Israel is not an apartheid state


 * Israel is not an apartheid state
 * Israel does not descrimate against Arab Israelis.
 * Arab Israelis enjoy full rights

Response #1
Israel is indeed an apartheid state.

In "Israel-proper," Jews, Christians, and Muslims cannot intermarry. It would be like if the US had laws that said blacks and Whites, or Jews and Christians could not get married. It's unacceptable and is a form of racial segregation identical to the bans on inter-racial marriages under Jim Crow in the US and Apartheid in South Africa. Muslims, Christians, and Jews have separate courts for personal status. More separation of groups. It also has the Ottoman Millet system where citizens are defined by their religious group, and have their personal status issues determined by their respective religious authorities (see http://law.huji.ac.il/upload/Sezgin.pdf . Separate legal systems for "separate peoples" is aparthied. Arabs are discriminated against in land leases and land purchases (it was illegal to lease/sell land to Arabs until 2005) as the land is deemed "Jewish" and for Jews only (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-s-discriminatory-land-policies/14579Jews also get paid 60% more in wages than Arabs (see http://www.timesofisrael.com/study-finds-huge-wage-gap-between-ashkenazim-mizrahim/ . Israel defines itself as a "Jewish state" and says that it represents all Jews everywhere. It does NOT claim to be a state of its citizens (see its declaration of independence here: http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/declaration%20of%20establishment%20of%20state%20of%20israel.aspx. Being a Jewish state, or a state of the Jews, (an ethnic state like apartheid South Africa and Jim Crow United States) means that the Palestinians in Israel are outside of the state (there have been calls by Israelis to ethnically cleanse Israel of Arabs - see the page on the myth of "Israeli leaders never promote hates of Palestinians") Arab neighborhoods are underfunded with the hope that it would induce Arabs to move out, making the land more Jewish (see http://www.jpost.com/National-News/NGO-Govt-fails-to-secure-Israeli-Arab-schools. Funding certain ethnic groups less than others, creating slums for them (very much like South Africa), hoping that they leave is not only apartheid, but also stealth ethnic cleansing. The apartheid is also seen when Arab political parties like Balad have been banned for supporting Israel becoming a secular democratic state as opposed to a Jewish state. It is seen when parties are banned for not accepting Zionism, and Israeli-Arab politicians like Azmi Beshara being tried for not being a patriotic Israeli. It is seen when Israel as policy censors news stories before airing them (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/israels-slippery-slope-censorship). It is seen in the 50+ laws in Israel which discriminate against Palestinians (see http://adalah.org/Public/files/English/Legal_Advocacy/Discriminatory_Laws/Discriminatory-Laws-in-Israel-October-2012-Update.pdf). It was seen as the Arabs in Israel lived under military rule until 1966, had all their properties confiscated and given to Jews, and had their populations transferred to disperse their populations. It was seen with Israel's policy of the "Judaization" of Palestine moving Jews into Palestinian land to make it Jewish (see http://ipk-bonn.de/downloads/ethnocracy-yiftachel.pdf; they haven't allowed the establishment of any new Palestinian towns since 1948 while they constantly build Jewish towns; they don't allow Palestinian citizens of Israel to live on state land which is 93% of what is today called Israel (http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israeli-high-court-upholds-racist-admission-committees-law?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=3c89a82f39-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-3c89a82f39-299171653&#x20;and http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/10/israel-and-the-g-word/. It would be like if the US barred non-Whites from moving the government land because the land was the "collective property of the White nation" - ethnic favoritism which then subordinates one ethnicity to another is apartheid; if we did not tolerate it with the US (with Jim Crow), why should we tolerate from with Israel?

Israel has no established borders which raises doubts on whether or not Israel can even be called a State (is it the '49 arminstance line, the post 67' borders, '49 armistice line plus settlement blocs, etc?), has over 3.3 million Palestinians in the occupied territories as captive with no rights. One may object by saying that since Israel "withdrew" from Gaza, they are no longer occupied. This assertion overlooks the fact that even with "withdrawal," Israel maintained control over Gaza's airspace, borders, travel, electric grid, and employment. The blockade makes sure that the population of Gaza remains impoverished. In short, it has turned Gaza into a prison under the facade of "withdrawal" with the ultimate end being the destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza; we see this with the blockade which Israel admitted wold serve to destroy Gaza economically, along with its systematic bombing of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, called the "Dahiya Doctrine," and with reports that israel planned to ethnically cleanse Gaza by relocating the Palestinians to Sinai (see http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2010/588-qput-the-palestinians-on-a-dietq.html and http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article3972840.ece#.U9ThOI1dVZY and http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15326#.VDm6u_ldXT9 and http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3605863,00.html and "The Struggle For Sovereignty" by Joel Beinin and Rebecca Stein). Now lets turn to the West Bank - one may say that since most Palestinians live in Areas A and B, that they are no longer under Israeli occupation. This ignores how even with Areas A and B, the percentage of land actually controlled by the PA is only 2-3% of the West Bank (Israeli controlled roads and other things of the sort reduce the amount of land able to be given to Palestinians) - it ignores how Israeli control of "security" in Area B means that Israel can pretty much do whatever it wants - including home demolitions, mass arrests, torture, etc - even though, on paper, it is under "Palestinian" control ( see "The Struggle For Sovereignty" by Joel Beinin and Rebecca Stein). This was seen in action during the second intifada where the Israelis re-occupied ALL of the West Bank (including Areas A and B) showing that they are the ones who still have control. Palestinian self-rule only means "self-rule" to the extent Israel wishes, and only when Israel feels like it - no more. When Israel re-occupied the West Bank, they cut off food supplies, water, electricity, used warplanes to indiscriminately bomb civilian areas, demolished random homes with civilians inside, used Palestinian civilians as human shields, bulldozed orchards, destroyed farmland, refused to let doctors in to help the wounded, and killed hundreds in the process (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/143/2002/en/c79afe78-d7bc-11dd-b4cd-01eb52042454/mde151432002en.html and http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/israel0502-01.htm#P49_1774)

