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South Africa: Israel actions in East Jerusalem akin to apartheid

11.26.2009 | Haaretz

By Raphael Ahren
The South African government has issued an unusually harsh statement condemning Israel for approving 900 new housing units in Gilo and evicting Palestinians from their East Jerusalem homes, comparing Israel’s actions to the “forced removals” of the apartheid era.

“We condemn the fact that Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem is coupled with Israel’s campaign to evict and displace the original Palestinian residents from the City,” the statement said. “South Africa is deeply concerned that these activities by Israel will only serve only to deepen the cycle of violence in the region.”

Israeli officials and Jewish leaders in South Africa condemned the statement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: “We deeply regret this unexplainable statement, which ignores key facts while presenting as realities nonexistent matters. It is highly misleading not to take cognizance of Israel’s repeated calls to renew peace talks unconditionally and without deferral. It is simply unjust to call the neighborhood of Gilo a ’settlement,’ or to conjure a phantasmagorical ‘campaign to evict Palestinians.’”

“One cannot equate building new homes for Israelis… in Gilo with the forced removals that occurred under apartheid,” said David Saks, the associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. “In the latter case, many thousands of non-whites were forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for white settlement; in Gilo, by contrast, no one is being forcibly removed to make way for new developments.”

Israel says the two Palestinian families evicted from homes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood over the summer were living in buildings that have been owned by Jews since before Israel’s founding, and that a court ordered the evictions because the families had violated the terms of their leases.

Another leader of the South African Jewish community said that while individual government officials have occasionally invoked the apartheid comparison, it’s unusual for the government itself to do so.

A spokeswoman for the South African Zionist Federation, Bev Goldman, said the group “questions again why Israel is always judged to a standard different from that of the rest of the world.” She said the statement would “do little more than create and heighten tensions within the local Jewish community and with South Africa’s radical pro-Palestinian elements.”

It smells like discrimination

The widening gap between Israel's Jewish majority and the Arab minority is worrying and poses many questions as to the country's Arab-Jewish coexistence. Nearly every day statements are heard from senior figures concerning the legitimacy of Arab citizens, and unbridled attacks have become routine: MK Israel Hasson of Yisrael Beiteinu is talking about a second War of Independence against the Arab citizens in Israel, MK Otniel Schneller of Kadima is talking about establishing task forces to examine the possibility of population exchanges and the head of the Shin Bet security service is talking about the Arabs as a strategic threat.
....

The discrimination against Arabs cries out to the heavens in every area. Half of the Arab population is under the poverty line, and the government's policy toward them has made a significant contribution to worsening their depressed state. For 60 years, there has been talk of equality but, in fact, all the talk has been just empty slogans. The preferential treatment of Jews over Arabs can be seen and smelled everywhere.

The Arab citizens of Israel live in a reality in which they experience discrimination as Arabs. This inequality has been documented in a large number of professional surveys and studies, has been confirmed in court judgments and government resolutions, and has also found expression in reports by the state comptroller and in other official documents. Although the Jewish majority’s awareness of this discrimination is often quite low, it plays a central role in the sensibilities and attitudes of Arab citizens. This discrimination is widely accepted, both within the Arab sector and outside it, and by official assessments, as a chief cause of agitation.

Flying Dutchman wrote:The fact that Arabs can go to an Israeli court concerning discrimination and win, just shows Israel is not an apartheid state.
Even South African officials expressed their digust of hijacking the term apartheid for anti-semitic goals.

Flying Dutchman wrote:The fact that Arabs can go to an Israeli court concerning discrimination and win, just shows Israel is not an apartheid state.
Even South African officials expressed their digust of hijacking the term apartheid for anti-semitic goals.

They won't allow us not to know

By Gideon Levy

If not for B'Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, the State of Israel would look different today. The occupation might have been even crueler, or just as cruel, but we certainly would look different. In its 20 years of existence, this important human-rights organization may not have succeeded in changing reality, but at least it has made it possible for us to know what that reality was. Without B'Tselem, it might have been easier for us to say we did not know that this is what we were like, or that such shameful things were being done in our name.

In terms of results on the ground, B'Tselem has failed miserably: The parade of occupation and settlements still races ahead, the dogs of B'tselem are barking, but Israelis care less than ever before. When it comes to history, however, this will be an organization that left its mark. At the very least, it held up a mirror to a society that did not want to see its own reflection. That may not sound like much, but it's also not so little, in light of our current dismal state of affairs.

