A few years ago Terry Gross of Fresh Air attacked Jimmy Carter for using the word “apartheid” to describe the situation in the Occupied Territories. How will she reckon with Shlomo Gazit? How many Americans and American Jews will even contend with a retired Major General in the IDF, a past head of the intelligence service and one of the Israeli negotiators at Oslo, when he says “The legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime.” Of course it’s in Haaretz, not in the American press.
Update: Gazit will be in the U.S. on Monday, speaking at the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Longer quote:
Today I consider the continuation of our occupation rule in Judea and Samaria an existential danger. As I see it, this situation is threatening the main achievement to which I contributed 70 years ago: the establishment of a sovereign and democratic Jewish state. If we don’t separate as soon as possible from the Palestinian population on the ground, Jewish and democratic Israel will be unable to survive.
A few years ago I became a member of the public council of Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights. I can’t influence Israel’s diplomatic decisions, but I saw it as my duty to contribute to upholding the law in the occupied under our control. I believe that the Israeli government, the Knesset and the vast majority of the people want the law to be enforced in the area east of the Green Line, just as they want it to be enforced to the west of it. But in the present situation, unfortunately, there is no equal treatment for Jews and Arabs when it comes to law enforcement. The legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime.
