I think this is it. An important shift inside the Establishment: Here is Stephen Robert, investment banker and Council on Foreign Relations member and former vice chancellor of Brown University, writing in the Nation in shock and anger about seeing "apartheid on steroids."
I remember when Charney Bromberg came back from Israel and Palestine a year or so back and used the apartheid word at Columbia University. Well, anyone who sees what's going on there has to want to resort to that word. And Terry Gross clubbed Jimmy Carter for using that word, on her radio show; and Ian Lustick withdrew from an event that I attended at the University of Pennsylvania because that word was in the headline of the event. And of course Palestinians have been calling it apartheid for a long time; and myself, I tend to use Jim Crow because it's American and less threatening. Well, kudos to the Nation, they've broken a taboo.
(Robert wants the Obama administration to get the two-state solution now. The question is, What's the chance of that? What's the governing reality of Israel and Palestine, and how much more of this disgusting oppression must people observe before they walk away talking about human rights and democracy?)
But here's Robert:
I’ve made five additional visits to Israel since 1962, the last this summer as part of a humanitarian aid trip to East Jerusalem and the West Bank. As a Jew who has been an ardent supporter of Israel since its independence, it pains me to record what I saw there. But it is my love for Israel and for the Jewish people that drives me to speak out at this treacherous time.
What I witnessed in the West Bank—home to about 2.5 million Palestinians and 400,000 Israeli settlers—exceeded my worst expectations.
While the world’s statesmen have dithered, Israel has created a system of apartheid on steroids, a horrifying prison with concrete walls as high as twenty-six feet, topped with body-ravaging coils of razor wire. Spaced along these walls are imposing guard towers that harbor bunkers from which trespassers can be shot by Israeli soldiers. From this physical segregation—one land for Israelis; another, unequal land for Palestinians—flows a torrent of misery, violence and human rights abuses. The West Bank suffers from acute shortages of water, housing, jobs and healthcare. Palestinian children are separated from their parents, denied access to hospitals and stoned and beaten by Jewish settlers. Human rights sanctioned by international law, including the right to health, the prohibition on transferring populations into occupied territoriesand equality before the law are routinely violated....
How can Jews, who have been persecuted for centuries, tolerate this inhumanity? Where is their moral compass? How can this situation be acceptable to Judaism’s spiritual and political leaders? I don’t have that answer; except to say that Israel’s biggest enemy has become itself.
*********
The Arab Spring should make it abundantly clear that the Jewish state is on the wrong side of history. When, exactly, the tipping point will come is not predictable....
With respect to fairness, the Israelis have done very well. Before the 1947 partition, the Jewish community owned only 6 percent of the land and comprised 35 percent of the population. The UN partition awarded them 55 percent of the land. The Palestinians, who had owned 94 percent of the land, were awarded 45 percent in the partition; Jerusalem was to be put under international supervision. After the 1948 war, however, the armistice line allocated Israel 78 percent of the land. Now many in the international community are advocating a return to those borders (with some land swaps) as a pillar of a peace agreement. Israel should be rejoicing under these terms, since they would receive 78 percent of the land available in 1947. An investment banker much of my adult life, I’d take this deal in a heartbeat.
Fantastic. My hat is off to Stephen Robert and his courage and honesty. He may get “the Goldstone treatment” but in the process he is going to “go down swinging” and encourage many others over to the side of democracy and human rights: Jews and other Americans who have a heart and conscience.
Agreed.
I just sent Robert’s piece out in a email blast to my buddies, some of who might cringe when they first open it. Gotta make some folks uncomfortable, has to be done.
“I tend to use Jim Crow because it’s American and less threatening. ”
Its apartheid in the West Bank, Jim Crow in Israel proper.
Gaza is another story entirely.
No.
Its apartheid in israel. In the West Bank it is much worse.
“apartheid on steroids.” was good description.
Yes Gaza is another story entirely.
The Warsaw Ghetto under the Nazis may be a good description for the situation in Gaza.
I agree with your (and Witty’s) three-part division of horrors.
But, the assignment of particular nasty words to describe the nasty realities (or perceptions) is less important than the three-part division and general descriptions.
