If Israel’s Occupation Is Permanent, Why Isn’t It the Same as Apartheid?

[Little Tich]

Source: The Forward, by Jay Michaelson

Apartheid. The word is thrown around on the left-wing side of Israel-Palestine politics these days, and often it seems intended to provoke outrage, not reflection. And indeed, that’s exactly what it does on the right.

But with the news on August 22 that only 58% of Israelis still support a two-state solution (and that’s counting those who support it in principle but not in practice), it might be worth taking a closer look.

Because I’m not clear how a one-state, Jewish-control solution isn’t apartheid.

Before apartheid was a slur, it was a policy — in South Africa, of course, from 1948 to 1994. And there are salient similarities and differences between it and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. For now.

Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/348267/if-israels-occupation-is-permanent-why-isnt-it-the-same-as-apartheid/

[Little Tich]

1. The OP continued:

The most important difference between the occupation and apartheid is duration. For two-state Zionists, the status quo in the West Bank is temporary, and thus cannot be truly analogized to apartheid, which was intended to be permanent. (Of course, the occupation has now lasted 49 years, beginning to approach the 66 years of apartheid.) The occupation is unjust, but it is meant to come to an end once both sides’ concerns about security, borders, autonomy, water, justice and so on are addressed. And of course, as to why that hasn’t happened, there’s blame enough to go around on all sides.

But for the 42% of Israelis who no longer believe in two states, the status quo must be regarded as the permanent status (omitting the even more shocking “policy” of population transfer, aka ethnic cleansing). Thus we must ask anew what, if anything, differentiates the occupation from apartheid.

Like the current system in Israel, apartheid regarded black South Africans as citizens not of South Africa proper, but of “Bantustans,” 10 homelands scattered across South African territory. Since blacks were citizens of these Bantustans, they didn’t vote in South African elections. There were heavy restrictions on movement and land ownership. And the nominal autonomy of these Bantustans couldn’t disguise the brutal disenfranchisement and segregation that they represented.

These aspects are not so different from life under permanent occupation. Nominal citizenship in another country — indeed, one recognized by the United Nations — but a country without some of the most basic components of statehood, like territorial integrity, self-defense and free movement. Even within nominally autonomous “Palestine,” ultimately the Israeli military holds sovereignty. It can go wherever it wants, regulate travel, allocate resources. While Palestine governs itself from day to day, in cases of conflict the Israeli military holds nearly all the power even in areas of supposed Palestinian autonomy — let alone the vast swaths of the West Bank under full Israeli control.

[DetlefK]

2. Because the Palestinians in the occupied territory aren't officially israeli citizens.

For all intents and purposes they are under Israel's rule, but it doesn't count because Israel says that they aren't under Israel's rule.

[Glamrock]

3. That's what I call it..

[shira]

4. Silly article. The Palestinians could've agreed to their own state many times over the decades....

According to this article, they could keep saying 'NO' to their own state for several more decades, the occupation will then be perceived as "permanent", and Israel will be blamed for 'Apartheid'.

Ridiculous.

In addition, being against 2 states doesn't mean apartheid if those against 2 states.....

a) Want one Jewish state by granting all Palestinians in the W.Bank citizenship.
b) Want a unilateral withdrawal from the W.Bank while annexing most or all of area C.
c) Want to cut a deal with Jordan so that Jordan takes most or all of the W.Bank.

[Little Tich]

5. So would it be more correct to call it a temporary state of Apartheid that has existed for almost 50

and will stay temporary indefinitely, perhaps for a few more generations?

It doesn't matter what the cause for Apartheid is, or how temporary it's supposed to be. Apartheid is Apartheid.

[shira]

7. It's not Apartheid. We've been over this but you're pretending we didn't. n/t

[Little Tich]

10. Let's look at the validity of the Apartheid analogy one more time just for the fun of it:

Israel and the apartheid analogy
Source: Wikipedia
(snip)

Analysis by international legal team
In 2009, a comprehensive 18-month independent academic study was completed for the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa for the South African Department of Foreign Affairs on the legal status of Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[62] The specific questions examined in the study were whether Israeli policies are consistent with colonialism and apartheid, as these practices and regimes are spelled out in relevant international legal instruments. The second question, regarding apartheid, was the major focus of the study. Authors and analysts contributing to the study included jurists, academics and international lawyers from Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, South Africa, England, Ireland and the United States. The team considered whether human rights law can be applied to cases of belligerent occupation, the legal context in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and related international law and comparative practices. The question of apartheid was examined through a dual approach: reference to international law and comparison to policies and practices by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Initially released as a report, the report was later edited and published in 2012 (by Pluto Press) as Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Regarding international law, the team reported that Israel's practices in the OPT correlate almost entirely with the definition of apartheid as established in Article 2 of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. (The exception was the Convention's reference to genocidal policies, which were not found to be part of Israeli practices, although the team noted that genocide was not the policy in apartheid South Africa either.) Comparison to South African laws and practices by the apartheid regime also found strong correlations with Israeli practices, including violations of international standards for due process (such as illegal detention); discriminatory privileges based on ascribed ethnicity (legally, as Jewish or non-Jewish); draconian enforced ethnic segregation in all parts of life, including by confining groups to ethnic "reserves and ghettoes"; comprehensive restrictions on individual freedoms, such as movement and expression; a dual legal system based on ethno-national identity (Jewish or Palestinian); denationalization (denial of citizenship); and a special system of laws designed selectively to punish any Palestinian resistance to the system.

