There is no
genocide in Gaza. No genocide and no starvation. There is suffering, but there
is no genocide, and there is no mass starvation. The available data simply does not
support these accusations. And I’m not talking about that coming from Israeli
sources.
The latest
figures from the Palestinian side were published in the WP. They place the
total number of killed Gazans at 60,000. 18,500 of whom are children ages 0 to
18. 60,000 in an intense armed conflict that last 21 months cannot be a
genocide. The annual growth rate of the population in the Gaza strip is in the 40,000s (2.02% a year).
44 to 46 thousands added each year, mostly through births. This means that during
these nearly 2 years of brutal war, between 80,000 to 90,000 souls were added. In
a genocide the targeted population decreases in size. And not by a few
percentages.
From the CIA factbook.
The data
published in the WP is selective. Only children, and no division by gender. But
it is useful. It points out that these 18,500 are 31% of the total death count.
Less than a third. This is important because among the general population this
age group, 0-18, has a share that is close to half. This means that they are
underrepresented in the total death count. In a genocide “casualties are not
equally distributed by age. Commonly the youngest bear the brunt.” This is the
observation of Professor Tadeusz Kugler from Roger Williams University. He
wrote that in the paper “The demography of genocide.” A study of the Rwanda
genocide. [It was published in August of 2016 by the Oxford university press. It is in
a book called “The economic aspects of genocide, mass killings, and their
prevention. Edited by Charels H. Anderson and Jurgen Brauer.] This was an
observation of the crisis in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia. And when we zoom in on
the details published by the WP, we see how that is not the case in Gaza. The
breakdown by age shows a higher death count among the elder teen, and a lower
one among younger persons. It shows a steady rise from age 11, 976 dead, to age
17, 1,218 dead. The youngest clearly don’t bear the brunt.
Who does
bear the brunt can be learned from an analysis of earlier data done by Gabriel Epstein.
His analysis compares the death toll of each age group to its share in the
general population. It shows that males ages 15 to 49 are overrepresented in
death toll. While younger boys, and all female categories from age 0 to 49, are
underrepresented. The entire spectrum of combat age males bears the brunt. As
to be expected from a situation known as war. But not a genocide. The fact that
categories of age and gender that are both large and more vulnerable are
underrepresented shows that the IDF efforts to avoid harming noncombatants is overly
successful.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that this is not a random
occurrence. Last year professor Mike Spagat from the University of London
published an article under the damming title, “Netanyahu is wrong about IDF clean record.” Ironically it included the following paragraph. “41.2% of the
death listed in the latest MoH list were males between the ages of 15 to 69. Few
victims outside this demographic could be combatants.”This is an acknowledgement that this data
challenges his claim. To work around it he introduces a guess that estimates
that half of these males are civilians. He does not say what this guess is
based on. But can the numbers of civilian males killed in each category of age, (Not including the older ones, that are also small in size),
be much bigger than that of females from the same age category? When we go back
to Gabriel Epstein’s analysis, we see that there is no uniform relation between
the genders. Between ages 10 to 54 the relation is mostly beyond 2:1. And
between ages 30 to 39 it is mostly beyond 3:1. This suggests that the share of
civilians in each category of males between the ages of 15 to 59 is less than a
half. This is an estimation, but at least it is based on data relevant to this specific crisis. That estimation
keeps combatants as the largest category. The ones that carry the brunt of the
deaths, as to be expected in war.
Mike Spagat Bil'amien words.
Let’s be
clear, the choices here are not between genocide and paradise. There is
suffering, a lot of it. But it is not genocide. The people we see every day on
the news from Gaza are war refugees, trapped in a war zone for 2 years. And
that is inhumane. In the long run this could have disastrous consequences. And
the long run is now. They are trapped because no one wants to let them out of
the strip. No one except Israel. For Israel it will be easier to fight Hamas
without civilians used as human shields and other forms of cover. But the
international community has other concerns. All of them political. They need to
come to a decision. Israel has done its part in protecting the lives of Gazans.
The above record shows that. Whether one likes to admit it or not. Israel
expected to do everything; it cannot do everything. The civilians that have
died show the limit of Israel’s capabilities in protecting them. The only way to avoid a greater crisis
is to let them out. Political consequences and other concerns should be taken into
account while doing it. But not as a reason to prevent it. It is all a matter of leadership.
