The “A” word is anathema in pro-Israel circles. It’s about as bad as the “N” (Nakba) word . The history of the use of the former term in an Israeli context is interesting. I remember when I was 17 in 1968 and attending the Camp Ramah American Seminar, I created my own independent study course on Zionism under the wise tutelage of Rabbi Joe Lukinsky (z”l). After reading Arthur Hertzberg’s Zionist Idea, I wrote a paper which I had the temerity to send to Prof. Ernst Simon, then an emeritus professor at the Hebrew University, who’d been there at the creation of Brit Shalom. A major point of my paper argued that Israel was guilty of apartheid, South African-style. Prof. Simon’s reply was very generous and supportive. As I recall, I don’t think he agreed with me, but he was gentle in saying so.
In the intervening years, if anything the apartheid argument has grown far stronger. A decade or more ago, it was more commonly applied to the Occupation, in which there were clear distinctions and separations between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. But more recently, the term has been applied to Israel itself and its relations with its minorities. Any serious observer of the status of Israeli minorities will know that, contrary to hasbara talking points, they are second or third class citizens. By every meaningful standard they have less than Jews and are treated far worse than Jewish citizens.
For a current example, you have to go no farther than the predicament of the Negev Bedouin. These indigenous Israelis are herded into backwater towns like Rahat, offered substandard services and housing, removed from their ancestral lands and traditions and told to fend for themselves. Any Bedouin who resists is treated like those of Al Araqib who, by now, are probably on their 100th round of expulsions by Israeli officials and their Jewish National Fund enablers.
Very few observers ever point to the nature of political apartheid in Israel. The electoral process is based on a spoils system. Ministries and the perquisites associated with them are bequeathed to various coalition parties. They, in turn, are distributed to the constituencies of the parties. This is why the Haredim and Mizrahim exercise so much political power. Their followers vote in large number and their leaders reward them with spoils: jobs, social welfare, scholarships, etc.
One of the key reasons for Palestinian powerlessness is not so much that they don’t vote in numbers proportional to their presence in the overall population (though this is true). Rather, it is the Jewish ruling coalitions, who have systematically excluded Palestinian parties. That is not to say that individual Palestinian MKs don’t serve as junior ministers. They have (though not in recent years). But these are members of majority Jewish parties, never Palestinian parties.
A political party that will never be part of a ruling coalition is one that is permanently out in the cold. If you were a sports team, you’d be the Chicago Cubs, perennial losers. But ones whose diminishing number of fans love you deeply. You will never reap the benefits of power. You will always play a symbolic role in the Knesset, an afterthought. This is one of the reasons racist politicians like Lieberman can get away with continually pushing to expel individual Palestinian MKs or, as recently, all of them. They have no power and a politician who is powerless is defenseless as well. This is why virtually every Palestinian MK is, or has been under police investigation for various criminal and civil transgressions. Everyone is their enemy, no one their ally.
Let all who moan about the crisis facing Israel, the threats to democracy, the dangers of Occupation, and the dire need for liberal Zionist parties to beat the ruling Likud coalition, face one insurmountable fact. If the liberal Jewish parties really wanted to win, they would not say the following:
Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog promised the Saban Forum in Washington…that he would lead a centrist bloc to victory in Israel’s next elections and that he would replace Benjamin Netanyahu as the next prime minister.
Herzog said that he would form a coalition comprised of all the parties “from Lieberman to Meretz” and that he would try to secure “support from the outside” from the Arab parties as well.
Any Jewish Israeli reading this would skim over it without missing a beat. Business as usual. Nothing to see here. But if you examine what he said closely, you will immediately understand that he’s affirming a form of political apartheid which has existed from the beginning of the State. Herzog has ruled out any participation of non-Jewish parties in his ruling coalition. He’s upholding a time-honored form of Israeli apartheid.
