 Israel
and the
charge of Apartheid
- Guest commentary by Malcolm
Hedding
Day
by day the anti-Israel alliance, and
sadly in collaboration with major church movements mainly from the
Protestant
world, is seeking to make the Apartheid label stick to Israel. We see
this at
present in the fortnight of global agitation known as “Israel Apartheid
Week.”
There is more to this scheming than meets the eye in that the real
agenda
behind branding Israel an “Apartheid state” is to remove the Jewish
State
altogether.
The
real Apartheid State of South Africa was
rightfully dismantled in the late 1980s and early 90s. It was first
discredited, then delegitimized and finally dismantled to the elation
of the
world and the enslaved black majority who had lived under and endured
its
brutality. However, to describe Israel in these terms is, quite
frankly,
immoral and wicked. Yet on university campuses across the Western
World, this
is becoming a very popular cause.
Radical
leftist academics and politicians are
teaming up with extremist Muslim elements to pursue this goal. They
want to
equate Israel with the original Apartheid State and thus demand that
the world
do as it did to South Africa – dismantle it! Most of these people know
absolutely nothing about Apartheid, but the word is extremely powerful
since it
conjures up notions of hatred, discrimination, brutality, racism and
prejudice.
It
is quite astonishing to witness how a lie
told often enough can eventually be accepted as truth! Most of these
people
have no knowledge of the “inner workings” of the Apartheid regime and
couldn’t
even tell you the basic facts about it. It is just a very powerful
weapon to
use when discharging their hatred of Israel.
 Essentially,
Apartheid was a totalitarian system of governance – not unlike many of
the
regimes in the Arab world today – whereby a minority white population
subjugated and enslaved the overwhelmingly black population. It was
ideologically driven and was obsessed with racial superiority. The
superior
whites could not mingle with or even sit on a bench with the inferior
black
peoples. Even the education system was “dumbed down” for black people
because
they were deemed mentally inferior and unable to cope with the higher
levels of
learning that whites could embrace.
 The
towns and
cities were “white by night” as all “blacks” – as they were called –
had to be
removed to their shanty towns, which served as cheap labour ghettos for
the
nation. The black people could not vote, own property or even move
freely
inside their own country.
Various
instruments of state were used to
ruthlessly apply the system of total and complete segregation and these
included the police, the military and the judiciary system. In short,
it was
Aryanism in a new form!
There
is absolutely nothing equivalent to
this in the dispute that rages between the Palestinians and Israel
today. Within
Israel itself, Arabs and Jews share the same shopping malls, benches,
hospitals, theatres and, in many cases, suburbs. The educational
institutions
do not have a deliberately “dumbed down” Arab curriculum and the
privilege of
voting is given to all. The Israeli Knesset has Arab members of
parliament, and
Jews, Arabs and Palestinians often work together at construction sites,
businesses, hotels and elsewhere. Most important of all is the fact
that Israel
is a democratic state. Though not a perfect one, it does have
democratic
institutions and it is definitely not governed by a totalitarian
minority!
Out
in the disputed territories, some 98% of
the Palestinian Arab population now lives under the governance of their
own
Palestinian Authority, where they have the right to vote and change
their
leaders – at least theoretically. True, Israel has adopted security
measures
that curtail their movement, but these have been necessitated by the
conflict
thrust upon her and are legitimate acts of self-defense, rather than
acts of
racial discrimination.
It
is also important to remember that there
never had been a Palestinian State in the region, as even Jews were
called and
registered as “Palestinians” in 1948! British authorities held a
Mandate over
the country and accepted the right of Jews to have a state of their own
in what
was their ancient homeland. Even the United Nations accepted and voted
for this
right. When Israel implemented this decision by declaring its
existence, she
was immediately attacked by no less than five Arab armies!
This
brings into focus the real nature of
this conflict. That is, it has very little to do with politics or peace
agreements but everything to do with theology! By this I mean a radical
jihadist theology that considers the whole Land of Israel and not just
the West
Bank as part of the “House of Islam.”
This
theology dictates that all this land
must be returned to Islamic rule, whether by peaceful, political or
violent
means of jihad. So from 1948 to 1967, when the Palestinians had
everything they
say they want now, they neither protested against the illegal Jordanian
occupation of the West Bank nor even remotely demanded a state of their
own.