Amjad Iraqi’s bad faith is a disturbing one. It is
best demonstrated when he chooses, the 2003 order that halted family
unification between Palestinians living in Israel, and Palestinian coming to
Israel from the WB, Gaza, and elsewhere. As always, he avoids context. Instead
he compares it to Israel law of return. A law he describes as giving
citizenship to every Jew coming to Israel. The actual law is more of an asylum
law than a naturalization law. And it is extended to non-Jews. I added a video
that explains it in a good and brief way.
It is a good thing that he brought that law as an
argument. To begin with, were does it say that immigration policies are an
indicator of apartheid? But even if there is such a clause in international
law, Israel doesn’t qualify. As Amjad Iraqi points out, Israel has an
immigration law for non-Jews. It is the family unification act. Under this law
130,000 Palestinians immigrated into the state of Israel, from 1994 to 2002.
This law still exists today. In 2003 it was blocked to Palestinians. The main
reason it was blocked, terrorism.
On the 31st of March 2002, a Palestinian
suicide bomber from Jenin blew himself up in the Matza restaurant in Haifa. He
murdered 16 Israelis, and injured over 40. He was able to enter Israel because
he had an Israeli id card; a blue card he inherited from his mother. She was an
Israeli Arab citizen that married a Palestinian from the WB, and moved there to
live with him. Their son was a second-generation Israeli citizen of this family
unification law. And he was not the only one from these demographics involved
in violent activities. He was just the deadliest. There was always some degree
of involvement in violent activities against Israel, and Israelis, by Arab
citizens of the state. The second-generation Arab Israeli citizens of the family
unification law, are over represented in those activities. They are less than
5% of Israeli Arabs, but 15% of the perpetrators, (Hebrew link). These numbers are small, but
the lesson of the Matza restaurant attack is that the threat should not be
underestimated.
Ignoring this makes the critic dishonest, and
hypocritical. As the late Israeli supreme court judge, Michel Chesin, pointed
out at the time, Israel is asked to accept emigration from hostile territories
that engage in violent activities against its civilians. And that is the whole
point. No country in the world was ever held to such a high standard. No
country in the world, had ever faced the demand, to accept immigrants from hostile
nations. Especially when hostilities were taking place. When Israel was doing so it was going
the extra mile on this civil-rights issue, ahead of any democracy on
earth. The cost was deadly. In maintaining a secondary civil right for
Palestinians, Israeli lives were lost. For Amjad Iraqi, this fact is not worth
mentioning. I wonder why?
Israel’s record of not having a clear policy towards
Arab civilians is an important argument against the lies and distortions of
Amjad Iraqi. But it does not clear Israel from wrong doing towards them. Like
most democracies Israel’s record towards its minorities is checkered. On one
hand the state gave its Arab population voting rights. One the other hand, many
of their communities were under military administration until 1967. Today there
is a greater integration of Arab citizens into Israeli society, culturally, and
economically. But the economic disparities continue. And, sadly, bigotry is
also expressed in various social and official interactions.
The most acute situation exists in East Jerusalem.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 when it reunified the city, after
the victory in the Six Days war. The unification was done for two simple reasons.
A divided capital city that is shared with an enemy is under a serious security
threat. And East Jerusalem includes the most important places for Judaism,
religiously, and nationally. The top of the list includes the Temple Mount, The
Western Wall, and the Jewish quarter. However, Israel did not sort out the
issue of the Arab residents of the places been annexed. An issue that remains open today. With losers on both sides. The Palestinian Arabs living there found
themselves residents of a state they were not its citizens. And Israel found
itself with large communities of non-citizens. A fact that undermines its
sovereignty there. The most obvious solution, granting citizenship, has its
drawbacks for both sides. For Israel there is the risk of incorporating a large
hostile population. For the Palestinians the concern is that this will be seen
as legitimating Israel’s existence; especially the annexation of East
Jerusalem.
This vacuum was filled with substitutes. The Arab
residents were allowed to keep their Jordanian citizenship. But this was
revoked in 1988, by king Hussain of Jordan. In 1993, following the
implementation of the Oslo Accords, they were given the right to vote for the institutions
of the PA. But this right became meaningless when these elections ceased to
take place.
