As the event known as “Israel Apartheid Week” (IAW) kicks off, here are some resources to combat the antisemitic, Soviet-inspired slander that Israel is an apartheid state.
Here are three good pieces which came out today. Robbie Sabel has written a detailed paper published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs debunking the apartheid analogy. Richard (don’t confuse him with Roger!) Cohen has an incisive column in today’s Washington Post. And, in a searing editorial, Canada’s National Post points out that a motion condemning IAW has been unanimously passed in the Ontario provincial parliament (H/T: Robin Shepherd.)
Going further back in the archives, Z Word published a path-breaking essay by South African writers Rhoda Kadalie, a South African Human Rights Commissioner, and Julia Bertelsmann, which challenged the analogy from the perspective of those who directly experienced apartheid in South Africa. I also wrote a monograph for AJC entitled “The Ideological Foundations of the Boycott Campaign Against Israel,” much of which is devoted to exposing the the blatant falsehood that Israel is an apartheid state.
Be sure to visit the “apartheid” tag on this blog, where you will find, among other pieces, Jonathan Hoffman’s guest post, “Lies, Damn Lies and the Apartheid Analogy.”
Finally, here’s another chance to see the film I produced last year, “Vilified: Telling Lies About Israel.” The falsehoods we uncovered here will doubtless be repeated at the various IAW events.
Ben
You mention a Guardian editorial that compared Israel’s action in Jenin in 2002 with the 9/11 attacks and another commentator who compared it to Bosnia.
Do you by any chance have links for these pieces if they still exist on the web?
Regards,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan
On the Guardian editorial, see this report from today’s JPost:
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=93886
The apology Rusbridger made doesn’t invalidate the substantive point in our video, IMO.
And here’s that Times piece by Janine di Giovanni (later renamed Jenin di Giovanni by some wags) which invoked Bosnia - reproduced on a Muslim web site.
http://muslimvillage.com/story.php?id=411
Can you please explain why calling Israel an Apartheid state is a) antisemetic? and b) a Soviet-inspired slander?
“Can you please explain why calling Israel an Apartheid state is a) antisemetic?”
Can you explain why accusations of deicide, host desecration, anti-Christian bias, impurity, well poisoning, plotting to control the world, causing wars, revolutions, and calamities,usury and profiteering are called “antisemitic”?
Antisemitism is characterized by the perpetual stalking of, and defamation of Jews, and only Jews, with lies, and threatening Jews with sponsored violence.
Thus accusing Israel of “Apartheid” is such a violent lie that can be found out with the slightest intellectual exertion. Refusal to do so accompanied by a dogged pursuit of the Jewish state, and none but the Jewish state, with a determined, on-going clamour for its dismantlement is motivated by an antisemitic mindset. It’s a mindset that adamantly and consistently refuses to admit that there is an Israeli reality that absolutely, justifies the separation fence and checkpoints, even if they inconvenience Palestinian movement. That a Jewish kid’s right to reach school alive is somewhat superior to the Palestinian kid’s right to reach school on time.
Those who celebrate “Israel Apartheid week” aim at the dissolution and disappearance of the Jewish state. Such dissolution can only take place with massive violence against Israel’s 6 million Jews.
Perhaps Richard can come up with a more suitable term for such a strategy. I’ll be waiting to read what he has to offer.
Richard, I want to echo what Noga said above - the apartheid formula is a “progressive” euphemism for the destruction of Israel, something that could only be achieved in conditions of deadly violence against Israel’s Jewish population. That is antisemitic.
To understand my arguments about antisemitism and the Soviet origins of the apartheid analogy, I would point you to the monograph I linked above: http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/IDEOLOGICAL_FOUNDATIONS.PDF
Here’s another GREAT article by Joel Lyden regarding Israel as a so-called “Apartheid State.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2463038/posts
Calling Israel, apartheid, Nazism, colonialism and racism is anti Semitic because of one simple reason. These are all evils to be abolished, and when someone describes the very existence of Israel as an evil to be abolished, that someone wants to abolish Israel. And if the security Israel gives to each and every one of its citizens is also apartheid, Nazism, colonialism and racism, then the very existence of every Israeli person is also apartheid, Nazism, colonialism and racism. And what could possibly be more racist then abolishing an entire people?
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Dvar Dea:
This is probably the clearest and most trenchant indictment of this evil campaign.
Thank you Noga for your kind words.
Another good resource countering Apartheid Week can be found at http://www.israeliapartheidweek.org
FYI to all you people doing such good work, “Richard Pearce” is a nasty piece of work who regularly posts on the CBC.ca web site and other sites. He is virulently anti-Israel and i’m sure his question was only rhetorical. In addition, he is a bootlicker for the Iranian regime, believes the June elections were fair and that the protests in Iran are Western-directed. I wouldn’t bother engaging him at all. Thank you.
RE: Richard Pearce:
Here is his latest “offering” on the CBC website re: Iran: “The democratic government of Iran will stay in place because that 90% of the population that has found that you don’t have to become Americans to be educated, well off, and progressing will not let the 10% of the population that won’t be satisfied until they turn Iran into a carbon copy of the US sell out their heritage.”
Need you read more? And his opinions on Israel follow the same tortured reasoning.