Www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/Adalah_Israel_CERD80.pdf. If this isn’t apartheid, then what is it? We do not need to find identical practices to those prevailing in pre-1994 South Africa in order to determine whether apartheid exists elsewhere. By Ran Greenstein A partly constructed portion of Israel’s separation wall, in Walaja, December 7, 2010 (Anne Paq/Activestills.org) For a few years now, opinion pieces and articles in the South African and Israeli press have shown confusion regarding the meaning of the comparison between Israel and apartheid South Africa.
How can we sort out the conceptual mess that afflicts the debates around the issue? First, let us examine the meaning of apartheid. While apartheid remains associated in our minds with its South African origins, legally it has no necessary relation to South Africa. To answer that, we need to clarify another concept: Israel. How is the notion of apartheid relevant to this reality? The Israeli regime is based on an ethnic/religious distinction between Jewish insiders and Palestinian outsiders. Israel's similarity to South Africa's apartheid is more than skin-deep. As the world has reflected on Nelson Mandela's legacy and his fight against apartheid in South Africa, some have recalled his famous observation: "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians. " That special bond between two peoples and their national struggles has in recent times contributed to increasing South African efforts to challenge continuing Israeli human-rights abuses and systematic discrimination.
A few weeks ago, the outgoing South African ambassador to Israel used the opportunity of his departure to make striking criticism of Israeli policies, calling them a "replication of apartheid". Ismail Coovadia also rejected a gift of 18 trees planted in his name by the Jewish National Fund, a body that has played an important role in the displacement of Palestinians. Not many countries find ambassadors talking of their policies in terms of apartheid, but coming from a senior South African diplomat, the charge stings all the more. Page 2 of 2. When Israeli denial of Palestinian existence becomes genocidal. In a regal interview he gave the Israeli press on the eve of the state’s ” Independence Day,” Shimon Peres, the current president of Israel, said the following: “I remember how it all began.
The whole state of Israel is a millimeter of the whole Middle East. A statistical error, barren and disappointing land, swamps in the north, desert in the south, two lakes, one dead and an overrated river. No natural resource apart from malaria. There was nothing here. And we now have the best agriculture in the world? This is a miracle: a land built by people” (Maariv, 14 April 2013). This fabricated narrative, voiced by Israel’s number one citizen and spokesman, highlights how much the historical narrative is part of the present reality. This denial was there at the beginning of Zionism and led to the ethnic cleansing in 1948. Cognitive dissonance With the creation of “Greater Israel” following the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the dissonance returned. Incremental ethnic cleansing. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012.
Israel's democracy myth - Opinion. Back in 1993, just months before signing the Oslo Peace Accords with Yasser Arafat in Washington, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was asked by a group of journalists which Arab leader he trusted the most. He didn't hesitate when he said: "Hafez Assad. " The answer took some in the group by surprise - Rabin had not only never met Assad, he'd spurned an American suggestion the year before that concluding a peace agreement with Syria would be easier than concluding one with the Palestinians. But Rabin was adamant. "Hafez Assad keeps his word," he explained and then, after a moment's hesitation, he added, "and he knows how to deal with Islamists.
" 'Israel's Arab Spring problem' "The Brotherhood will never change. It was Netanyahu, after all, who worriedly telephoned Barack Obama during Egypt's January 25 Revolution to urge that the US do its best to "save" Mubarak. Netanyahu can't unring the bell in Syria either, but there's little doubt that he'd like to. Conspiracy mongering. 'Israelis talk about fear, we Palestinians talk about death' | World news. Mohammed al-Khoudry was staring at the rubble of a house where two young children and their father died on Tuesday. "I've really tried to understand the Israelis. I used to work on a farm in Israel. I speak Hebrew. I watch their news. All the time they talk about fear. How they have to run to their bunkers to hide from the rockets. How their children can't sleep because of the sirens. "We Palestinians don't talk about fear, we talk about death.
The dying continued on Tuesday even as a ceasefire was being negotiated. As the day wore on, and word came from Cairo that a halt to the violence may be just hours away, the bombardment intensified with Israeli missile strikes on cars in Gaza City and buildings to the north. The Palestinian death toll rose above 120, a large number of them civilians, including at least 27 children. Khoudry joined the funeral procession for the Hejazi brothers through the streets of Beit Lahiya. "Killing Palestinians makes him look strong. What does he mean? “Castrate them!” “Burn them!” “Bullet in the head!”: Facebook Israelis react to photo of Palestinian kids.
Having regularly documented the horrifying racism and violent fantasies frequently expressed by Israelis on Facebook or Instagram, I thought I had seen everything. But this may be the worst yet. On Wednesday, the picture above of three Palestinian boys in a tent was posted on a popular Facebook page titled in Hebrew “We are all in favor of death to terrorists.” Under the picture is the following caption: Arab boys in the illegal Arab outpost established near Maale Adumim.
What should the Israeli army do to them? This is an apparent reference to the peaceful “Bab al-Shams” encampment established by Palestinians near Jerusalem to protest Israel’s plans to seize more land for settlements. “Run the tent over with a truck/Merkava tank/a bus/ whatever it takes to crush and kill these children,” suggested Facebook user Lidor Swisa.
Soldiers and adults join in the virtual pogrom But others, such as Shlomo Levi, are clearly already army-age adults. “May you die garbage Arabs, amen!” “Disgusting. Visualizing Occupation: Children under Israel’s legal regime. Israel's apartheid is worse than South Africa's.