Just after the last election, a beaming Yair Lapid basked in the limelight of his own Party’s impressive showing. But part of his victory statement addressed the role (or lack of a role) he foresaw for the Palestinian parties. When asked whether he would align with them even informally to serve as a “blocking majority” to frustrate the agenda of the Likud, his answer was a categorical No. But the form his rejection took was especially telling. Instead of referring to the Palestinian bloc in the usual way Israeli Jews do as the “Arab parties,” he said this:
We will not do that with Haneen Zoabiz – it is not going to happen.
He’s done two things here. He’s used Haneen Zoabi as a synecdoche for the entire Palestinian political sector. And he’s referred to her not in the singular as a real human being, but with a “z” plural suffix, as if all Palestinians were one giant Haneen Zoabi. This is not just insulting, but flagrantly racist. But as Mairav Zonszein notes in her 972 piece, what most disturbing about this is that no Israeli Jew understands why this is racist.
Returning to the upcoming election, if Herzog thought he could do so, he might consider including the Palestinians in his putative coalition. In fact, Raviv Drucker claims he did so in this article, but when asked, Herzog denied it. The latter doesn’t do so for one simple reason: he believes his liberal Zionist voters will not stand for it. The overwhelming level of racism in Israel prohibits the liberal Jewish parties from aligning themselves with Palestinians. Until that changes, Israel will not change nor will Labor ever win an election. Nor should they.
This political game is a charade, as I’ve argued here many times. Politics that is only about distributing goodies to voters will never solve deeper problems. It goes along to get along. But it is basically irrelevant as a force for good or change. That is why Israel’s electoral system and the Knesset in particular is an exercise in corruption and futility.
Diaspora liberal Zionists should ponder the question: what are you supporting? Why is it so important for a liberal Zionist coalition to win when the very premise on which it is based is thoroughly racist? Politics rooted in immorality never deserves to win.
And don’t get me started about those who argue that Likud is so bad that anything is better, including a flawed “Zionist center.” I would rather see the exposed fangs of a fascist ruling coalition so the world would truly understand the nature of latter-day Israel. A liberal ruling coalition would provide a fig leaf that prevented the world from taking further action against Israel regarding creating a Palestinian state and prosecuting war crimes.
Uri Breitman posted to Facebook the claim that Herzog suggested the Palestinian parties would be “outside” because it is their own choice. That is false. Though Palestinian MKs have rightly criticized the alliance called the “Zionist Camp,” for its presumptuous, unimaginative, alienating name, they have never rejected participation in a ruling coalition. They, however, know the rules of the game. They know they are unwanted in the halls of power where deals are made and spoils are distributed.
H/t Ofer Neiman and Dena Shunra (for research assistance).
@Richard – “claim that Herzog suggested the Palestinian parties would be “outside” because it is their own choice. That is false” – You are WRONG again.
Here is a recording of a recent interview with members of the new Arab party. At ~4:20 Tibi says they will NOT join a coalition but will maybe serve as ‘Blocking Block’. Later Hanin says it might be an option if the opinion of the coalition will be drastically changed (so basically – no).
On TV interview a few weeks ago (which I couldn’t find) one of them said they can’t be part of a government that will go into an operation in Gaza, Syria or anywhere else. And since in the current reality it is more a question of ‘when’ than ‘if’, they are NOT going to join a coalition to begin with.
@ Ariel: Do you have proof that any Jewish ruling party has ever offered Palestinian parties membership in a ruling coalition? If you don’t none of the rest of this means crap. You & I both know no Jewish party would or could include a Palestinian party. That’s why there have been none ever in the history of the nation. Prove me wrong.
As for your own statement above…contrary to what you wrote above, any politician who says, “I might do this if circumstances change” is essentially asking for someone to make those cirucmstances change. You don’t know crap about politics or politicians if you can claim her statement means “basically, no.” It means quite the opposite. It means “I know no Jew will ever invite me to join, but if the day ever comes when they change their minds, then call me.” Tell me how long that will take?
@RS – This in another case where we are not going to agree. We are talking about the same coin, just looking at different sides of it.
The Arabs parties Balad and Ta’al are anti-zionist while for Hadash it can be a longer conversation but it isn’t far from that.
