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Is Israel an Apartheid State?

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Edited by: TJVNews.com

“The people who are talking about apartheid in Israel are talking nonsense.”  So declared a black South African pastor who, after an accident, found himself hospitalized in Israel alongside Palestinian Muslims and Jews, all receiving equal care. This was reported on the Jerusalem Institute of Justice web site in 2018.

Characterizing Israel as an apartheid state is a charge frequently heard from the numerous organizations and NGOs that endorse the BDS movement.  It often appears explicitly in their official documents and resolutions. The “apartheid state” mischaracterization is one of the presupposed assumptions underlying the BDS movement, a complete fiction that is uncritically accepted by many of its followers, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice reported.

Other leaders in the BDS movement are not naïve but simply dishonest and cynical ideologues who want to bring down Israel the same way economic tactics succeeded in bringing down the old South Africa in the 1990s. More to the point, they really don’t want to change Israel. Their real agenda is to eliminate Israel entirely.  The JIJ web sites also reported that author Gerald Steinberg writes, “The attempt to label Israel as an illegitimate ‘apartheid state’ is the embodiment of the new anti-Semitism that seeks to deny the Jewish people the right of equality and self-determination among the nations.”

Kenneth Meshoe, a black member of the South African parliament, states emphatically, “I know that nothing is happening in that country [Israel] that can be compared to apartheid in South Africa.” Meshoe, who was born in Pretoria under apartheid, speaks from experience.  “We know what apartheid really was.  What we suffered in South Africa is not being suffered by anyone in Israel…. Non-Jews in Israel have everything that we non-whites in apartheid South Africa never shared with the white South Africans.”

The JIJ web site also reported that Meshoe added, “The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a lie about Israel, and it is a lie about the real apartheid.”  To those who propagate the slander, he says, “You are damaging the chance for peace in the Middle East and… you are destroying the memory of the real apartheid.”

As Gerald Steinberg puts it, “In reality, the analogy and rhetoric are absurd, and they demean black victims of the real apartheid.”  He points out, too, that “the ‘Zionism is apartheid’ propaganda is also used to justify Palestinian terrorist attacks and the efforts to deny Israelis the basic human right of self-defense….”

The comparison between apartheid South Africa and Israel is ridiculous, a case of apples and oranges.  As Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz says, “Israel is not like South Africa in any way.” Yet the “apartheid” slander persists, facts notwithstanding, because it is a useful propaganda theme for the purpose of demonizing and delegitimizing Israel as well as denying Israel’s right to exist.

In Israel there are non-Jewish judges, teachers, professors, even members of Knesset, as well as others holding high positions in all professions and occupations, as was reported on the JIJ web site.  In apartheid South Africa, non-whites were systematically banned from all such opportunities.   They were deprived of the right to vote and choose their own leaders.  Israeli citizens, both Jews and Palestinians, have these civil rights in full.

The photos in this article say it all about the egregious propaganda that targets Israel on a daily basis. It our hope that these images and the messages therein will serve to enlighten and convey the real truth about Israel as a vibrant democracy that is devoted to equality and justice for all.

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