Submitted to The Emperor's New Cothes Newsletter
Published in XMag, September 2004
The question of whether it is antisemitic to criticise Israel or whether Israel is an apartheid state raises matters of geopolitical importance for all progressive activists and serious matters of political theory. Jared Israel's editorial comments in The Emperor's Clothes Newsletter (January 27, 2004) [1] are a timely, but extraordinarily flawed contribution, to the point that one could be forgiven for thinking they are written as parody. Mr. Israel claims that to describe the state of Israel as 'apartheid' is false based on a 'clever lie' on his analysis of one piece of evidence - land ownership. This in turn becomes a question about lying about Israel (the state) in general as opposed to the matter of criticism. Finally, Mr. Israel comments on perceived recent attempts by "pro-PLO forces" to claim Martin Luther King as their own. Of the latter matter, commentary is reserved for a future discussion if deemed truly necessary.
With regards to land ownership, Jared Israel claims the following represents the distribution of land ownership in Israel: "Israeli Arabs do make up 20% of the population and they do own 3% of the land. So then how is he lying? Cleverly - by omission. He leaves out a crucial fact: Jews make up 80% of the population of Israel but own only 3.5% of the land!" According to Mr. Israel, Arabs (representing 20% of the population) make up 3% of land ownership, Jews (representing 80% of the population) make up 3.5% of land ownership and that 93.5% is either state-owned or state-controlled, of which "a disproportionately high share is held by Arabs. The other 93.5% cannot be sold, it can only be leased to the general public, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish."
This is grimly ironic reading to anyone who understands even a modicum of the land ownership situation in the state of Israel. Mr. Israel has engaged in the very crime that he accuses his critics of - omission - and thus creates what is perhaps a very clever lie, although the preferred option is that he is just ignorant of the facts and not beyond learning. It is true that some 93% of the land in Israel is state land. But suggest that this means that it is free from discriminatory practices is simply contrary to the evidence. Some 12% of all land was once held by the Jewish National Fund established to purchase land in Palestine for "perpetual property of the Jewish people". When the Israeli state assumed control of such land it agreed to abide by the JNF's mandate of not leasing the land to non-Jews. If this does contradict Jared Israel's figures sufficiently, it is also worth recognising that the ILA also internally transfers land to the JNF administration, amounting to tens of thousands of acres between 1991 and 2004. Indeed the evidence is that the JNF does have an disproportionate amount of influence on the ILA board, making up 6 of the ILA board's 13 members as of 1999 (the rest are government appointed).
Mr. Israel further claims that even if land ownership was discriminatory in in the state of Israel (which it clearly is), this would not amount to apartheid, because "Apartheid does not mean discrimination in land use" and "[b]y that standard, virtually every country would be an Apartheid state because there is discrimination everywhere", a comment that displays an inability to distinguish between the effects of economic class relations and direct political discrimination. Instead, according to Mr. Israel, "the term 'Apartheid' refers to the system that existed in South Africa, with draconian laws dividing the population into 'races' defined according to a Nazi-like ideology. It means the segregation of these supposed races, with radically different conditions of life prescribed for each. It means the official sanctioning of hate speech; racism becomes state ideology".
As a matter of fact the Israeli state does differentiate among its population, not just according to 'race', but also those more specific terms 'culture' and 'religions'. Nothing is more clear than this than the nationality law which defines people as belonging to one of 137 "nationalities" some of which are based on religion, some of which are based on language, but none of which are based on membership to the nation-state of Israel. The reason is quite clear: different "nationalities" are treated differently in Israel. They are discriminatory laws on The Law of Entry, The Law of Return, in citizenship Law, Family Law, Law on Political Parties the special rights to "returning residents", and the application of the Military Service Law. Furthermore, discriminatory practices are invariably cemented with the provision that new laws will not affect any laws or regulations previously enacted [4].