So the coin is the unbridgable gap between the zionist (almost entirely Jewish) parties and anti/non-zionist ones. You prefer to say – Israelis are racist but I look at the TRUTH and say – the issue is so important and fundamental that no midway can be found. You asked “how long that will take?” well, probably eternity unless the messiah or aliens (if they aren’t the same) get here first.
Meanwhile, Arab MK are participating in the democratic ‘game’ and are doing great job stopping some of the laws that the radical right is trying to pass as well as other important parliamentary work.
Talking of Ahmad Tibi, here is his list of activities in the Knesset. A lot of places to influence even if he isn’t part of the coalition.
Personally I really like him. Beyond being very active, he has a great sense of humor and it is always please to listen to his speeches.
@Ariel: Ahmed Tibi as ‘House Palestinian.’ You want him as window dressing to prove your state is democratic. That’s why I detest this sham that suggests 3rd class citizenship is something more than it really is.
@RS – “Ahmed Tibi as ‘House Palestinian.’” so you claim this is a type of “arabwashing”? Who stands behind this ‘conspiracy’? Tibi’s voters?
Very well said Richard. I see things deteriorating for Israel as, more and more, it comes to resemble the Hitler regime in Germany. A terrible thing to say, but it’s the inevitable end for a government that encourages the outright persecution of its minorities, and the non-Jewish population of the Occupied Territories, East Jerusalem and the Bedouin in the Negev. In my experience working with people, abusive people and abusive systems eventually destroy themselves. PM Netanyahu and his crew are leading the country right over the cliff into disaster.
@George
The Israeli government is trying to settle their Bedouin population the same the British did during the Mandate and the same way most other governments have tried to settle their pastoral peoples.
Most Bedouin HAVE settled, according to the State’s design, although the results, admittedly, haven’t been great. Those Bedouin who are still holdouts have already had their day in court, and lost their case.
@ krausen: Nonsense. The British did not expel Bedouin from their Negev ancestral lands during the Mandate. There is no reason to “settle” nomadic peoples. Their way of life as existed for centuries, even millenia. In fact, longer than the settled life of so-called “civilized peoples.”
No Israeli Jewish court has the right to disrupt the traditions of the Bedouin. Any court that ratifies such racist policies is violating international law and common decency.
@RS
I didn’t use the word ‘expel’, you did. That said, you’r still wrong. The Mandate did try to settle the Bedouin.
Bedouin Control Ordinance of 1942 were intended to provide “the administration with special powers of control of nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes with the object of persuading them towards a more settled way of life.” 1
The sweeping powers of the Ordinance allowed the District Commissioner to direct those deemed nomadic “to go to, or not go to, or to remain in any specified area.”2
The primary reasons for the ordinance were security, prevention of Bedouin raiding, control of “illicit grazing”, and eviction of Bedouin from lands they did not own. 3
1 Falah, Role, p. 38; Galilee District Commissioner to Jerusalem District Commissioner, 17 August, 1945.
2 Bedouin Control Ordinance, 1942, No. 18 of 1942, Government of Palestine
3 Chief Secretary, 7 February, 1947, ISA RG2/ Y58/42.
@krausen: C’mon. You and I both know that when nomadic peoples are forcibly “settled” as you advocate, they are expelled from their ancestral lands. Happened to Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals, etc. In 1942, colonizers like the British believed their “civilization” and colonial efforts would “improve” the indigenous peoples’ way of life. Today, except in places like Israel & China, such notions are universally condemned. So if you advocate colonial noblesse oblige we can add it to all the other violations of international law Israeli is racking up.
“You and I both know that when nomadic peoples are forcibly “settled” as you advocate, they are expelled from their ancestral lands. ”
Richard, lets not go round in circles again and name call. Let’s stick to the facts, and see what the Bedouin’s ‘rights’ are. You read Hebrew. Just tell us what was wrong with the State’s case in Al Aqbi. Begin with motion practice and expert testimony, and than parse out Judge Dovrat’s written decision. Let’s stick to the facts of the case.