While other factors contribute to this situation;
Israel as the ruler of East Jerusalem, has the responsibility to resolve
it. That means finding a solution that won’t be booby-trapped by the political
standoff. Think of a left-wing, Israeli politician trying to resolve this. On one hand
civil rights values will suggests giving Israeli citizenship to all the Arab
residents of East Jerusalem. But that will collide with the ideological
position of considering re-dividing the city as a part of a peace deal. Right
wing politicians will have to confront something they keep avoiding. What role
do they give minorities in a state that define itself as Jewish? In emphasizing
their collective identity, they run the risk of othering and alienating local
minorities, living alongside them. This is one of the problems with the nation
state law. This law, like the city of Jerusalem, creates a focus on this issue,
and enhances the problems involved.
Jerusalem brings a great emphasis to a lot of issues on
both side. The Palestinians have to come to terms not only with the technical
existence of a Jewish state. But also, with the connection Jews and Judaism has
with this land; especially Jerusalem. This political deadlock traps everybody.
But no one is more affected by it than the Arabs of East Jerusalem. The current
position of the Arab residents of East Jerusalem under Israeli law, is that of
permanent residents. This is an improvised solution that solved that tried to use a law meant for people from other countries and do not wish to become citizens. Under
this law they can vote for the municipality of Jerusalem but not in the general
elections. They get welfare services from the Israeli state. And they can
travel to any part of the state. But if they stay too long outside of Israel,
they can lose this legal status. And since today many of them have no other
citizenship, they could become stateless. This legal status also contains a
path to Israeli citizenship, with its share of bureaucratic hurdles, enhanced
by security concerns and mutual suspicions. Since 1967, around 20,000 residents
became Israeli citizens. And around 15,000 lost their residency status, mostly
during the 90’s. (This was criticized at the time as been a deliberate policy of expulsion). While the overall population had quadrupled.
This is not the complete picture. The Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are intertwined with this. And the human dimension is missing from this review. But it is a vital perspective. One that has to be be given in order to understand the complexities and dilemmas
involved. Especially when facing the fallacies behind Amjad Iraqi’s argument. [East Jerusalem has been the subjects of
research and study for quite some time; as do other aspects of Israeli society.
Some of it politicized, some of it less so. Therefore, there is no shortness of
information on this issue. The purpose of this article is to critic Amjed
Iraqi’s accusations against Israel and Zionism.]
To those tempted to call it apartheid here are some
challenging facts. The population of Israeli citizens includes Israeli Arabs that
are of the same ethnicity and religions as they are. Residency laws exists in many countries on
earth. Calling it apartheid is therefore another wide common denominator. This
law does not create a fixed condition. While apartheid laws were meant to be
perpetual. The apartheid regime in SA created a crisis. This complex situation
is caused by a crisis.
Calling it apartheid is like trying to fix a medical
condition with a magic potion. Rather than heal, it will make things worse.
Just look at Amjad Iraqi’s argument. From all the aspects of the ongoing crisis
in East Jerusalem, he chose the 1980 law. This law annexed East Jerusalem to
the state of Israel. It was largely a symbolic act, motivated by the connections
Israeli Jews have to that part of the city. The actual annexation took place 13
years earlier. All the problem described above begun then. This symbolic law
had no effect on the Arab residents of East Jerusalem. It did not made things
worse. And it did not made things better. If anything it obligated the Israeli government to take care of all the inhabitants of the city, (item 4a). It expresses the Jewish
national identity. Identity that has many of its leading symbols in that part
of the city. If this is apartheid, one the most immoral systems of government
in modern times, then the very existence of Judaism is equally immoral, and has
no right to exist. How does criminalizing an identity, be it Jewish or
Palestinian, help resolve the conflict? The conflict can only be resolved
through mutual acceptance. Amjad Iraqi does the opposite, he criminalizes one
of the identities involved.
In his defense one may argue that it was a random
pick. And he could have easily picked other dates in the history of East
Jerusalem since 1967. The problem is that it is a part of a pattern. One that
is consistent and uniform. Every example he brought is something he and his magazine
chose. He is an editor, not just a columnist. What does he find apartheid in
the behavior of the settlers? Based on the two examples he brought, it is not
how they treat the Arab population around them. He chose two pictures where the
settlers are harming no one. And all the service they get from the IDF is the
defense of their lives. If there is apartheid, and the settlers are the driving
force behind it, then the begging settler would not have begged. He would have
ordered the armed soldier next to him to expel the crowd that came to support
the elderly Palestinian confronting him. Instead, he is begging. This means
that the armed soldier is there not to resolve the dispute, just to keep the
settler safe. In choosing these two pictures Amjad Iraqi demonstrates that for
him, living, breathing, settlers are apartheid. It is one thing to have a
political and ideological opposition to the settlers and the settlements. It is
something completely different, wanting them dead.
