The ‘Arabwashers’ of apartheid

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”  Steven Biko

2010 demolition at Al-Araqib in Negev, from Electronic Intifada, by Joseph Dana

As in South Africa during Apartheid, where the white regime used some black collaborators to “blackwash” Apartheid, Israel is doing the same.

Israel, which never adheres to International law or UN resolutions, seems to be worried about “Israel Apartheid Week” (IAW), and it has all the reason to. Eight years ago, “Israel Apartheid Week” started in four campuses in Canada. This year it took place in more than 100 campuses around the world. The BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is gaining momentum, growth and significant milestones.

This year, the Israeli Hasbara (propaganda machinery) sent to the world a 100 students’ delegation, to counter the IAW. They are trained, armed with arguments and marketing skills, and their task is to protect the “image” of Israel as a “democracy”. At least two members of this delegation are Arab women, citizens of Israel, Bushra Khalaileh, from Deir Hana, a village in the north. and Ranin Khouri, from Nazareth. One Muslim, one Christian. The Muslim was sent to South Africa, the Christian, to Europe.

Khalaileh said to Maariv news website that she “as Arab Israeli, loves her state and believes it seeks peace and it respects all of its citizens”. Her status, as an Arab woman in Israel is much better than the status of other Arab women in other countries, she says. That is, in fact, typical of Israeli propaganda: exploiting women’s right to whitewash the racial discrimination. She, like her masters, avoids the real and relevant comparison that needs to be done: and that is with Jewish women within her own state. Maybe Mrs. Khalaileh doesn’t know well the struggle of Palestinian women for decades within their community and within the state. Maybe she never compared Palestinian women’s unemployment vs. Jewish women’s, or compared salaries, or development, or security of women. As long as Khalaileh repeats her oppressors’ mantra, who cares!

Ranin Khouri, who was also part of Israeli delegation to New York last September to fight the Palestinian UN bid, was sent this time to European countries, to defend Israel.

I hope when they come back, they would pay a visit to Alaraqib village, in the Naqab, which was demolished for the 36th time the other day. On the way, they can visit the 47 families of Palestinian citizens who were killed here in Israel since the year 2000 by Israeli security forces. In only two cases the shooter was convicted. Maybe they can convince those families and the residents of Alaraqib, that they live in the most democratic state ever!

Khouri and Khalaileh are no better than Arab citizens who serve in the Israeli army and take part in the oppression of their own people, and no better than those who are members of Zionist parties who are the perpetrators of Israeli colonialism, Apartheid and racism. Every society has those who internalize the mentality of the oppressed and behave as inferiors, who should be thankful to their oppressors.

Those do not represent the vast majority of the Palestinians inside Israel. I hope people who listen to them understand that complicity with the oppression is an outcome of the oppression.

This post first appeared on Abir Kopty’s site last week.