Israeli apartheid deniers' arguments are weak
Free Palestine advocates hold a banner that equates Israel with an apartheid state while marching on North High St, Columbus, Ohio, in June 2021. Photograph: Stephen Zenner/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
by Kathryn Shihadah
Palestinians and advocates for Palestinian rights have been aware of apartheid in Palestine/Israel for a long time. Now that three major human rights organizations have announced their verdict, Israel partisans are scrambling to denounce the label.
It’s not working.
After the decades of successful PR that Israel has invested in, the propaganda machine is breaking down. Could it be that the apartheid allegation is valid?
Anecdotal “equality”
If Israel is an apartheid state, then why are there Arab judges, doctors, and Knesset members? Why are there Arab journalists and professors? Why are Arabs able to move freely without being attacked?”
[NOTE: the designation “Arab” erases the Palestinian identity, and is not appropriate when discussing the indigenous people of historic Palestine.]
South Africa also had a sprinkling of Black judges, a number of Black doctors and academics, legislators, and journalists, Their presence did not nullify the existence of apartheid.
The idea that Palestinians can “move freely” is inaccurate. Those living inside Israel have fewer travel issues than other Palestinians, but they are still subject to more than 60 discriminatory laws – based solely on ethnicity. They live under the Nation State Law which, among other things, states that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”
West Bank Palestinians are severely limited in their ability to travel even within their own territory. Segregated roads, and Israeli-built roadblocks, detours, and checkpoints violate their freedom of movement.
Palestinians’ travel is also hampered by ID cards and license plates that identify their second-class status – very reminiscent of the South African Pass Laws under apartheid.
Freedom of movement is a privilege enjoyed only by Jews.
Israeli laws and policies strip away other freedoms as well.
A Palestinian garbage truck that is “too noisy” can be confiscated; a child with a Palestinian flag on his bicycle can be detained; a Palestinian throwing a rock may be imprisoned for up to twenty years; a peaceful protest can be deadly.
But it is the large-scale and long-term policies that have caused profound, widespread damage to the Palestinian people – inside Israel, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and in Gaza.
Discriminatory land laws
Using discriminatory laws and policies, Israel has expropriated huge swaths of Palestinian land (detailed in the Amnesty report) and allocated it for exclusively Jewish Israeli settlements – which are illegal under international law.
Inside Israel, the Israeli government constantly builds and expands mostly-Jewish communities (and Jewish-only settlements), yet it has never created a single new Palestinian neighborhood or allowed existing Palestinian towns to expand. “Unrecognized” villages are not recognized by Israel and do not receive even basic infrastructure like electricity and running water, roads and schools.
In Gaza, about 35% of the farmland and 85% of the fishing waters are off-limits thanks to Israeli restrictions.
“One-sidedness”
This is a totally one sided, biased report – it doesn’t even mention the rockets raining down on Israel all the time. This is not something that I can take seriously.
Israel is an occupying country, which carries certain internationally-recognized responsibilities.
Amnesty’s report covers over seventy years of neglect of these responsibilities – during which Israel has ignored hundreds of censures by the global community. Not coincidentally, during this time Israel has enjoyed huge infusions of aid (especially from the US).
It should not surprise anyone that, after seventy years of doing as it pleases, Israel has reached a point where one human rights org after another describes its policies in such strong terms. No moral argument exists that could excuse these policies, so Israel’s supporters
Israel partisans suggest that they don’t have to listen to criticism after seventy years of human rights abuses because it doesn’t include the wrongdoings of the oppressed population.
Ad hominem attacks
Israel partisans were quick to denounce Amnesty’s report – even before it was released – as “blatantly irresponsible,” “a preposterous slur,” “consolidates and recycles lies, inconsistencies and unfounded assertions,” “double standards and demonization in order to delegitimize Israel.”
Amnesty’s conclusions are based, not on hostility or conjecture, but on research that is available to any reader, including over 1500 citations and footnotes. The report describes its comprehensive documentation and analysis.
This work builds on decades of Amnesty International desk and field research collecting evidence of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Israel and the OPT, and on publications by Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations in addition to academic studies, monitoring by grassroots activist groups, reports by UN agencies, experts and human rights bodies, and media articles…
Researchers extensively analyzed relevant Israeli legislation, regulations, military orders, directives by government institutions and statements by Israeli government and military officials…
The organization reviewed other Israeli government documents, such as planning and zoning documents and plans, budgets and statistics, Israeli parliamentary archives and Israeli court judgments. It also examined relevant reports and statistics published by Palestinian authorities.
As part of its research, Amnesty International spoke with representatives of Palestinian, Israeli and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), relevant UN agencies, legal practitioners, scholars and academics, journalists, and other relevant stakeholders. In addition, it conducted extensive legal analysis on the situation, including engaging with and seeking advice from external experts on international law.
Before making serious accusations, due diligence would require Amnesty’s adversaries to check into the actual research – much of which is drawn from official Israeli government documents.
“Delegitimization” and “antisemitism”
Amnesty International's report seems to question the legitimacy of Israel’s existence and the morality of its creation.
To claim Israel commits human rights abuses, builds illegal settlements, and practices apartheid is antisemitic.
The first statement refers to passages in the report like these:
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis while minimizing the number of Palestinians and restricting their rights and obstructing their ability to challenge this dispossession.
“Since 1948, Israel has enforced massive and cruel land seizures to dispossess Palestinians of their land and homes…In order to maximize Jewish Israeli control over land and minimize the Palestinian presence, Palestinians have been confined to separate, densely populated enclaves. [Meanwhile] Israeli policies have allowed for the discriminatory allocation of state land to be used almost exclusively to benefit Jewish Israelis both inside of Israel and in the OPT.”
Rights groups, including the United Nations, have for decades criticized Israel’s violent beginnings, which included massacres and ethnic cleansing. Once again, Amnesty’s detractors must recognize the objective nature of the statement and refer to the research.
The antisemitism accusation is built on the false assumption that human rights groups are attacking Israel because it is the Jewish State. In reality, the Jewishness of 80% of its population is not a factor – only its policies and practices matter (read more here and here).
Israel idealism
Israel is a strong and vibrant democracy where all its citizens have equal rights – regardless of religion or race – and are free to pursue their dreams and raise their families in safety.
Yes, Israel has its problems, but every democracy has problems.
Israel may be a democracy – but only for its Jewish citizens. In 2019, then-PM Benjamin Netanyahu expressed this clearly (quoted in Amnesty’s report): “Israel is not a state of all its citizens [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them.”
Equality is not the experience of Palestinians inside Israel (or in the occupied territories) – this is not Amnesty’s opinion, but a documented fact.
It is apartheid.