Former president Jimmy Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,“ drew howls of protest from defenders of Israel in the United States when it was published in 2006. Apartheid (“apartness”) was the legalized system of racist white supremacy that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. A similar system of legal segregation, known as “Jim Crow,” existed in the United States for a century after slavery was abolished following the Civil War.
In time-honored fashion, pro-Israeli media and politicians here branded Carter an “anti-Semite” for daring to expose
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But a new and damning report reaffirms the profoundly racist nature of Israeli society inside the borders of the state established in 1948 through the violent dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian population.
The reality of Israeli apartheid is well-known in the Middle East and the world. Where it is least understood is in the United States, which is somewhat ironic. U.S. support and aid, now totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, has been crucial to Israel’s very survival over the past six decades. In return, Israel has served as a key ally in the U.S. quest for global domination.
What has caused a big stir about the report, the latest of many documentations of Israeli racist attitudes and practices against Palestinians, is the fact that it comes from a mainstream Israeli institution, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
While the 70-page report is not yet available in English, some of its key features have been widely reported by Arab and Israeli news sources. News stories in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper (Dec. 9, 2007) and Haaretz TV News (Dec. 12, 2007) included some of the report’s findings:
- A 26 percent rise in anti-Arab incidents in the past year.
- Less than half of Jewish Israelis believe that Jews and Arabs inside Israel should have equal rights. Fifty-five percent think Arabs (who constitute about 20 percent of the 1948 Israel’s population) should be “encouraged” to emigrate.
- More than 75 percent of Jewish Israelis said that they would not want to live in the same building or neighborhood with Palestinian Arabs.
- Illustrating the fact that racism is not diminishing, 74 percent of Israeli Jewish youth polled stated a belief that “Arabs are unclean.”
- Palestinians inside Israel are “regularly denied entry into bars, subjected face unfair treatment at airports and discrimination in job markets.” (Haaretz TV News, Dec. 12, 2007)
The ‘Law of Return’ and the right of return
The Palestinians who live inside the borders of the Israeli state are those who remained after “Al-Nakba” (The Catastrophe)—the 1948 expulsion of more than three-quarters of the Palestinian population, and their descendants.
Palestinians, who comprise about 1.4 million out of an estimated total population of 7 million, are allowed to vote in Israeli elections. But in every other respect—from jobs, to benefits, to marriage and other civil, national and economic rights—they are treated as third-class citizens. It is virtually impossible for Palestinians—who are technically citizens of the Israeli state—to buy or lease land.
Discrimination against Arab workers in wages and benefits is a root cause of the growing poverty among Palestinians in Israel. Despite being about 20 percent of the population, Palestinians in 2006 made up more than 52 percent of those living in poverty. That figure was up from 46 percent just two years earlier. Of 550,000 children in Israel estimated to have gone without food at some time in 2006, 400,000 of them were Arab children. (Ynet, May 9, 2007).
Palestinian municipalities receive a tiny fraction of the funds appropriated to predominantly Jewish cities and towns. Educational funding, while being increased by 15 percent for ultra-Orthodox schools, has been slashed for mainly Palestinian schools.
The foundation of Israel’s apartheid system is grounded in who has the right to live inside the pre-1967 borders and who does not. Nothing is more fundamental than this issue and here, the apartheid character of Israel is indisputable.
Israel’s basic law defines the country as a “state of the Jewish people.” The Israeli “Law of Return,” accords the right “to return” to any Jewish person living anywhere in the world. The overwhelming majority of Jewish people have lived outside of Palestine for nearly 2,000 years. Yet, any person who can “prove” to have at least one Jewish grandparent is entitled to residency, benefits, housing and more upon arriving in Israel. It is demonstrably easier to “prove” this to the satisfaction of Israeli officials if the individual in question in coming from Europe or the United States.
The largest bloc of recent immigrants—more than a million people—came from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. It is widely believed that many of them have falsified documents and emigrated for economic reasons.
The most politically prominent individual advocating for this group is Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who openly demands that all Palestinians get out. The fact that a politician advocating such fascistic views could be named deputy prime minister is just one more proof of deepening official racism.
At the same time, Israel has blocked the return of the 750,000 Palestinians driven out of their homeland in 1948-49 and their more than 5 million descendants. Their homes, farms, orchards, shops and other property were seized without compensation. They have been denied the right of return despite scores of United Nations resolutions—starting with Resolution 194 in 1948—upholding that right.
Olmert blurts out a confession
On Nov. 29, 2007, the 60th anniversary of the infamous U.N. resolution partitioning Palestine and creating Israel, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was interviewed by Haaretz newspaper.
Olmert stated that if a “two-state solution” was not soon reached that Israel would, “[F]ace a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished … The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”
Israel’s supporters, especially in the United States, were shocked that Olmert would mention apartheid South Africa and Israel in the same sentence.
Olmert, along with many in the Israeli ruling elite and the Bush administration favor the creation of a weak, demilitarized and non-contiguous Palestinian “state” next to Israel, one of the world’s top military powers. This “state” would be made up of broken up pieces of land with Israel retaining control over its borders, water, mineral resources, airspace and trade. The right of return for Palestinian refugees would be denied under this plan. Washington’s aim is to put an end to the Palestinian struggle once and for all.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and his allies have cast their lot with Washington and support this “solution.” Much of the Palestinian population is adamantly opposed to what they see as a bad deal, denying them their fundamental rights.
But while Olmert makes public proclamations about wanting “peace” and supporting the creation of a Palestinian state, his government at the same time is expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. More than 400,000 Israeli settlers continue to seize Palestinian land. The government has created roads that only Jewish settlers are allowed to drive on. The settlers are heavily armed and protected by the Israeli army. Palestinians are subject to checkpoints, abuse, torture, imprisonment and death at the hands of the military occupiers.
With the confiscation of more and more land to build up the settlements, even the subordinated state that the U.S. and Israel want to impose on the Palestinians becomes less of a possibility with each passing day.
Olmert and his government are in the throes of a contradiction. While wanting to absorb more and more Palestinian land, they do not wish to absorb more Palestinians. Unless a Palestinian state is created, Palestinians will very soon outnumber Jewish Israelis inside what is today Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, if they do not do so already. That is viewed as unacceptable by the leaders in Israel and the U.S., who want to maintain Israel as an exclusivist (racist) state.
The idea that Israel could be simultaneously a “Jewish state” and “democratic” has never been anything more than propaganda. Olmert, as he indicated in the Nov. 29 interview, fears that as the suppressed Palestinians become the majority, the reality of Israeli apartheid will become undeniable, even among Israeli supporters in the U.S. Given Israel’s dependence on economic, military and political support from outside, such a development would pose a serious threat.
