Sunday, March 30, 2014

Apartheid, Palestinian-style

Dr. Reuven Berko

Land Day is a separatist challenge by a sector of Israeli citizens who call themselves "inner Palestinian Arabs." They shake fists and wave the flag of "Palestine." Land Day is often accompanied by violence, terrorism, and Palestinian activity to delegitimize the state. The expression "Israeli Arabs" is misleading in this context, as it includes the Druze, Circassian, Christian, and Muslim citizens who love the country along with those who are undermining it.
This year, Land Day overlaps with a wave of international Palestinian agitation against Israel that includes the ongoing demand for "right of return" for the descendants of the refugees (knowing that means the destruction of Israel) and Palestinian refusal -- backed by the Arab League -- to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians are currently conducting a worldwide propaganda campaign calling for economic and academic boycott of Israel and to brand it an "apartheid" state. The Palestinians plan to demand that the U.N. unilaterally recognize "the state of Palestine" and to take Israeli leaders and soldiers to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In the meantime, Arabs in the Triangle, a concentration of Israeli Arab towns and villages adjacent to the Green Line, are refusing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's proposal to free them from the horrible "apartheid" and move them, on their own land, to a "free Palestine." Many residents of the territories openly miss the days of the Israeli occupation. Israel's "apartheid" reputation has led to thousands of Muslim infiltrators from Sudan to flock to our borders.

In the Quran, we are "the chosen people," but Islamic commentators say that Jews are a lesser minority who must pay a poll tax and ultimately convert to Islam or die. As far as they are concerned, Muslims may pray on the Temple Mount, but Jews are forbidden to do so. In their eyes, this is legitimate "separation" in light of the fact that the mount is under Israeli control. Acting in accordance with race theory, the Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini worked with Hitler to implement the Final Solution and "separate" the Jews from human existence. Now any Israeli action to prevent mass slaughter of Jews is referred to as "apartheid."
In the spirit of Islamic "apartheid," members of the Arab League stressed in Kuwait that they refused to recognize a Jewish state. It's interesting how those who demand "return" would answer if Jews were to demand the return of their land that was stolen by Muslims in Khaybar in Saudi Arabia. And what about the property of Arab Jews?
Those who define us as an "apartheid state" find it difficult to understand how Israel risked some of its best and brightest to fly our dark-skinned brothers here from Ethiopia. The rich range of "colors" in the Jewish society is used by Arab racists to attack Israel. They claim that Jews from Russia and Ethiopia have nothing in common, and therefore aren't real Jews. The trials of converting to Judaism and the hardships of Judaism are hard to explain to those for whom religious conversion is a short procedure.
What is the "apartheid" Israeli state? It is a state in which an Arab Supreme Court justice put a Jewish president who broke the law in prison. It is a state that did not implement "racist" separation on buses, in cafes, or in hotels, allowing Palestinian terrorists to blow up the Jewish "racists." So Israel's "apartheid crime" was in building the "racist separation wall" that kept Palestinian suicide bombers from expressing "opposition."
The "apartheid" Israeli state gave citizenship to Jewish refugees from Arab countries and to the Arab minority that remained in its borders. The "apartheid" state turned temporary quarters for refugees into Israeli cities, while accommodations for Palestinians without citizenship in the territories and in Arab cities remain refugee camps.
Arab apartheid prompts Palestinians to kill Israelis by firing rockets from civilian homes, knowing that the Jews will enforce "separation" and not return fire on the source of the attack. Apartheid is a Western double standard that backs the Palestinians. No American would allow a member of Congress to support Osama bin Laden, but "apartheid" in Israel allows the concept of "barriers" to be warped and enables Arab Knesset members to swear allegiance to the nation while openly undermining it. This Land Day, the Arabs should get together and redefine for themselves the term apartheid.

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