And it is not just settlers that he wants to see dead.
It is every Israeli Jew that he wants to see dead. Each of the examples he
brought has its differences. But most of them have one thing in common, they
kept Jews alive. The 1950 absentee’s property law did so by solidifying the end
of a brutal war. And by helping in absorbing Jewish refugees from Arab lands. Military
operations in the WB do it every minute of every day, by preventing terrorist
activities. The 2003 act, is the direct result of murderous terrorism. For
Amjad Iraqi everything that keeps Jewish Israelis alive, is apartheid. One of
the most immoral systems of government in recent history. An evil that must be
abolished wherever and whenever it does exist. But that evil is a system of
government, not the very existence of human beings. But for Amjad Iraqi that
what apartheid is, the very existence of Israeli Jews. For him the very
connection Jews have to their holly sites in Jerusalem is also apartheid. This
choice not only fit the pattern; it expands its genocidal intention to every
Jew on Earth. This is why, we, the Zionist Jews, cannot afford to tire from
disproving the apartheid libel. Our lives depend on it. Amjed Iraqi
demonstrates that this blood libel isn't just antisemitic, it is genocidal.
From the point of view of the history of blood
libels against Jews, this is not unusual. Most of them, if not all, ended in
the mass slaughter of Jews. And it happened in the Muslim world just as it
happened in the Christian world. What is new is the use of the language of
civil right to justify it, and aid it. By twisting facts, and history, he
twists the language itself so murder and genocide will become acceptable to
those that cherish civil rights and human rights. In doing so he makes the
genocide acceptable to those that read uncritically any left-wing literature on human
rights. The wide common denominators create the false association between
Israel and apartheid SA. The lies and the selective examples extend that association
to the very existence of living, breathing Jews in the land of Israel, and
beyond. The idea is to make them accept
atrocities against Israeli Jews, should they recommence on a massive scale. It happened
before. 20 years ago Israelis were subjected to an horrific wave of suicide
bombing knows as the second intifada. Nearly every day there was some kind of an
attack that murdered several Israeli civilians. It was made possible by
pressure from European governments on the Israeli government. That pressure
kept Israel from using effectively its armed forces to end the atrocities. The reason
Europe helped this mass murder campaign is because its media, along with major
sections of its public, bought the language of the Palestinian propaganda. Then it rationalized
the war crime as caused by the “occupation.” Now the far nastier charge of apartheid
is there to facilitate greater atrocities. The Palestinian armed groups don’t
have the means to deliver it. But Hizzbulah, and Iran, with the backing of Russia
and China might.
Why did the PA support the Chinese crackdown in
Turkestan?
What do they expect in return?
Related links in Hebrew about Jerusalem from the Jerusalem Institute.
In order to prove that Israel is an apartheid state
Amjad Iraqi uses extremely wide common denominators. They are so wide not only
Israel and apartheid SA are included in it, but every society on earth, and every
human activity. He also uses lies about SA and about Israel. But what is more
dire is what he brings as examples of apartheid policies in the history of
Israel.
He brings four examples, Israel’s absentees property
law, from 1950. The annexation law of East Jerusalem in 1980. Banning family
unification for WB Palestinians in 2003. And the military administration of
civilian lives in the WB. (He also brings Israel’s nation state law, but that
example had already been discussed). What these examples have in common is the
lack of context. And that context is war, a violent conflict. This conflict is
not just context. It is the cause of each of these examples. Avoiding
mentioning that fact makes the deception possible. It helps create the false
impression that these are the causes of the conflicts, and not the byproducts. Disputing
them does more than rebuking the apartheid allegations. It demonstrates the
actual complexities this conflict is trapped in.
The military
administration of civilian lives is definitely a heavy burden on the civilians
been administrated. But, this is another wide common denominator. This is a
part of every occupation. Be it the genocidal imperialistic occupation of
Europe by Nazi Germany. Or the occupation of Nazi Germany by allied forces that
ended Nazi aggression.