You and Witty (and I) are in substantial agreement.
PS: The “heid” in “apartheid”, a dutch word, is pronounced “hate”.
I agree, some words are nasty.
Apartheid, Nazi, Zionism…
You may compare and contrast almost everything in world history, but not in this conflict!
Why?
pabelmont: “I agree with your (and Witty’s) three-part division of horrors.”
Without wishing to put words into Richard Witty’s mouth, when he says “Gaza is another story entirely” I’m not sure he saying it’s the worst. He’s long defended Israel’s attacks on Gaza based on the ‘war crimes” of Hamas.
I don’t use the terms apartheid, Jim Crow, as better/worse, but as descriptive of relationships.
Gaza is neither, maybe an isolated rebellious Bantustan, I don’t know. It just doesn’t fit that pallette.
I don’t use the terms apartheid, Jim Crow, as better/worse, but as descriptive of relationships.
Gaza is neither, maybe an isolated rebellious Bantustan, I don’t know.
The elements constituting the crime of apartheid include:
The “Bantustan policy” consisting of the creation of reserved areas for certain groups. — See the Human Rights Commission, Study Concerning the Question of Apartheid from the Point of View of International Penal Law, E/CN.4/1075, 15 February 1972, pp. 51 – 52.
So, yes by all means, Gaza is an extreme example of the crime of apartheid and the crime of persecution.
LOL! Riiiight, Witty, because the very last place you’d find Bantustans would have been apartheid South Africa. It’s not like the word was, you know, created there for that express purposes to serve the interests of aparheid Praetoria.
You know, I come to this blog for the information, but I keep coming back for the entertainment. It’s like Witty is Tom and the the quality of rudimentary semantics is Jerry.
I usually criticize Richard , but I don’t see much to criticize here. In this subthread he’s used the words “Jim Crow”, “apartheid”, and “bantustans” to describe Israeli interactions with Palestinians. Hostage’s contribution/clarification is welcome as always, but overall I gotta give Richard credit.
“Its apartheid in the West Bank, Jim Crow in Israel proper.”
And it’s entirely Hamas fault! Heh Witty?
(Robert wants the Obama administration to get the two-state solution now. The question is, What’s the chance of that? What’s the governing reality of Israel and Palestine, and how much more of this disgusting oppression must people observe before they walk away talking about human rights and democracy?)
The Israelis are idiots if they think that “When, eventually, stasis gives way to unimaginable change” they won’t be sanctioned out of existence as an independent state and dispossessed of their ill-gotten gains. When that time comes, they’ll predictably keep on caterwauling about their precious right to exist as a polity, but everyone else will simply say good riddance. Jews won’t cease to exist there or anywhere else. It’ll be just like the collapse of apartheid in South Africa.
The Zionists are anything but idiots. They’ve dogged every bullet since 1934. None of them ended up in the camps or Warsaw and now they’re a nuclear power with the means to deliver it anywhere, German Dolphins no less. Without any reservations. They truly believe their own propaganda. It is highly unlikely that the SA scenario is relevant. Dream on.
Hej!
this is a really good article. perfect for sending to relatives because the opening paragraph makes clear he’s got solid bona fides within the jewish community (a governor of the American Jewish Committee, which is dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, and a founding director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.)
it’s ends well too. last line: “Many believe there is an international campaign to de-legitimize the Jewish state. At this point Israel is de-legitimizing itself.”
the only bummer is that we’re not reading this is the nyt or wapo..but it’s a start. from the middle (for those too lazy to open the link)
who you calling lazy?
hahaha
;)
not you dan!
Will Mr. Robert call (preferably in NYT, of course) for removal of all settlers and dismantlement of all settlements? Including in occupied East Jerusalem? This is key. IMHO no peace proposal which fails to START with this demand is really looking to a solution of the mess. A return to international law is the proper starting point for a true “peace” process. Israel may be and may be allowed to be “exceptional” in many ways, but not in being beyond the reach of international law.
