The LA Times is running point/counterpoint on whether Israel is an apartheid state or not. Author and scholar Saree Makdisi says it is. Former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren says it is not.
Oren states that Palestinians and Jews “choose to live apart” from one another and that to attempt to brand the “complex” historical situation in the West Bank as apartheid is an effort to delegitimize Jews that is reminiscent of the Holocaust.
They choose?
The vast majority of settlers and Palestinians choose to live apart because of cultural and historical differences, not segregation, though thousands of them do work side by side. The separate roads were created in response to terrorist attacks — not to segregate Palestinians but to save Jewish lives. And Israeli roads are used by Israeli Jews and Arabs alike…
The complex historical part:
The West Bank represents a complex historical, humanitarian and security situation that six Israeli prime ministers from both the left and right have tried to resolve. Unfortunately, Palestinian leaders turned down Israeli offers of statehood in 2000 and 2008, and have now abandoned peace talks in favor of reunification with Hamas. They aspire to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza from which all Jews have been expelled. That is truly apartheid…
The Holocaust bit:
We Jews remember how each attempt to obliterate us, whether in the Inquisition or during the Holocaust, was preceded by a campaign to delegitimize us. People who practice apartheid are easily considered illegitimate.
Scott Roth notes that Oren’s argument about people choosing to live apart deserves a place in the “Hall of Fame of Galactic Mendacity.”
And recall that Saul Friedlander said that when rightwing Jews are using the Nazi analogy all the time, why should leftwingers be barred from stating that Israel reminds them of Nazi Germany?
But let’s go to Makdisi’s piece. It is far more specific and concrete about the different laws and conditions for Palestinians and Jews. And the UCLA professor and author begins with my favorite example, the bar on intermarriage.
It is not legally possible in Israel for a Jewish citizen to marry a non-Jewish citizen. And a web of laws, regulations and military orders governing what kind of people can live in which particular spaces makes mixed marriages within the occupied territories, or across the pre-1967 border between Israel and the occupied territories, all but impossible.
And so it goes in all domains of life, from birth to death: a systematic, vigilantly policed separation of the two populations and utter contempt for the principle of equality. One group — stripped of property and rights, expelled, humiliated, punished, demolished, imprisoned and at times driven to the edge of starvation (down to the meticulously calculated last calorie) — has withered. The other group — its freedom of movement and of development not merely unrestricted but actively encouraged — has flourished, and its religious and cultural symbols adorn the regalia of the state and are emblazoned on the state flag.
The question is not whether the term “apartheid” applies here. It is why it should cause such an outcry when it is used.
Michael Oren is vile. Since he turned traitor to the US, have he been kicked out, yet?
‘Oren states that Palestinians and Jews “choose to live apart” from one another and that to attempt to brand the “complex” historical situation in the West Bank as apartheid is an effort to delegitimize Jews that is reminiscent of the Holocaust’ >>>
There is nothing ‘complex’ about it.
The Jews stole their land and ran off the Palestines…they are still killing them and stealing their land.
Whether there is some kind of karma waiting for Isr for this remains to be seen.
Good for the LA Times.
Perhaps in (possibly almost) water starved LA, the news that Israel limits the water that Palestinians can use in the occupied West Bank will make more sense than hasbaristas can deal with.
Come to that, how about LA (and USA) sympathy for the starved Gazans (If You Like To Eat, You Should Really Be Worried About California’s Drought).
Oren’s Orwellian rhetoric borders on the insane …
One could expect more profound soul-searching from an Ostrich, especially after watching the video of the Palestinian teens that were killed in cold blood this week by the IDF.
This is yet another poster-child of the Israeli leadership today…
Sadistic and unable to look objectively in the mirror.
And yet another reason why , as a Jew myself, I am deeply embarrassed.
PS: This is not Philip
>> … each attempt to obliterate us … was preceded by a campaign to delegitimize us.
Hmmm…”Jewish State” and Zio-supremacists have been de-legitimizing Palestinians for over 60 years. Ethnic cleansing has already happened (it is currently “not necessary”), so obliteration can’t be too far off.