There is no question that any military occupation
should be and must be scrutinized by the standards of law and morality. But the
critique itself must answer to moral and ethical guidelines. Those guidelines
suggest that no decent critique of the IDF can ignore the threat to Israeli
civilians on both sides of the green line. The historic and current record show
that armed Palestinian groups are a threat to the very lives of Israeli
civilians. As a result, both the IDF and its critics are on the same
razor-sharp dilemma. The dilemma of finding a balance between the right of
Israeli civilians to live, and the elementary human rights of Palestinian
civilians. A critic that ignores that is not a critic. It is political propaganda
of the worse kind.
An unavoidable follow up to this discussion are the
settlements and the settlers. Aren’t they apartheid? Well…look at the images
Amjad Iraqi choose to present. The first one (here on the right) shows a group of settlers walking
through a market in Hebron, secured by armed IDF soldiers. Where is the
apartheid here? Shopping? Walking? Are these activities constitute apartheid?
Receiving military escort for everyday activity is very disturbing. But if
those lives are under threat, they must be protected; regardless of your views
on the issue of the settlements. These images are supposed to be examples of
apartheid. They are supposed to be as clear as ‘whites only, blacks only’
signs. But the only thing these two images show, is the existence of tension
between the two populations.
Source: 972 magazine
The second picture shows a confrontation between a
settler and an Arab resident, near Hebron. The caption given to this describes the general situation, but not the two main participants in this scene. It is like a picture of a traffic accident with the caption, "Rush hour traffic." It is related, maybe, but it doesn't explain what happened and how the caption and the picture are related. Was this accident the result of rush hour traffic, or just happened to take place during the rush hour? The explanation may come in the body of the article. If it doesn't, all it creates is an impression. And accusations are not made based on impression. They are made based on information. Be it allegations over bad road safety maintenance, or apartheid.
The irony is that this picture does not deliver the expected impression. The settler in this picture is begging for something. The Arab man is
steadfast in his position. Whatever the debate is; no matter who is right and
who is wrong; apartheid does not look like this. The oppressor never begs the
oppressed. And remember, there is an armed soldier next to the settler. Under
apartheid, and under oppressive regimes, a scene like this cannot take place,
not even once. This does not mean that everyday life for Palestinians in the WB
is a garden of roses. Far from it. This does tell us a lot about Amjad Iraqi. From
the complex situation that exists in the WB, there are probably other pictures
that are better suited for Amjad Iraqi’s purpose. Other scenes that can be
taken out of context in order to make this nefarious accusation. Yet, he chose
the most useless ones. Why did he chose them? The answer will reveal
itself. It is not stupidity.
There is no dispute that actions taken by Israeli
governments had an impact on the lives of Palestinians. There is a conflict
going on. And actions taken by either side had an impact on the population of
the other side. Israel’s 1950 absentee’s property law contributed to the
problem of Palestinian refugees. It prevented them from returning. But it did not
cause it, and did not perpetuated it. The cause was a brutal civil war that
devastated both societies, Jewish and Arab. The cause of that war was the Arab
opposition to the two states solution, and to the existence of the Jewish state
of Israel. It was fueled by the mutual hostility both populations had towards
each other. This law effectively ended that brutal war. The most likely outcome
of allowing the return of these refugees would have been the resumption of
hostilities. And the continued devastation of both societies. This is why
other, similar conflicts, ended the same way. Therefore, those accusing this law of
apartheid are knowingly or unknowingly making a moral case for the continuation
of bloodshed. Apartheid is one of the most immoral systems of government in
human history. If one thing is apartheid, then its opposite is highly moral. In
this case the opposite to Israel’s absentee’s property law it is the resumption
of bloodshed. One the worst this conflict has known. This is the razor-sharp
dilemma “critics” keeps avoiding. And in this case, it is sharp enough to slice
an eyelash from one end to the other.
This continuation of bloodshed would have denied
Israel the legitimate right of national self-determination. This fact raises a
question as to Amjad Iraqi views on the matter. Is he for or against the
principle of national self-determination? His harsh accusations against the
1950 law suggests he is against it when it favors Israel. He does call it
apartheid. He makes the same accusation against Israel’s nation state law. He
calls that apartheid by falsely claiming it denies self-determination for the
Palestinians. It seems that for Amjad Iraqi the principal of national
self-determination is not a universal one. To him, denying it from the
Palestinians is apartheid. But giving it to Jews is also apartheid.