If different treatment of Israeli citizens and residents is evident in the legal sense, the vast gulf between citizen and non-citizen rights both within the state of Israel proper and the occupied territories is self-evident and with further discrimination in practice on the basis of their so-called "nationality". The most obvious case of the separation barrier in the west bank has been, for good reason, recently condemned by Oxford Public Interest Lawyers as a violation of "freedom of movement; freedom from arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family and home; freedom of assembly and association; freedom of religion; rights of minorities; and rights of due process" [5].
If these obvious legal examples and practices are not enough to justify even formal claims of apartheid, then apparently "statistical evidence of the results of Apartheid" is required, such as "extreme differences between Jews and Arabs in telltale statistics such as infant mortality and life expectancy, just as there were between blacks and whites in South Africa". Again, this represents an attempt at obfuscation. Whilst it is trivially true that life expectancy, for example, between Jews and non-Jews in Israel is almost equivalent [6], this leaves out matters of life expectancy, infant mortality and so forth in those territories which have been occupied for more than thirty five years. Mr. Israel's assumptions are like studying South African statistics minus the troubling deviations from the Bantu "homelands".
If one has the intellectual courage to look at the situation of all the people under Israeli control then a very different picture emerges. In Israel itself, there are 6.1 million people in relative comfort, with an average life expectancy of some 79 years, and infant mortality rate of 7.37 per 1,000 births and a GDP per capita of $19,500 USD. In the Gaza strip however, there is 1.2 million people. Whilst having a life expectancy of some 77 years, the infant mortality is 24.15 per 1,000 births and their GDP per capita of $600 USD. Of these people, 99.4% are non-Jewish Arabs. In the West Bank, the situation is barely better. Some 2.2 million, live with a life expectancy of some 73 years, an infant mortality of 20.68 per 1,000 births and a GDP per capita of $800 USD. Some 83% of the West Bank are non-Jewish Arabs [7]. This statistical evidence indicates that that Palestinian Arabs are under very similar comparative conditions to "blacks" in South Africa. Indeed, when it comes down to per capita income, their situation is worse.
Mr. Israel claims that "Arabs live appreciably better in Israel than in so-called Arab countries" - despite the stubborn fact that per capita income in Egypt is more than 650% greater than that of the Gaza strip and Jordan's is 530% greater than the West Bank - an argument used by "white" supremacists to justify the apartheid system. This is of course, to miss the point. Blacks were, according to some assessments, better off under apartheid and did have a better standard of living than that of their neighbours. But those facts did not make apartheid any more palatable a system of government. As Walter Williams pointed out: "Black rule alone is no guarantee for black freedom". [8] Likewise, if Israel abolished its "religious apartheid" this would not itself guarantee freedom for the Palestinians. Indeed, as the people of South Africa are discovering, abolition of oppression only provides for the possibility of freedom, not freedom itself.
As further comparative evidence, Mr. Israel points out that: "A notable feature of South African Apartheid was that black people were deprived of all democratic rights" and that "Israeli Arabs run for office and vote for a parliament that decides the government of Israel". This is partially true at best, as not only is the population of the state of Israel stacked against the Arab minority because of the immigration law and policy, candidates and parties which do not support the idea of Israel as a religious "Jewish state" are banned, as are those who are sympathetic to the resistance in the occupied territories [9] a ban which has even been applied to orthodox Jews. Finally, in a last ditch effort to assert the wonders of Israeli democracy, Mr. Israel calls for a comparison of Israeli democracy in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria, as if this makes any difference at all to the question of whether Israel is democratic or not.
In another to answer the question on whether the Israeli state is analogous to apartheid is to note that the "whites" are a recent addition to southern Africa whereas Jews have been there for thousands of years. It is difficult to perceive what is being attempted here. If it is the suggestion that there is some nexus between colonialism and variations on apartheid, Mr. Israel is probably correct - after all, the number of Israeli-born Jews amounts to only 20% of the population of Israel and the majority of the population are Jewish "colonists" from other lands. If Mr. Israel is making an assertion that Israel is the homeland of the Jews, he is also correct. But that is no excuse for the establishment of a religious state and for laws and practices that discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation.
