Wrestling with a pig

The same reckless and dangerous rhetoric that has some calling vaccine or mask mandate supporters Nazis, or police supporters racist, now has Amnesty International calling Israel an apartheid state.

Actual apartheid barred Black South Africans, a majority in their country, from voting or running for office; interracial marriage and/or interracial extra-marital sex; and from using designated “white” public facilities like swimming pools, restaurants, buses, and beaches. There was forced physical separation of residential areas and schools, and Black South African workers were prohibited from striking.

South African jurist Richard Goldstone, himself a harsh critic of Israel, recently wrote: “I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which…Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no ‘black’ ambulance to rush the to a ‘black’ hospital. ‘White’ hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives…in Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the [widely accepted] definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute.”

There is no point refuting all the ways Amnesty International’s slander against Israel is wrong, and as George Bernard Shaw said, “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” However, their big lie cannot be ignored.

The Amnesty International report is so egregious, it absurdly claims the apartheid label applies as much to Israel’s pre-1967 borders, as it does to Gaza and the West Bank, where the Palestinians are not and don’t seek to be Israeli citizens and whose day-to-day governmental interactions are largely with their own elected Palestinian institutions.

Israel does not have any apartheid restrictions, nor anything similar in the letter or the spirit of its founding documents or laws. Israel’s Declaration of Independence says that it “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race, or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all Religions.” Pop quiz #1: Does any other Middle Eastern country contain a similar founding principle?

Israeli society, while not free from prejudice (which society is?), is multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious, 80% of whose citizens are Jewish–including Jews from Africa, Asia, other Middle Eastern countries, and Latin America. All forms of racism and incitement to racism are illegal in Israel. In Israel’s history, only one political party was ever barred from participation in elections–the Jewish ultranationalist “Kach” party for inciting racism against Arabs. Arab parties in Israel’s Parliament often use the Knesset podium to criticize Israel, attack it, and espouse support for its enemies. Pop quiz #2: Name one other country besides Israel that Amnesty International has attacked that protects such speech.

In Israel, universal suffrage is guaranteed to all citizens. Israeli Arabs have full rights and unfettered access to all professions. There are Arab Cabinet Ministers, IDF generals, police commanders, two Arab parties in Israel’s Knesset, and an Arab Deputy Speaker of Knesset. There are Arab Supreme Court judges, an Arab CEO of a major hospital, and Arab doctors at the helm of hospital departments and working in all hospitals. There is an Arab dean of a college and Arab professors in all universities and on all faculties in Israel. Arab ambassadors, Muslim as well as Druze, represent Israel abroad. Pop quiz #3: Can you imagine an apartheid state allowing a member of its “powerless” class to command and give orders, and to convict and imprison a member of its “powerful” class?

Amnesty International is playing a dangerous syllogistic game that calls into question Israel’s legitimacy. Amnesty International’s logic can only be read as: Apartheid is a form of evil that should not be allowed to exist; Israel is an apartheid state; therefore, Israel is an evil that should not be allowed to exist. Fortunately, the U.S. government is again leading the world by publicly challenging Amesty International’s biased and dangerous logic.

Ned Price, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said: “…We reject the view that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid…we think that it is important as the world’s only Jewish state, that the Jewish people must not be denied their right to self-determination, and we must ensure there isn’t a double standard being applied.”

Ofer Bavly is the Director General of the JUF Israel Office and Daniel G. Goldwin is JUF Executive Director of Public Affairs.