the state to
make changes in the fence route, often by a small amount, when the
fence seemed to be imposing hardship on the Palestinians.
The world is all too well aware of the
disputes between Israel and Palestinians, especially on the complex
issues of settlements, refugees, and Jerusalem, but to accuse Israel of
being "apartheid" is not only false, it is unhelpful and
counterproductive for any hope for a peaceful settlement .
The unjustifiable, misguided, and
extensively expressed "moral outrage" over the Big Lie directed against
Israel can partly be explained by ignorance of the reality of political
and social conditions in Israel and in the territories. For all the
problems encountered by a state created by Jews, and with 21 Arab and
Muslim neighbors openly threatening to destroy it -- sometimes, as with
Iran, to the illegal point of publicly advocating genocide -- it is a
remarkable success story -- unlike the failures of every surrounding
Arab and Muslim state except those benefitting from enormous oil
resources.
One must conclude that the enemies of
Israel, or inflexibly biased critics, are maliciously demonizing it with
repetition of the word "apartheid" in the hope of goading the
international community into denying Israel's legitimacy as a state, in
an effort to destroy it. Regrettably, one must also conclude that the
perceptions of Israel have been colored for many people, now including
Muslims, by an antisemitism which has become increasingly conspicuous
both by rhetoric and physical assaults on Jews and Jewish institutions.
Critics of Israel may understandingly
claim the mantle of compassion and express empathy for the Palestinians
whom they consider the weaker party in the enduring conflict with
Israel. They may argue the case against what they consider oppressive
behavior by Israeli authorities, and point to instances of injustice.
Yet at the same time they ignore not only the repressive and corrupt
governance of the Palestinian Authority to its own citizens, but also
the principles of liberty and equality inherent in the state of Israel,
and above all the need for all nations to take appropriate measures to
defend themselves against those in hostile environments who are eager to
destroy them.
Those individuals, groups, and
organizations making use of the word "apartheid" are appealing to the
emotions of those who rightfully find the concept deplorable, but by
doing so they are polarizing political positions and unjustly
oversimplifying a complex situation, in which one side, Israel's, has so
often offered reasonable compromises for peace, and the other side, the
Palestinians, backed by many of the 21 Arab and Muslim countries has
refused to enter into any real meaningful negotiations.
Michael Curtis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University and author of Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under attack by the International Community.
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