The "Apartheid" Allegation - Main
Primer
The Apartheid Allegation
Background and Analysis - Primer
November 2009
The Accusation:
- Israel is an ‘apartheid’ state like South Africa. Israel has institutionalized racism against the indigenous population and restricts their rights to movement, political participation, education and more. These violations of human rights by a ‘settler-colonial’ regime are illegal and immoral and must be opposed by the international community by boycotting and sanctioning Israeli officials, products and individuals.
Analysis
The Apartheid Allegation
Background and Analysis
November 2009
The Problem
Introduction
The accusation that Israel is a ‘racist’ and ‘apartheid’ state has become a mainstay of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist opponents in the West, particularly on the political left. The unequivocal evil of South African apartheid or ‘race separation’ has been deliberately transposed onto Israel as part of the ‘Durban Strategy’ of demonizing Israel in the worst possible terms and isolating it in the international arena. Since no thinking person could support South African racism, this same logic and these same techniques have been applied to Israel.Another of the 20th century’s unequivocal evils, Nazism, is used the same way. By explicitly equating Israel and Israel as Nazis, proponents gain a seemingly unchallengeable moral upper hand. Supporters of Israel are depicted as racists and sympathizers with Nazi-like behavior. Doing so relieves users of residual guilt regarding the Holocaust since in this equation Jews are guilty of something as bad or somehow worse. The apartheid accusation and the Nazi comparison also usefully condemn Israel’s most important tally, the United States, as a fascist, imperialist power. Finally, acceptance of these equations has become a litmus test on the political left. Rejecting such outrageously false and utterly ahistorical comparisons is often seen as siding with evil, as well as rejecting the cause of the Palestinians. The apartheid charge provides the pretext for questioning the legitimacy of Israel and the basis for attacking Jewish sovereignty as fundamentally unacceptable. Ultimately, the goal of the apartheid accusation is not a Palestinian state so much as the end of the Jewish state.
Research Publications
- Robbie Sabel “The Campaign to Delegitimize Israel with the false charge of Apartheid”, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 2009
- Rhoda Kadalie with Julia I. Bertelsmann, “Franchising, “Apartheid”: Why South Africans Push the Analogy”, Z-Word & American Jewish Committee March 2008
- Gideon Shimoni, "Deconstructing Apartheid Accusations Against Israel", Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, September 2, 2007.
- Mitchell Bard, "Myths & Facts Online. Human Rights in Israel and the Territories", American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
- John Strawson, “Zionism and Apartheid: The Analogy in the Politics of International La”, Engage Issue 2: May 2006
- Ben Cohen, “Lies, Damn Lies and the Apartheid Analogy”, Z-Word & American Jewish Committee July 8, 2009