Anthony Fauci has been awarded a $1 million Israeli prize to be given in May. Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council doubts he would have been an apologist for South African apartheid. “We urge you to decline the prize and to respect the call for a cultural boycott of Israeli institutions. This call was issued by Palestinians who are most affected by Israeli policy.”
Many seem to see Netanyahu as an illiberal, corrupt, anti-democratic leader. But we must also see, that he is part of a regime that itself is illiberal, corrupt and anti-democratic. It’s always been the case. Who is the new hope? Gideon Sa’ar who is even to the right of Netanyahu? Naftali Bennett who is even to the right of Sa’ar? Or Yair Lapid, who is to their left, alas with the “principle” which says “maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians”?
Tom Friedman says that Israel and the US are in the same boat, trying to build “pluralistic.. idealistic” societies. This is a rhetorical strategy to suppress the apartheid charge against Israel from a leading human rights group. And Friedman has freely acknowledged that his job entails promoting Israel. “Israel had me at hello,” he has said.
Racist violence is not natural or everlasting. Last year, millions took to the streets around the world to protest systematic racism and inequality. Israeli Apartheid Week seeks to continue that effort to rebuild our society from the ground up.
The two elections in Israel and Palestine this spring are meaningless because they only reinforce an unequal structure in which Jewish nationalists contend on one side, Israel, and dictate the terms of the election to the subject population in occupied Palestine. And that’s the news. There’s no news under the burning sun of the Apartheid state.
The immediate and urgent task is to move international solidarity for Palestine beyond the grassroots and implement the S section of the BDS call — sanctions against apartheid Israel until it complies with international law.
Palestinians are wondering why, after seven weeks, the New York Times hasn’t published a single word on B’Tselem’s landmark “apartheid” report.
Across the international community there is a growing awareness that what has been happening on the ground in Israel-Palestine is morally unacceptable. Palestinian leadership must respond by presenting an alternative vision that rejects ethnic domination in favor of justice and equality for all who live between the river and the sea.
Fifty-two percent of Middle East scholars say the two-state solution is no longer possible. Fifty-nine percent say the current reality is “akin to apartheid.” The survey of nearly 1300 scholars reflects a mounting recognition of apartheid, echoed lately by comedian Michael Che on SNL.
The JVP Health Advisory Council calls on Israel to assume its responsibility to distribute vaccines to Palestinians in the occupied territory: “As health workers, it would be a violation of our professional ethics to stand by in silence as this form of discrimination occurs.”