This law gave Israel not only the ability to have
effective national self-determination, but also the ability to absorb hundreds
of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. These refugees fled countries
they were not a threat to, and societies they did not declare war on. But those
societies were hostile to them, violently so.Israel’s absorbed them, and ended their refugee status. While the Arab
world, with the help of UNRWA, perpetuated the stateless conditions of the
Palestinian refugees. Instead of absorbing them, they treated them as a threat.
And they continue to do so today, with the exception of the Kingdom of Jordan.
It is the only Arab state that gave them citizenship.
Israel’s absentee’s property law was brutal, there is
no denying that. But it was the lease possible evil, from all the evils that
were available. And only evils were available. This evil gave both sides the
time and ability to recover. Israel took that chance, the Arab side scorned it.
If Amjad Iraqi thinks that the creation of the refugees’ problem makes this law
an apartheid law; then he must include in it the other, more dominate factors
that contributed to the refugee problem. The segregation and ghettoization
imposed by Arab governments on Palestinian refugees. And the war initiated by
the Palestinian leadership. But if both sides are responsible, and both sides
are responsible, this is not apartheid. It is an important part of a greater
conflict that has to be resolved. The refugees’ problem is one of several open
wounds that need to be closed. But it won’t be solved by destroying Israel. Each
side has its grievances and concerns. Ignoring the other side concerns is not
an act done in good faith.
It is important to be reminded that in traditional
Palestinian polemics the accusation is not apartheid. It is ethnic cleansing.
This accusation is challenged in a similar way. If it was ethnic cleansing,
where is the responsibility of the Arab side, and the Palestinian side? As
mentioned before, this conflict was their idea. And how come this is ethnic
cleansing if many Palestinian Arabs remained in Israeli controlled territory?
Today their descendants are a fifth of the Israeli population. If this is an
ethnic cleansing what would you call the fact the Arab world had been emptied
from its Jewish population? There are slightly
more than 3,000 Jews in the Arab World; mostly in Morocco and Tunisia. It is
just 3 eighths of a percent from the 800,000 that used to live there. It is one
of the best examples in history for the expression, a faint shadow of its
former self. And one of the saddest. The one-sided nature of both accusations
shows that the criterion is not the nature of the did. But the identity of the
accused. And that is more than just bad faith. It is the very nature of
bigotry.
A short prelude: in this article I use repeatedly 3 initials: WB - West Bank, SA - South Africa PA - Palestinian Authority.
Pro-Israel advocates always argue that accusing Israel
of apartheid is false and antisemitic. A column by Amjad Iraqi, a writer and
editor at +972 magazine, proves these accusations to be an understatement.
Amjad Iraqi titled his arguments under the headline,
“Palestinians are tired of proving Israeli apartheid exist.” This is a clear
acknowledgment of a failure; obviously. There could be many reasons for such a
failure. It could simply be not true. Israel is not an apartheid state. After
all, Amjad Iraqi himself is a Palestinian citizen of Israel. This means that he
can vote, speak, and work like all other Israeli citizens, Jews and non-Jews.
Like them, he can try and get elected to a public office, such as the Israeli
parliament, or the council of a major city. And there is nothing in the Israeli
legal system that prevents him, or any other non-Jewish citizen from becoming
the Prime Minister, or the President of Israel.
There are other possibilities. They could be doing it
wrong. Or maybe it’s a trust issue. It is possible that some people have a hard
time believing the intentions behind such accusations. They see the corruption
and internal divisions of Palestinian politics, and begin to suspect that
Israel is being scapegoated to cover up these failures. There are probably more
possibilities. But Amjad Iraqi does not need to explore any possibilities,
these or others. He already has an answer. It is the target audience that is
the problem. The world public opinion is the problem. Not the Palestinians, not
even Israel. The world itself is the problem. According to Amjad Iraqi, the
world does not understand what apartheid is. The world expects Israel to become
an apartheid state in a specific moment in time, while in fact it is a process.
That moments in time was supposed to be the annexation of parts of the WB on
July 1st 2020. As of the time of the writing of these words, this
hasn’t happened. Whether it will take place or not, I do not know. After the
declaration of open relationships between Israel and the UAE, doubt is the
dominate assessment. I do think that attempting to predict the outcome of such
a move is a fool’s game. And it does not matter who is doing the predictions.
