Is Israel Really an ‘Apartheid State’?

PJ Media ^ | 10/16/2023 | Robert Spencer

[SeekAndFind]

As pro-Palestinian demonstrations take place on campuses all across the nation, the idea is persistent and pervasive: yes, the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 were terrible, but Israel had it coming because it is an oppressive apartheid state. The “apartheid” word gets thrown around quite a lot in connection with Israel, yet like so many other charges leveled at the Jewish state, there is nothing to it.

As I noted Friday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) just denounced Israel’s “systematic apartheid,” and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) called for “dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Hate Whitey) likewise said that “we must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending U.S. government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid.”

Those three great statesmen are by no means alone. Thirty-four student organizations at Harvard University issued a statement proclaiming that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” between Israel and the Palestinians and declaring that “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.” The leftist Jewish organization If Not Now tweeted Wednesday: “We’re reckoning with the fact that the Israeli government has failed Israelis and Palestinians by perpetuating a system of apartheid for decades, without concern for the consequences to their citizens. That’s what’s led us here.”

Far-left pundit Marc Lamont Hill tweeted back in 2016 that “Israel is very much, by definition, an apartheid state.” And in 2021, the far-left Human Rights Watch issued a report that claimed that Israel was implementing apartheid policies; the establishment media, of course, eagerly jumped on.

[SeekAndFind]

The word "apartheid" itself means “separateness,” and South Africa, where the word was applied to describe the country's policies then, instituted numerous laws to keep the races apart in schools, workplaces, and areas where the public gathered, such as beaches.

There is absolutely nothing like this in Israel. As my Jihad Watch colleague Hugh Fitzgerald has explained: “In Israel, Arabs sit on the Supreme Court, serve in the Knesset, go abroad as ambassadors. The chairman of Israel’s largest bank, Bank Leumi, is an Arab. Jews and Arabs work in the same factories and offices, play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras, act in the same films, are treated in the same hospitals by both Jewish and Arab medical personnel, attend the same classes in the same universities. Jews and Arabs own restaurants and start high-tech businesses together. The only difference in their treatment is that Jews must, while Arabs may, serve in the military.”

There are no legal restrictions upon Arabs in Israel. The media watchdog HonestReporting points out that “the legal, state-sanctioned discrimination that is the definition of apartheid is not only absent from Israel, it is furiously combatted by its laws and independent judiciary. Israel’s basic laws serve as legal safeguards, providing protection of life, body, and dignity in a democratic state with equal rights for all, including ethnic minorities.”

[Red Badger]

Compare Singapore with Gaza, sometime...................

[BobL]

Not sure why ‘apartheid’ is such a nasty term these days. After all, anyone is welcome to visit South Africa now and compare it to what it was under apartheid.

[gibsonguy]

The question is ridiculous. Reverse everything. Imagine how Jews would be treated if the palis ran Gaza.

[Socon-Econ]

There’s nothing wrong with Jews having their own exclusionary state in order to keep themselves from being swallowed-up by non-jews. They should be just to non-jewish residents, but they have no moral obligation to allow non-jews to rule them.

[alloysteel]

Israel has long since abandoned the idea of a theologically based government, and has a representative government, which includes, yes, the Muslim minority that has attained citizenship status in the nation of Israel. There is a strict limit on the naturalization of recent Muslim immigrants, and in view of the fact that these resident but noncitizen Muslims are the primary source of attacks on the authority of the Israeli civil government, this seems a prudent policy.

[j.havenfarm]

Of course the author is correct, but there’s such a precious little nugget in there about Israel having an “independent judiciary.” They’re independent, alright. Tyrant thugs.

[JayGalt]

The evil leftists created & enabled by the MSM revel in the death, destruction and misery they promote. When will we return to a culture that reveres honor, responsibility, ambition and hard work? When will the biblical virtues return to acceptance? Only faith remains.

[dfwgator]

Plenty of Arabs live in Israel alongside the Jewish population, there is no separation.

[libertylover]

Well said, but sadly, the truth doesn’t matter to the Israel haters.

[smokingfrog]

Which would you rather be?
A Jew living in some place like Iran, or a Palestinian/Arab living in Israel?

[MachIV]

The only people I ever knew to toss around the term “apartheid” are self hating genocidal white leftists who couldn’t wait for the collapse of Rhodesia and soon to be if not already South Africa.

Screw them and the horse they road in on.

[Fuzz]

I wouldn’t want to live in either place regardless of my ethnicity or religion.

[antidemoncrat]

“Is Israel Really an ‘Apartheid State’?”

Sure, just Like MAGA Americans are terrorists. /s

[bert]

Is California an apartheid state? Oregon? Illinois?

No of course not. The apartheid condition applies sole to the City States of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Chicago.

[wardaddy]

It’s a complicated problem few here will get beyond confirmation bias

[wardaddy]

Neither

Id rather be an Iranian who left when the shah was deposed and recreated a life in the west generations ago

I know some and they do fairly well

Id also rather be a Christian Palestinian who left after the 47-48 dust up and some point in the same fashion who did the same timing

I know a few and they lost everything in that dust up but because their original ancestors who did leave they’ve recovered nicely but they were smarter etc

It’s complicated and most here don’t care

It’s also beside the point

Israel has no choice but to destroy Hamas

[smokingfrog]

My point was that countries that have more Western values are called apartheid states, but countries where true intolerance is practiced seem to get a free pass and little or no news coverage. And you’re not allowed to protest government policies.

[wardaddy]

I wouldn’t campaign against Hamas in Gaza as an Arab

[NorthMountain]

The word "apartheid" itself means “separateness,” and South Africa, where the word was applied to describe the country's policies then, instituted numerous laws to keep the races apart in schools, workplaces, and areas where the public gathered, such as beaches.

And the country was, for the most part, safe and prosperous.

Then the "rest of the world" bitched and moaned and whined and complained and boycotted ... and apartheid was replaced by racism, communism, violence, and squalor.