They did, however, found the PLO in 1964 with the distinct mission of
destroying the State of Israel. They subsequently launched a terror
campaign to
force this end and throughout the Oslo era refused to remove the
infamous
clauses from their Charter calling for the “elimination” of Israel!
The
same jihadist theology drives Hamas and
its affiliated militia al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades, as well as Hizbullah,
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and all the rest of the
“resistance”
front.
This
has absolutely nothing to do with
Apartheid! The state of Israel enjoys a Jewish majority. It is
democracy which
must answer to its citizens and thus has demonstrated a willingness to
make
painful concessions in order to secure a future of peace with its
neighbors. In
all cases, it
alone paid the real price by giving up land. It even withdrew
from Gaza to demonstrate its sinceri ty in seeking a peaceful
resolution to the
conflict with the Palestinians. The trauma that this withdrawal brought
to the
people of Gaza and to Israel was played out for the entire world to see
through
the international media. Yet it was not good enough! So, the result was
the,
“same old, same old”. That is, within a short span of time thousands of
missiles, fired from the vacated territory, rained down on Israeli
civilians in
the western Negev. The world said and did very little, except to call
Israel an
“apartheid state”!
 Over
the years,
and even in response to Israel’s most generous peace overtures during
the Oslo
era, the Palestinians have opted for violence. This they called an
“intifada.” Wave
upon wave of suicide bombers attacked Israel from the porous boundaries
surrounding the West Bank. Men, women and children were
indiscriminately
murdered in buses, restaurants, hotels and shopping malls. To protect
herself
from these murderous infiltrations, Israel built a security barrier,
which in
some of the more vulnerable built-up areas consisted of a wa ll. It was
not
built to segregate people or discriminate against them, but to protect
its own
citizens from attack. In this connection, the security fence has been
highly
successful though even Israelis admit it is regrettable. But what would
any
other self-respecting, democratic state do? Nevertheless, Israel’s
detractors
love to deride the “Apartheid Wall” to further their accusation.
To
presume, after all that Israel has been
through in her sixty-two years of modern statehood, that the Jewish
State has
no legitimate security concerns is madness. The Palestinians have time
and
again demonstrated that their strategy has not changed since 1964. In
Johannesburg
in 1994, a year after shaking the hand of Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin
on the
White House lawn, PLO chief Yasser Arafat declared as much. Close
monitors of
the Palestinian media have also repeatedly drawn attention to this
fact. The
liberal left and their fellow travelers conveniently ignore this fact.
No sir,
Apartheid is not the issue; the destruction of Israel is.
Just
recently, the Syrian-based leader of
Hamas stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ahmadinejad and together they
boasted
that very soon Israel, in its entirety, would vanish from the map of
the world.
Theirs is a holy war but for the liberal left it is Apartheid, and the
truth is
their radical positions have made them allies!
These
same radical leftists espouse democracy
but in practice they deny it. They will not allow Israeli academics,
leaders or
politicians to exercise their democratic right to free speech. Their
intolerance knows no boundaries as they threaten and disrupt meetings
in
educational institutions in Western countries that supposedly are there
to
educate within the context of democratic values. This is exactly what
the
Apartheid thugs of the South African regime did. They violently brought
public
meetings to an end if anyone opposed their view of the world. They were
scared
to death that someone might just have a more truthful and compelling
argument
than theirs. The democratic rights they claim for themselves, they deny
to
others.
For
sure, the Palestinians have suffered and
still do but to place the blame entirely at Israel’s door is folly.
Their
failed and corrupt leadership, missed opportunities, and willingness to
support
violence and terror are also central
causes of their suffering. Israel is no Apartheid state.
She is a democratic state living under the constant threat of
annihilation and
thus seeking to balance her need to find a lasting peace with her
neighbors
with that of her security. Her regional experience has taught Israel
that her
security and very existence is the number one issue. After all, in all
the so-called
peace plans presented for the region, she is expected to do all the
giving with
only verbal guarantees of security given by her interlocutors. These
have never
amounted to much!
The
truth is the Apartheid accusation is just
another smokescreen in the war against Israel! I should know because I
grew up
in the dark Apartheid era of South Africa and stood against it to my
peril.
_______________________________________________________________________
As
a young minister in South Africa, Rev. Malcolm
Hedding participated in the struggle against Apartheid in the 1980s and
was
threatened with detention without trial by the infamous Bureau of State
Security. Today, he is the Executive Director of the International
Christian
Embassy Jerusalem; www.icej.org/
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