Read the comment rules & respect them. Commenters must remain ON-TOPIC. Comments must be directly related to the topic of the post. If you do not respect the rules you will be moderated.
So here’s the rule in a nutshell: if I wanted to “parse” Judge Dovrat I would’ve done so. But I didn’t. If you want to write a blog in which you do this, be my guest. But as long as you’re the guest here you follow the rules of the house. Understood?
And “political apartheid” leads straight to what Baruch Kimmerling called “politicide”.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/KimmerlingPoliticide.htm
” A major point of my paper argued that Israel was guilty of apartheid, South African-style.”
I don’t think you’re right, and neither do respected scholars.
http://972mag.com/call-it-colonialism-call-it-occupation-just-dont-call-it-apartheid/90537/
@krausen
This is tiresome. Ronny Kasrils, a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and later cabinet minister, called it “worse than apartheid” after a visit to Israel that profoundly shocked him.
There are quite a few prominent Israelis who have called it apartheid. Here are some:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/israelis-on-apartheid
No, Arie. You are tiresome because you deal in opinion, not facts, so I’ll indulge you this once.
de Klerk say’s, ‘Israel not an apartheid State’
http://www.timesofisrael.com/south-africas-de-klerk-israel-not-an-apartheid-state/
Black South African MP says Israel not an apartheid state.
http://unitedwithisrael.org/south-african-mp-israel-is-not-an-apartheid-state/
Now I defy you to explain to us what factually wrong in the Thomas Mitchell article that I linked.
@ krausen: This is off-topic. The comment threads are not meant to dissect external sources. That’s a red herring.
You offer us anecdotal evidence from a few individuals. Arie has offered far more sources which confirm my claim. These are “sources” with quotations from real Israelis. That is “fact,” not opinion as you claim.
But what’s most important is that those who suffer under Israeli apartheid, the Palestinians themselves, and even many Israeli Jews, have made this historical analogy.
I found this Wikipedia article useful in arguing the pros and cons of the analogy.
It is amusing how these Israeli religious fanatics try to convince us – their international audience – with “facts” that Israel is not an apartheid state because a couple of South African politicians have said that Israel is not an apartheid state. Well with that Israeli “intellectual” analysis tactics anything can be presented as a fact because also influential people say often stupid things and make propaganda. If Alan Morton Dershowitz said that “Israel is no apartheid state and it is a real democracy” does it make that claim a fact because a US legal expert said that or is it a simple propagandist opinion without any convincing reasoning made by a US Jewish fanatic? Does it make a fact that Palestinians did not exist because an Israeli prime minister, Gold Meir, said so?
Kransen if Israel is an example state of equality, democracy and religious tolerance let us westerns begin to treat “our” Jewish citizens with the same standards and methods Israel treats Palestinians.
@Simo
If you had bothered to read my link to it’s conclusion, than maybe you might understand that Israel is not by historical definition, an apartheid state, and, assuming arguendo, that it fit the legal definition of apartheid, than dozens of other States must be apartheid states as well.
My link even leaves you anti-Zionists with a fig leaf to hide behind. The link’s author provides two more accurate definitions for Israel: “settler colonialism” and a “pro-settler military occupation.”
Try to wrap your head around these two definitions, or, just continue to misuse the inappropriate term of derision, ‘apartheid’.
Krausen do you limit Nazism as an ideology and movement only to Germany in the 30’s and 40’s and fascism to Italy? Is playing with words and terms the only thing you poor propagandists can do?
Krausen what means apartheid? The word contains the essential information “the state of being apart” – dividing the population in groups with different rights and possibilities using state legislation is the essence that policy. The South African system was legalized racial discrimination. In Israel it is both religious and racial discrimination created and made possible on the state’s legislation level.
As said Krausen is it OK for us westerns in USA and Europe to demand that our societies will have laws which make it possible to treat our Jewish citizens like you there in Israel treat Palestinians and other people with wrong religion and/or skin color? If you say it is NOT OK, then you must admit problem of the legal inequality, exploitation and racism in Israel. If you say OK then you approve in essence laws like the Nürnberg race laws which give different groups different rights. Do you seriously believe that you as a Jew can in Israel enjoy the benefits of your Ûbermensch status and the next day when coming back to Europe and USA demand equality and religious “protection”?