Israel cannot return to the fold of law-abiding nations (as it promised when it applied for UN membership and accepted the UN Charter’s rule that acquisition of territory by the use or threat of force is illegitimate), except by removing every trace of the settlement project. Today, the 550,000 or so settlers constitute 10% of the Israeli population. Things got to this “pretty point” by near universal refusal by the nations to perform their obligations to “ensure respect” for the Fourth Geneva Convention “under all circumstances”.
“since they would receive 78 percent of the land available in 1947. An investment banker much of my adult life, I’d take this deal in a heartbeat.”
Illustrates a fundamental confusion .
There was no land “available in 1947. Partition concerned itself with sovereignty, not ownership.
I suggest Stephen Robert would certainly not take any deal that sent he and his family down the road with just the clothes on their back “in a heartbeat.” Heart attack maybe.
There was no land “available in 1947. Partition concerned itself with sovereignty, not ownership.
Not quite. The grant of sovereignty inherently included jurisdiction over all of the lands in the public domain. By 1947 the British had only completed a cadastral survey of Palestine covering about 20 percent of the 26,300 square kilometers of Palestine’s total land area. See Dov Gavish and Ruth Kark, The Cadastral Mapping of Palestine, 1858–1928. Much of the remainder was not privately owned.
Many of the Sultan’s large private estates were cultivated by tenured Arab tenants under a system of usufruct and tax farming similar in some respects to the one described in Genesis 41:41-57. Robert Eisenman explains that the British extended the concept of “State Domain” by defining a new category of “Public Lands” in the Palestine Order in Council of 1922 which was subject to control of the Palestine Government “by virtue of treaty, convention, agreement, or succession, and all lands acquired for public benefit or otherwise.” He observes in a footnote that Article 60 of the Treaty of Lausanne vested all property and possessions of the Ottoman Empire in the governments of the relevant “successor states” and mentions that this was specifically applied in “Palestine” by the ordinances of 1925-6. See “Islamic law in Palestine and Israel: a history of the survival of Tanzimat and Sharî’a in the British Mandate and the Jewish state, Robert H. Eisenman, Brill, 1978, ISBN 9004057307, page 139
Oren Yiftachel has written extensively on the exclusion of Arab citizens from State-owned space in Israel proper, while the Goldstone mission report noted that
So we are discussing an institutionalized state-run system of discriminatory and segregated development, aka apartheid, on both sides of the Green Line.
Much of the so-called “public ” land was Waqf – specifically protected under all the colonial documents. The complex Ottoman land tenure system had many other forms – Musha’, Jiftlik. Matruka, Mawat. Miri, Mulk, Waqf. The Zionists claimed anything that was not Mulk – owned in fee simple.
Thanks for the link to Yiftachel. I shall read with interest.
Much of the so-called “public ” land was Waqf
True enough, but I was describing the Sultan’s private estates and the usufruct tax farming system. In many cases the tax collectors are mistakenly called absentee landlords, but they had no rights in the estates, only in their incomes. Many of those properties ended-up on the Ottoman civil lists, but they were always occupied by Arab cultivators with legally recognized rights acquired through tenure. So there was little, if any, “state land” available for close settlement by Jews in accordance with Article 6 of the Mandate. To complicate matters various heirs of the Sultan kept a cloud over the titles until the end of the mandate era and tried to recover the lands through a long-running series of lawsuits.
The former Attorney General of Palestine, Norman Bentwich, published an article in the British Yearbook of International Law in 1946. Bentwich explained that the Courts of Palestine had just decided that title to the properties shown on the Ottoman Civil list had been ceded to the government of Palestine as an ”allied successor state” and that the Treaty of Lausanne could not be legally challenged in the Courts of Palestine. The article is available online, See Professor N. Bentwich, “State Succession and Act of State in the Palestine Courts”, XXIII British Year Book Of International Law, 1946, pages 330-333. link to archive.org
Thank you Hostage. I had thought I was a lone voice on this fascinating aspect. You have brought out some important research I was not aware of, for which I am most grateful. I wish more scholars would take an interest.
I read once that around 70% of the Ottoman Empire was Waqf but I have never been able to trace the reference again.