Finally, Jared Israel concludes that "South African Apartheid was a nightmare, rooted in [a] crackpot "science" of 'Eugenics'". This much is true, and there is an equivalent religious-nationalist crackpot ideology at work as well in Israel - such as the comments from Theodor Herzl, that the "homeland" extends "from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates", or from Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, who declared in his testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on July 9, 1947: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. It includes parts of Syria and Lebanon." It is the crackpot ideology which lets an Israeli State official to claim: "But they are not human beings, they are not people, they are Arabs" [11]. As Noam Chomsky notes:
"The Zionist dream is to construct a state which is as Jewish as England is English and France is French. At the same time, this state is to be a democracy on the Western model. Evidently, these goals are incompatible. Citizens of France are French, but citizens of the Jewish state may be non-Jews, either by ethnic or religious origin or simply by choice [...] To the extent that Israel is a Jewish State it cannot be a democratic state" [12]
Doubtless there are many on "the other side" which hold contemptible views of Israeli Jew, although claims that Arab national leaders have threatened to "drive them into the sea" have not been substantiated [13]. There are those who, for example, want a pure Arabic or pure Muslim state, or a nation reserved for White Christians, or "A Protestant State for a Protestant People", to use the slogan advocated by the Orange faction in Northern Ireland. All these have the same political content - political discrimination. Of course, it is going to be a matter of degrees; the discrimination to non-Jews in Israel may be less than the discrimination to non-Whites in South African apartheid, but not to the extent that even the Israeli press recognises that the system is apartheid, that Bishop Tutu recognises it as apartheid, and that the United States grants asylum to those fleeing Israel on grounds of economic persecution due to ethnicity and religion [14].
Even if the above is accepted however one just question that is commonly raised is: "Why is Israel targeted for criticism? Why not an Arab dictatorship which has a worse human rights record or even less democracy?" The point is that one should target criticism towards that which they have a practical possibility of influencing. There is little good in say, harping on about the deplorable human rights record of the North Korean government because that is something we really can't change. Israel however can be changed - it can be changed like the worldwide movement to change South African apartheid through disinvestment, it can be changed by the United States ending the billions of dollars provided to Israel through US aid [15]. It can be changed to "a light unto the nations", a region called Israel and Palestine, a region with Hebrew and Arabic as official languages, a region where there is no law on matters of religious belief, rather than the current situation where "the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies" [16].
Ultimately, if progressive people are not going to betray themselves to sectional interests - including their own sectional interests - they must be able to apply a sense of universality to all situations. One of these, a basic feature to any modern person, is to support the separation of church and state. Another, a basic feature to any democratic person, is to support equal rights to all people regardless of colour, ethnicity or creed. To the extent that Israel does not support the separation of church and state and to the extent that Israel does not grant equal rights to all people under its jurisdiction, is the extent that Israel is not a secular, democratic state. Rather it is one based on 'hafrada', or in the language of the Afrikaans, 'apartheid'.