Thematically, the team concluded that Israel's practices could be grouped into three "pillars" of apartheid comparable to practices in South Africa:

The first pillar "derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews".

The second pillar is reflected in "Israel's 'grand' policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel's extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians".

The third pillar is "Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group."

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy#Analysis_by_international_legal_team

[shira]

11. A pseudo-academic study written by 1-state advocates, not neutral academics.

Yawn.

The whole pseudo-academic report is based on John Dugard's claims of Apartheid. The problem is Dugard is an outright antisemite. Dugard supports Hamas terror as legit resistance. Here's more Dugard:

Dugard says in the report that "common sense . . . dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by Al Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid, or military occupation."

No surprise that all BDS sources inevitably (like all stupid rightwingers) blow their cover by acknowledging their support of Hamas "freedom fighters". This is neo-fascism no different than the Nazi goal of murdering Jews in masses. Same shit, different century. It'd be real nice if you could ever once quote from BDS'ers who don't support Jew hating psychopaths like Hamas.

Virginia Tilley lead the study, but Tilley is yet another BDS supporting, 1-state drone who wrote a book on that prior to this study. Not a neutral academic by any means, but neither are any of the other idiotic contributors to this mess.

====================================

As I've written to you previously - and to which you have no reply.....

Israeli Arabs also live, work, study, and/or serve for the IDF in the West Bank. And yet they are not being discriminated against, even though they are of the same race, ethnicity, religion as Palestinians in the W.Bank. There's no "Apartheid" against these Israeli Arabs in the W.Bank. Hmm, go figure...

Your garbage sources don't have an answer to that one, which is simple actually. West Bank Palestinians are not citizens of Israel. The conflict is based on competing nationalities, not racial hatred or ethnicity.

[Little Tich]

12. Oh, what the heck - here's another from Human Rights Watch:

Israel/West Bank: Separate and Unequal
Source: Human Rights Watch, DECEMBER 19, 2010

Under Discriminatory Policies, Settlers Flourish, Palestinians Suffer
(Jerusalem) - Israeli policies in the West Bank harshly discriminate against Palestinian residents, depriving them of basic necessities while providing lavish amenities for Jewish settlements, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report identifies discriminatory practices that have no legitimate security or other justification and calls on Israel, in addition to abiding by its international legal obligation to withdraw the settlements, to end these violations of Palestinians' rights.

The 166-page report, "Separate and Unequal: Israel's Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations of the West Bank in the large areas where it exercises exclusive control. The report is based on case studies comparing Israel's starkly different treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in these areas. It calls on the US and EU member states and on businesses with operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate international law.

"Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benefits," said Carroll Bogert, deputy executive director for external relations at Human Rights Watch. "While Israeli settlements flourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp - not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes."

By making their communities virtually uninhabitable, Israel's discriminatory policies have frequently had the effect of forcing residents to leave their communities, Human Rights Watch said. According to a June 2009 survey of households in "Area C," the area covering 60 percent of the West Bank that is under exclusive Israeli control, and East Jerusalem, which Israel unilaterally annexed, some 31 percent of Palestinian residents had been displaced since 2000.

Human Rights Watch looked at both Area C and East Jerusalem and found that the two-tier system in effect in both areas provides generous financial benefits and infrastructure support to promote life in Jewish settlements, while deliberately withholding basic services, punishing growth, and imposing harsh conditions on Palestinian communities. Such different treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin that is not narrowly tailored to legitimate goals violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law.

Read more: https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/12/19/israel/west-bank-separate-and-unequal



Separate and Unequal
Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
source: Human Rights Watch, DECEMBER 19, 2010

I. Summary
This report consists of a series of case studies that compare Israel’s different treatment of Jewish settlements to nearby Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians. The report highlights Israeli practices the only discernable purposes of which appear to be promoting life in the settlements while in many instances stifling growth in Palestinian communities and even forcibly displacing Palestinian residents. Such different treatment, on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin and not narrowly tailored to meet security or other justifiable goals, violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law.

Read more: http://www.hrw.org/node/95061

I think the situation in Israel is outside the scope of this OP, but there are like 40-something discriminatory laws we haven't discussed yet. Let's have a look at those laws at some other time...

[shira]

13. And yet, HRW doesn't call it Apartheid. Go figure... n/t

[Little Tich]

14. They're just describing the "separate but unequal" political "two tier system" that discriminates

against Palestinians "merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin".

If it's not Apartheid they're describing, then what is it?

[shira]

17. You should ask HRW why they refrain from using the term 'Apartheid'.

I'm sure they know what 'Apartheid' means and why they've avoided the term altogether for decades.

[oberliner]

6. Because all Israeli citizens have the same rights regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity

That includes over one and a half million Palestinian citizens of Israel.

A one-state solution is not a solution. It is something only extremists support (both right and left).

[Little Tich]

9. The OP is about the West Bank, not Israel. n/t

[oberliner]

15. No it's not

It's about a one-state solution.

[Little Tich]

16. Are you using the Chewbacca defense? n/t

[ericson00]

18. because an occupation between belligerent parties

is very different than an entity which claims absolute sovereignty over an area (which Israel does not w/respect to the West Bank) limiting its peoples' rights based on race.

Israel has never EVER said the occupation is permanent, nor have their actions. Hence why they went with Oslo and still abide by it, which the Palestinians don't.