As for
Amjad Iraqi, he tries to prove his thesis by outlining the main points in the
development of the Apartheid regime of South Africa. According to him,
apartheid, tyranny, and Zionism, are all processes. And he is right about that.
Apartheid in SA was a process, and tyrannies across the world and across
history are processes. And so are those that oppose them. Democracy and
anti-apartheid are also social and political processes. Industrialization is a
process. Environmentalism is a process. Education is a process. Fashion is a
process. The changes a spoken language goes through is also a process. Amjed
Iraqi had found a common denominator between apartheid SA and Zionism that is
so wide, it includes apartheid and anti-apartheid forces.
Another wide common denominator that he points to is
that both movements were founded by people that found home in a new land; “made
this new land their home,” he quotes from the history of SA. Putting aside the
fact that the land of Israel is not new, not for Jews, and not to western
civilization. The statement, “made this new land their home,” can be said on
every immigration movement. This includes the Indians of SA. They also suffered
under the apartheid regime. Not as much as black South Africans, but they too were
systematically, legally, and socially discriminated. And like the
discrimination of black South Africans, it has a history that goes back to earlier
years of Afrikaners politics and ideology in South Africa. This common
denominator, binds the apartheid regime not only with Zionism, but also with
the Mahatma Gandhi. After all, he lived
in SA for 21 years. Those years are known to contribute to the formation of his
world view and the nature of his political activism.
These wide common denominators are a good explanation
why the Palestinians have been failing to prove that Israeli apartheid exists.
These are bad arguments. They are truly horrendous. Lies are worse. And Amjad Iraqi does use lies.
As the old rational from terrorist organizations goes, the aim justifies the
means. He states: “Like South Africa, Israel’s complex regime was not created
by a single dramatic moment: it was meticulously designed over decades, fueled
by an ideology that rejected equality between the natives and the settlers…”. The
first lie is about SA. Equality was not simply rejected in Apartheid SA. It was
not some vague statement against equality, with a policy of jobs discrimination.
In Apartheid SA inequality was glorified and imposed rigidly, and brutally. In
all walks of life. That regime not only actively, and forcefully discriminated
against people in every aspect of life. It also went after their thoughts on
the matter. And punished them for those thoughts. Especially when they were not
white. No one in Israel is going after Amjad Iraqi’s thoughts. He diminishes
the horrors of that regime, in order to narrow down the differences between Israel
and the apartheid regime of SA. Thus, creating the illusion that the two are
similar. The aim justifies the means. He doesn’t say it, but he practices it.
Israel does not have a policy of rejecting equality
towards the Palestinian Arabs. To begin with Israel and the Zionist movement
never had a policy towards the local Arab population. Most of this “policy” was
reaction to murderess violence coming from the Palestinian side. Occasionally,
dotted with attempts of rapprochement. The most famous example, is the WeitzmanFeisal agreement of 1919. It was a mutually agreed framework to prevent the
conflict from taking place in the first place. And it was signed by the leaders
of both sides. But the Palestinian leadership chose not to enter into this
framework. They made that decision on May 4th 1920 in a classical
pogrom, known as the Nebi Musa riots. The first in a serious of pogroms that
got worse and worse. Another Zionists attempt in rapprochements was during the
1920’s. The Histadrut, tried to help Arab workers unionized. The Histadrut is
the biggest labor union in Israel. It is an umbrella for trade unions from many
fields. Before the creation of Israel, it was the de facto government of the Jewish
Zionist community in the land of Israel. They were also Socialists that
believed in the international mission of Socialism; unionizing and unifying
workers around the word. Therefore, they tried to help Arab workers unionized
and improve their working conditions. This
early rapprochement is a struck contrast to the history of apartheid SA. During
the first decades of the 20th century, trade unions of white
Europeans in SA, turned against sharing joint cause and equal pay with black trade
unions (see the 1919 mark on the timeline).
And the contrasts continue. When SA became separated
from the British Empire, it imposed the Apartheid system, where black Africans
had no political representation. When Israel became independent, it had Arab
parliamentarians in its first legislative assembly. And in each and every elected
legislative assembly since. This is why apartheid was more than just
inequality. It denied political representation from entire ethnicities,
especially the majority black population. In Israel all major minorities have
political representations. They include Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, Jewish
ethnicities, and various branches of Judaism. Israel is, a one person, one vote
political system.