I am interested in this from another point of view – interesting alternatives to the Western capitalist system which I am beginning to detect within political Islam. I shall try to make time to review your comments archive here on MW. I’m a bit pressed by other concerns at the moment but I hope we can take up this conversation at a later date.
thanks for Yiftachel. what a wealth of info. i’m reading about ethnicities and homeland on his ‘Re-engaging Planning Theory’ right now.
RE: “Robert wants the Obama administration to get the two-state solution now. The question is, What’s the chance of that” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Less than nil. In point of fact, the Obama administration is even determined to prevent the Europeans from trying to achieve a two-state solution. Go figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure! And figure!…[ad nauseam]
SEE: New European proposal on Mideast peace, By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 03/25/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to americantaskforce.org
P.S. ALSO SEE: A false friend in the White House, By Stephen Walt, 02/20/11 – link to walt.foreignpolicy.com
RE: “Israel has created a system of apartheid on steroids” ~ Stephen Robert
FRIENDLY WARNING FOR MR. ROBERT: Get ready for the most g_d-awful “sh*t storm” of your life! Harvard’s Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Alan Dershowitz, is already working on his diatribe/screed and loading it up with the ugliest ‘trash talk’ (character assassination) you’ve ever heard in your life!
You might want to go ahead and commiserate with Justice Richard Goldstone.
I hate to say this but the zionist/Israelis because of the zionist leadership and control will not change.
I don’t like to be cynical but they will not.
At this point the only thing on earth that will marginalize them into not being a threat to others is a painful defeat of some kind.
They are too far gone to be appealed to on standards of morality or justice or compassion or even law.
Does anyone think the US zionist like Hoyer and the others don’t know exactly what Israel is doing and how they are slo-mo genociding Palestines?
They know. They can’t not know. They have participated in it and enabled it for decades.
And they are doing everything possible to make sure the US allows Israel to keep doing it until Palestine and it’s people literally don’t exist any longer.
One of my biggest sources of frustration is that all the good people, like those here who are active in trying to stop this injustice, truly believe that if enough people make moral appeals to those who have the power to stop it they will eventually stop it.
It just won’t happen that way. The people you are up against, the ones that keep it going and you want to somehow convince what they are doing is wrong have no consciences.
They are monsters.
While I agree with RObert, I wish there were more critical voices of his view here. It seems that this blog is preaching to the convinced, not dialoguing.
Dialogue seems to require rational arguments, presented with a reasonable degree of patience and calm, on two sides of a debate. We don’t lack for pro-Israel contributors here, usually writing a style so angry and brutal that my eye has come to skip over them. If there is a rational reply to Robert, presenting a philosophical case for justifying the existing situation or for denying that it gives people a different status according to their ancestry, or presenting a view of the facts that undo the impression, given by Robert, of day to day cruelty and contempt reaching quite an extreme point, please expound it.
I would like to ask Robert why he thinks ‘apartheid on steroids’ deserves to be replaced by a 2ss. The classic 2ss, together I would think with any 2ss worth the name, embodies – on his own showing, surely – enormous unfairness in itself.
“How can Jews, who have been persecuted for centuries, tolerate this inhumanity? Where is their moral compass? How can this situation be acceptable to Judaism’s spiritual and political leaders? I don’t have that answer…”
Does anyone have the answer?
rjcrawford33, like me you’re new to posting here, but have perhaps been a reader for some time, as I have.
The dialogue you may envision is in most cases an unreal dream. It is seldom what brings the sea change necessary to move from one perception to another, or one agenda to another.
Take a look at some recent articles, you’ll find enough “critical voices of this view” here to see how they fare with Hostage and a few others who are expert at exposing their arguments, rationale and motives. No change however, is seen in any of those engaging in such dialogue, whether of the critical or the convinced.
We come to our view, or to changing our view, for other more personal reasons. We become what we think, about ourselves and about others. But what changes is the person, not the intellect, because any change is a discovery of an until then unrecognized reality, which involves the emotions and the decision-making.
That reality will be either in us or in a situation; often in both. It is a light-bulb experience, even if that takes place over time.