Such human rights violation continue in the West Bank as settler attacks on Palestinians go unpunished, while Palestinians who defend themselves (and even children) are detained, tortured and coerced into "confessions." Palestinians have their homes arbitrarily demolished for collective punishment, detains Palestinians for 6 months without being able to see a lawyer or have a trial (and sometimes even for years), confiscates Palestinian property, uses live ammunition against protesters, has checkpoints in which Israeli troops take out their anger on Palestinians, has Israeli settlers have pools while there are water shortages for Palestinian farmers, does not allow them to learn about Palestinian history, etc, etc, etc. (see  https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-2013 and    https://www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/israel-palestine and https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/21/israelpalestine-growing-abuse-west-bank). Having a captive population with no rights and being physically separated from the dominant group with their lives controlled by the dominant group is apartheid.

The West Bank has been reduced to blocs of "Palestinian controlled" bantustans surrounded by Israeli controlled roads and settlements, with Israel reserving the right to do what they wish to the bantustans anytime. 90% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank lives in the 30% under limited "Palestinian control" which is a manifestation of cooping up as many Palestinians as possible in as little land as possible, so that the Jews can have as much land as they can, separated from the Palestinians in their bantustans - separation of ethnicities and the domination of land by one ethnicity with others cooped up in slums is apartheid. Israeli roads and settlements impede Palestinian movement with checkpoints and permits for movement, and thus control the everyday lives of most Palestinians. On top of this, the security wall cuts deep into West Bank, separating families, cutting through farmland, and placing thousands of Palestinians formerly in the West Bank now on the other side of the wall (see http://www.btselem.org/topic/separation_barrier). Israel uses the West Bank as a captive market, selling cheap Israeli products to Palestinians, undercutting local businesses, while restricting Palestinian businesses so that they cannot compete with Israelis. It is economic exploitation and economic imperialism. Now, not only is this apartheid - the physical and legal subordination and domination of Palestinians by Israels - it is also colonialism.

Israel has expanded the definition of "Jerusalem" to include 40% of the West Bank (less than 3% of Municipal "Jerusalem" was actually considered as Jerusalem before the Israeli occupation), reaching the outskirts of Ramallah, so that they can control the heart of the West Bank, and any future Palestinian "state." This expansion was done with the sole purpose of grabbing as much land as possible. Not only that - Israel has transferred 300,000 Jews to the area, and has developed it economically building towns (for Jews only) to draw Jews towards the West Bank and to integrate it, and the West Bank, into Israel-proper, setting the stage for the annexation of the West Bank (see http://www.merip.org/mer/mer216/94-percent-solution).

Israel is now engaged in the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem, as the government gives low funding to Arab neighborhoods to make life so miserable that they leave the area (see Charles Smith's "Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict" and http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/21/uk-palestinian-israel-un-idUKBREA2K1JM20140321)



Response #2
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What Do People Think?
Jimmy Carter: Israel's 'apartheid' policies worse than South Africa's

''' "The simple truth is, if there is one state, it will have to be either binational or undemocratic ... If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state." '''Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in 2010.

 "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.

Last year, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni warned that, without a two-state solution, Israel could turn into an “apartheid state.”

“The Six-Day War was forced upon us; however, the war’s seventh day, which began on June 12, 1967 and has continued to this day, is the product of our choice. We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one – progressive, liberal – in Israel; and the other – cruel, injurious – in the occupied territories.''' In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day'''.”

Michael Ben-Yair – Israel’s Attorney-General, 1993-1996.

“The white Afrikaners, too, had reasons for their segregation policy; they, too, felt threatened — a great evil was at their door, and they were frightened, out to defend themselves. Unfortunately, however, all good reasons for apartheid are bad reasons; apartheid always has a reason, and it never has a justification. And what acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck – it is apartheid. Nor does it even solve the problem of fear: Today, everyone knows that all apartheid will inevitably reach its sorry end.”

Yossi Sarid – Member of the Knesset (1974-2006), Leader of Meretz (1996-2003), Former minister of education and minister of the environment. (“Yes it is apartheid,” by Yossi Sarid, Haaretz, April 25, 2008)

Shulamit Aloni (Israeli Prize laureate and minister of education under Yitzhak Rabin):

"The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practices a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced in, or blocked in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population’s movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians’ land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.

If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land). By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing "Jewish only" roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night--all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.

On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. "Why?" I asked the soldier. "It's an order--this is a Jews-only road", he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. "It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some anti-Semitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?"