A luck of
political representation is another form of oppression. And another key
contrast between Zionist Israel and apartheid SA. Historically, and
continuously, Zionism and Israel acknowledged the equality of the Palestinian
Arabs. This was done on two levels, on the individual level, with equal rights
to all the citizens of Israel. And on the collective level, by accepting the
principle of the two states solution. A Palestinian nation state, alongside a
Jewish nation state.
Even the much maligned, Israel’s “National State Law”
does not denies it. It says that the state of Israel is the nation state of the
Jewish people. It does not forbid the establishment of another nation state on
the same land. This Basic (constitutional) law has its problems. But saying
that this law forbids national self-determination for Palestinians is false. Thewording of this law is very clear. “(b) The state of Israel is the nation state
of the Jewish people, in which it realizes its natural, cultural, religious,
and historical right to self-determination. (c) The exercise of the right to
national self-determination in the state of Israel, is unique to the
Jewish people.” While Amjed Iraqi declare in a question, “what about the Jewish
Nation-State law, passed two years ago, which decrees that self-determination in
this land belongs solely to the Jews?” With the change of just one word,
land instead of state, he created a gross lie. And the article his “decree” links
to, is nothing but a failed attempt to make a duck look like a pig.
Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel, here are some thoughts I’d like to share.
We often say Auschwitz was liberated. Auschwitz was never liberated; no one can liberate the dead. Auschwitz was ended.
There are those who divide the victims, trying to turn them one against the other. They say the Jewish preoccupation with the Holocaust unjustly overshadows other genocides. But those who minimize the importance of the Holocaust minimize the other genocides as well. By saying there are many such things across history they are making these horror appear mundane and ordinary. When in fact the Holocaust, the only global genocide, and the most industrious and thorough of them all, was made possible because all the previous atrocities were allowed and confronted by only a handful, and the ideologies behind them never discarded and rejected.
In its time, Slavery in the Americas was the worse atrocity ever perpetuated by men against their fellow men. When the American Civil War ended it merely elevated Afro Americans to the same position the Jews of Eastern Europe were at the time. With the resurgent of white supremacy through the Jim Crow laws, humanity path to Auschwitz had resumed, as it so many times before and where new heights of evil were reached. And now, whenever genocide takes place on this earth we all desecrate the memory of the Holocaust.
The number of the beast is not 666, its not even 6 million, it is 11 million, or somewhere above it. “Approximately 11 million Jews”, that is the number that sums up the Nazi death list made in the Wannsee Conference on January 20th 1942 headed by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolph Eichmann.
11 million is a big number, bigger the number of Jews that lived in all over Europe prior to outbreak of the war, which was about 9,377,000. Even if we add the over 1 million Jews that lived in nazis' plan of advance, (from North West Africa to India), and those under Japanese occupation, we won’t get that number. 11 million Jews is the number of Jews all over the world minus the USA. It is a number that includes, Israel, Yemen, and India, Ethiopia and South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico and all of Latin America, with all of Asia, Africa and of-course Europe.
It does not say so in the protocols, but in 1942 that what 11 millions Jews meant. How the numbers were distributed beyond Europe is a guess work. The term “unoccupied France” registers 700,000 Jews - far higher than the total number of Jews in Vichy France, North West Africa, Syria and Lebanon, and the rest of the French colonial empire. Russia on its European and Asian possessions had no more then 3 million Jews, and not 5 million, as the protocols suggest. The other 2 millions are more then enough to include all major Ashkenazi dominated communities in the old world outside of Europe, plus Canada and Latin America. When it comes to Italy the protocols mention 58,000 Jews with a strange reference to Sardinia. This is an exaggeration. The fact was that in 1939 there where only 45,000 Jews in Italy, and that number kept dropping. Who were the other thousands of Jews? The Jews of Ethiopia, which then believed to have numbered only 19,000?
It is an eerie division, one that reflects the current divisions of Israeli society.
Perhaps it is pointless and useless to dwell in the fantasies of the dead beast. But the beast ain’t dead, it has changed its name and excuses, and methods of brutality but not the fantasies. Fantasies that then as now are beyond their ability to chew but can still do a lot of harm.