Bibliography
[1] Jared Israel, Is it Antisemitic to Criticise Israel? Is Israel an 'Apartheid State'?, Emperor's Clothes, January 27, 2004. http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/land.htm Also published in Arutz Sheva, Feb 01, 2004, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=3282 [2] For board membership and land transfers see: Amnon Rubinstein, Ha'aretz 13 October 1999. [3] The state denies there is any such nationality as `Israeli', Moshe Gorali (Ha'aretz) Dec. 29, 2003 also at: http://middleeastinfo.org/article3804.html [4] Dr. Israel Shahak, Israeli Discrimination Against Non-Jews Is Carefully Codified in State of Israel's Laws, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Jan/Feb 1998, pp88-89 [5] Al Jazeerah, Oxford University Law Professors Condemn Israel's Separation Barrier for Violating International Law on 18 Counts, Feb 11, 2004 The full text is available online at: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~magd1538/OXPIL.htm [6] "Life expectancy at birth in 1995-1999 was 80.5 years for women and 76.1 years for men. Among the Jewish population, life expectancy was 80.8 years for women and 76.6 years for men, and among the 'other religions' population 77.8 for women and 74.1 for men. Complete Life Tables of Israel, 1995-1999, Central Bureau of Statistics, State of Israel, September 2000 [7] See CIA World Factbook, 2002 for comparisons between Israel, the Gaza strip and the West bank. [8] Walter Williams, Were blacks better off under apartheid?, Jewish World Review Jan. 9, 2001 [9] Chris McGreal, Knesset moves to bar Arab members, The Guardian,December 30, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,866348,00.html Gil Sedan, Israeli Arabs say move to ban party unfair, Cleveland Jewish News, 23 December 2002 Peter Hirschberg, Arab Party Barred from Israeli election, The Irish Times, 2 January 2003 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2003/0102/2995620300FR02MIDEAST.html Gideon Alon, Tibi going to High Court after CEC disqualifies him, Ha'aretz, February 12, 2003. http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=246752 [10] Theodor Herzl, Complete Diaries, Vol.II, page 711 [11] A British Member of Parliament who visited Jerusalem after the Six-Day War of 1967 described a meeting at the Knesset (Israeli parliament) as follows: 'After lunch, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee spoke with great intemperance about the Arabs. When he drew a breath, I was constrained to say, 'Dr. Hacohen, I am profoundly shocked that you should preach of other human beings in terms similar to those in which [Nazi] Julius Streicher spoke of the Jews. Have you learned nothing?' I shall remember his reply to my dying day. He smote the table with both hands and said, 'But they are not human beings, they are not people, they are Arabs.' British Parliamentary proceedings reported in Hansard, 18th October 1973. [12] Noam Chomsky, Forward to, The Arabs in Israel, Adalah, Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 1998, p. 9 [13] In 1973 British MP, Christopher Mayhew, offered �5,000 to anyone who could produce evidence that Nasser had made such a statement. Mayhew repeated the offer later in the House of Commons (Hansard, 18 October 1973) and broadened it to include genocidal statements by other Arab leaders. (Manchester Guardian, 9 September 1974). Mayhew received several letters from claimants, each one producing one fabricated quotation or another from an Arab leader, usually culled straight from one pro-Israeli publication or another. One claimant, Warren Bergson, took Mayhew to court. The case came before the High Court in February 1976. Bergson was unable to offer evidence of Nasser's alleged statement. Bergson acknowledged that, after thorough research, he had been unable to find any statement by a responsible Arab leader which could be described as genocidal. [14] Uzi Ornan, Apartheid Laws in Israel - The Art of The Obfuscatory Formulation, Ha'aretz, 17 May 1991: "By studying them one cannot fail to reach a conclusion, which cannot but be embarrassing to many of us: namely, that Israel is an Apartheid state, and the Apartheid not only manifests itself socially, but that it is also embedded in the legal system. Desmond Tutu, Apartheid in the Holy Land, Monday April 29, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html Vered Levy-Barzilai and Max Levitte, Gimme shelter, Ha'aretz, February 12, 2004 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=322027 [15] Desmond Tutu, Build Moral Pressure To End The Israeli Occupation Of The Palestinian Lands, International Herald Tribune, July 14, 2002 Shirl McArthur, A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billion - and Counting, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2001, pp15-16 http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/010201/0101015.html [16] Avrham Burg, A failed Israeli society is collapsing: The end of Zionism?, International Herald Tribune, Saturday, September 6, 2003. Avrham Burg was speaker of the Knesset from 1999 to 2003.
Last update February 18, 2004