Yitzhak Rabin was once famously quoted as saying that, unlike Israel, the Palestinian Authority would quell Palestinian resistance "without the High Court of Justice, and without B'Tselem." Now we find ourselves practically bereft of both: The Supreme Court is battered, beaten and cowardly, and the organization is losing its relevance. But both are still here. Without them, not much would remain of Israel's democracy.
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It was B'Tselem that brought me to the occupied territories. A good boy from Tel Aviv, a graduate of Israel's school system and a consumer of its propagandist media, I began to travel to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in large part thanks to the organization's excellent field researchers. From working with the legendary Bassem Eid, who was my mouth, eyes and heart for many years, and with Musa Abu Hashhash and the other B'Tselem researchers today; and from that first naive journey with Dedi Zucker and Eid, way back at the end of the 1980s, to see a few uprooted olive trees, up to the most recent trip to document a horrific incident a few weeks ago, in which Israel Defense Forces soldiers badly abused Palestinian workers - B'Tselem has been a highly reliable and professional source of information for me.

The organization has changed much since its early days. It has become less political, abrasive and subversive, and now strives, albeit in vain, to be politically correct, aiming for the center of Israel's political map. It has become restrained, at times overly cautious. Too much time passed before it reported on the last two wars and, together with the occupation, it has begun to fade gradually from Israel's public agenda.

These are all reasons to be critical of B'Tselem, yet its overall contribution cannot be ignored. Do you want to know what is being done in your name a mere 30-minute drive from your home? Ask B'Tselem. Do you want to know how many people we've killed, who they were, and why? Go check its Web site.

Endless piles of scathing reports have gathered dust; countless complaints to the IDF, the Shin Bet security services, the police and the other mechanisms of occupation have gone unaddressed. And still we must salute this determined group, which may not cry out as loudly as it could, and may not be as radical as it should be, but does its work faithfully nonetheless. You will never catch B'Tselem in a lie, which may be why the security services have in recent months tried to malign the organization as never before.

A thoroughly patriotic organization, it has improved Israelis' image around the world. At least, people say, they have B'Tselem. They're not all Shaul Mofaz, Avigdor Lieberman or Moshe Ya'alon.

Who knows? Another day may come. A day when B'Tselem will win the Israel Prize for its work, an honor that it deserves. Perhaps someday the organization will even close its doors for lack of work.

In the meantime, let us light 20 candles on B'Tselem's birthday cake, and one for the coming year, which will probably be as cruel and violent in the territories as the one before it, and as cruel and violent as the 19 years that preceded that. B'Tselem will let us know.

dee7o wrote:So can you offer an explanation why the South African government has spoken out in this way in spite of the vast Jewish population it harbors? Also, why the talk of inequality in Israeli press and by a Jewish judge?

shafique wrote:Like South Africa, the presence of well meaning Israelis does not change the fact that Israel is committing acts of discrimination etc. If it weren't for organisations like B'Tselem, more Israelis would have the excuse that 'they didn't know'. Unfortunately, as Levy points out below - many now know, but don't care.

Kudos to the many who do care and speak out against injustice:

They won't allow us not to know

Edited - to save space [shafique]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1130951.html

shafique wrote:I'm also reminded of the Israeli actions after capturing Jerusalem in 1967 - there was a thriving, long-standing Muslim community living in the area facing the Western Wall - these people were all evicted by the occupying forces and their houses bulldozed. It was a crime back then, still is a crime today to bulldoze people's houses - but hey, perhaps I'm being simplistic again!

shafique wrote:Don't you have an equivalent saying in Dutch to 'two wrongs don't make a right'?

shafique wrote:Given that the South African government is comparing Israel's actions to Apartheid - are you saying they are spreading hatred?

shafique wrote:The excuse that 'well my neighbour is a bigger criminal than me' doesn't wash with me unfortunately.

shafique wrote:You do realise you are trying to justify criminal and immoral acts, don't you?

shafique wrote:What you think my views on wife beating etc are have no bearing on Israeli actions in Palestine, so I'm a little amused at your comments.

shafique wrote:Are you just annoyed that I've pointed out you are trying to justify a war crime - the eviction of a whole neighbourhood and the bulldozing of their homes?

shafique wrote:Do you have to use vulgar language when defending the eviction of Muslims from their homes and the bulldozing of the site?

Arabs in Israel have equal rights by law

Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa…..

shafique wrote:So, FD's argument is that Israel's neighbours also discriminate, so the South Africans are wrong to say Israeli actions are like Apartheid.

shafique wrote:Surely he's just arguing that South Africa should have also named the other countries and condemned them for their Apartheid-like actions. Strange line of argument - I'm a criminal, but so are my neighbours so please don't just criticise me!!

shafique wrote:(Oh, and I like the speed at which FD has forgotten the quotes from an Israeli judge that say that Arabs are indeed discriminated against within the Justice system despite being 'equal under the law' - shows that hypocrisy can be added to the list of crimes of Israel!)

shafique wrote:I also note that the Israeli war crime of evicting and bulldozing the houses of the Maghreb quarter (where houses had been for centuries) - is not being defended any more.