PS Krausen you did not yourself read what you linked. In the end of the article reads: de Klerk reiterated later from his opinion that Israel was not an apartheid state. So it was not a “fact” after all. 🙂
Strictly speaking, Israel is not an apartheid state: in SA the whites wanted both the land and the indigenous population to act as cheap labour. The Zionists, on the other hand, want the land without the Arabs: they would love to see them “transferred”.
One of the Israeli “new historians” Benny Morris ended up criticizing Ben Gurion for not “finishing the job” in 1948/49 by keeping Arabs within the Jewish state.
The Arabs in Israel today are “suffered” and not “welcome”.
As to democracy … well.
De Klerk was mainly talking about the situation of Israeli Arabs, Ronny Karlis about that of Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. Obviously, within Israel proper, the telltale signs of apartheid (separate entrances, beaches, benches) are lacking. And it is unlikely that De Klerk knew enough of Israel’s domestic situation to notice the political apartheid.
@Simo
“Krausen do you limit Nazism as an ideology and movement only to Germany in the 30’s and 40’s and fascism to Italy?
As a matter of fact, I do limit Nazism as an ideology. I’ve never called anyone a fascist or a nazi in my life.
I define apartheid as a failed political ideology practiced for a short time in South Africa, South African-occupied Namibia, and Rhodesia.
Pressed to say what religious of political system most closely resembles apartheid, I’d point to the age old Hindu caste system.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-caste-system-indias-apartheid/article1894191.ece
Am I wrong, Simo?
Well Krausen if Hindu caste system, which is a thousand years old shameful “religious” tradition and social order, closely resembles the SA’s apartheid system (which it actually does not), does that erase in anyway the Israeli modern caste system? India has in its modern legislation tried to erase the sad effects of that very old tradition, which was based on some kind of an old tradition of dividing works and responsibilities (close to our old guild system, which luckily did not develop so far as in India). Israel on the other hand has continued to create new laws and procedures to divide the population more and more clearly in religious/ethnic groups with different rights and possibilities.
South Africa’s and Israel’s apartheid systems were/are modern creations of a state order, not based on some very old “tradition”, Israeli Jews and whites in SA gave themselves their superior rights with laws and changing the society’s order to that racist reality which followed.
Do you Krausen really present the best what modern Israel has to offer on the field of making your nationalistic religious propaganda?
@ krausen: Apartheid practiced in South Africa “for a short time?” If you call 40 yrs a short time you’re either God or one of his angels. By human standards (which you ARE subject to) it’s quite a long time & shows your ignorance.
Apartheid is certainly much different than the Hindu caste system since apartheid is a system that rules entire countries rather than segments of countries as the caste system does (Muslims do not practice it). Also, apartheid has a political motivation, not religious.
Time is relative.
I’ve been married 12 years, and it feels like an eternity.
@krausen: Your wife may not be pleased to hear that.
India’s Muslims, ‘.. endure lower levels of education, income, political representation or government jobs than the majority Hindus .. ‘
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/09/economist-explains-3
Call it discrimination. Just don’t call it apartheid.
@krausen: So if India practices apartheid (a claim I don’t concede) then this somehow minimizes Israeli apartheid? Isn’t the mind of the hasbarist an interesting (though predictable) place?
I didn’t say that India practices apartheid. I said that India’s caste system most closely resembles the failed apartheid systems that once existed in South Africa, Rhodesia and occupied Namibia.
Racism and discrimination run deep in Israel, as well as in India, but neither practices apartheid.
@ krausen: and once again, comments rebutting your claims have pointed out the flaws in yr argument. India is a deeply flawed country filled with prejudice. But there is nowhere near the level of de facto & official racial apartheid.
Bader. Queen of the Desert.
http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/188219/the-lost-tribes-of-israel
Yup. Definitely apartheid. Thanks for the link.