Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumSouth Africa’s de Klerk: Israel not an apartheid state
Frederik Willem de Klerk, the former president of South Africa who negotiated to end his country’s apartheid regime, said Tuesday that it was “unfair” to refer to Israel as an apartheid state.
“You have closed borders, but America has closed borders. They don’t allow every Mexican who wants to come in to come in,” de Klerk, who was in Israel to receive an honorary doctorate from Haifa University, told Channel 2.
As opposed to the racial segregation in South Africa, “you have Palestinians living in Israel with full political rights,” and “you don’t have discriminatory laws against them, I mean not letting them swim on certain beaches or anything like that. I think it’s unfair to call Israel an apartheid state...”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/south-africas-de-klerk-israel-not-an-apartheid-state/
...De Klerk rejected the comparison of apartheid South Africa and Israel, saying, "I think comparisons are odious and I wouldn't like to draw direct comparisons. I prefer dialogue and negotiation as a way to get governments to change their attitude."
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Last-South-African-president-under-white-rule-opposes-boycott-of-Israel-406672
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Purveyor
(29,876 posts)Desmond Tutu, the noted civil rights leader who became the first black archbishop of Cape Town, compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the apartheid regime that discriminated against blacks in his native South Africa.
Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate, told News24, a South African media entity, criticized Israeli policies toward the Palestinians in the territories as "humiliating."
"I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces," he said in a statement.
"Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."
more...
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Desmond-Tutu-Israel-guilty-of-apartheid-in-treatment-of-Palestinians-344874
shira
(30,109 posts)...it appears he has a Jew problem, related to his religious convictions. His support of the hideously antisemitic christian group 'Sabeel' (supercession, charges of deicide) is the first clue.
His odious views towards the Jews speaks for itself...
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1742/bishop-tutu-is-no-saint-when-it-comes-to-jews
Tutu has asserted that Zionism has "very many parallels with racism," thus echoing the notorious and discredited "Zionism equals racism" resolution passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations and subsequently rescinded. He has accused the Jews of Israel of doing "things that even Apartheid South Africa had not done." He has said that "the Jews thought they had a monopoly of God: Jesus was angry that they could shut out other human beings." He has said that Jews have been "fighting against" and being "opposed to" his God. He has "compared the features of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem to the features of the apartheid system in South Africa." He has complained that "the Jewish people with their traditions, religion and long history of persecution sometimes appear to have caused a refugee problem among others." He has implied that Israel might someday consider as an option "to perpetrate genocide and exterminate all Palestinians."
He has complained that Americans "are scared…to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful—very powerful." He has accused Jews—not Israelis—of exhibiting "an arrogance—the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support."
"You know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal in the U.S. and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic, as if Palestinians were not Semitic."
He has compared Israel to Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union and Apartheid South Africa, saying that they too were once "very powerful" but they "bit the dust," as will "unjust" Israel.
He has denied that Israel is a "civilized democracy" and has singled out Israel—one of the world's most open democracies—as a nation guilty of "censorship of their media." He has urged the Capetown Opera to refuse to perform Porgy and Bess in Tel Aviv and has called for a total cultural boycott of Jewish Israel, while encouraging performers to visit the most repressive regimes in the world.
He has claimed that his God sides with Palestinians, whom he compares to the Israelites under bondage in Egypt, and has sought to explain, if not justify, how Israeli actions lead directly to suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism.
He has been far more vocal about Israel's imperfections than about the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur and Cambodia. He repeatedly condemns Israel's occupation of the West Bank without mentioning the many other occupations in the world today. While attacking Israel for its "collective punishment" of Palestinians—which he claims is worse than what Apartheid South Africa did—he himself has called for the collective punishment of Jewish academics and businesses in Israel by demanding boycotts of all Jewish (but not Muslim or Christian) Israelis. (This call for an anti-Jewish boycott finds its roots in the Nazi "Kauft Nicht beim Juden" campaign of the 1930's.) When confronted with his double standard against Jews, he has justified it on phony theological grounds: "Whether Jews like it or not, they are a peculiar people. They can't ever hope to be judged by the same standards which are used for other people." There is a name for non-Jews who hold Jews to a double standard: It is called anti-Semitism.
Tutu has acknowledged having been frequently accused of being anti-Semitic," to which he has offered two responses: "Tough luck;" and "my dentist's name is Dr. Cohen."
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2015, 08:12 AM - Edit history (1)
Neither has de Klerk.
You'll find no legitimate sources proving otherwise.
========================
As to the charge of Apartheid in Israel, who cares what the dreary, sanctimonious bigoted leaders of BDS have to say? These are the same clowns who support and enable the continuation of Apartheid in Lebanon vs. Palestinians there. The same wretches who lead BDS efforts for "justice and equity", yet support and enable Hamas' ongoing rights abuses against women, gays, and christians of Gaza. It's near impossible to distinguish these bigoted hypocrite leaders in charge of BDS from fascists masquerading as human rights advocates over at Stormfront.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Let's just say for the sake if argument that there were articles, or quotes, to refute your fallacious statement...and knowing you history on DU...
1. You would attempt to ignore them.
2. You would attempt to delegitimize them.
3. You might attemot to call them bigots.
4. And then you would point out that somebody else didn't agree with them.
But the fact remains that Desmond Tutu has called Israel an apartheud regime, and thst really burns your ass because a growing majority of the workd agrees with that position.
BDS.
shira
(30,109 posts)They don't compare the victims of the Holocaust to their Nazi murderers and they don't advocate for destroying the Jewish state - which would put the lives of worldwide Jewry in jeopardy.
And if they cared about Palestinian human rights, they wouldn't support and enable Apartheid in Lebanon against Palestinians or Hamas' treatment of Palestinian women, gays, children, and christians in Gaza.
Mandela didn't want anything to do with the BDS hate movement.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Decent people do not colonize Palestinian land, destroy Palestinian property and livelihood and really, really don't kill Palestinians: shooting them in the back, sniping them, ambushing them...blowing them to bits on. Gaza beach...
Decent people don't give others a reason to compare them to Nazis, although you are the one apparently hawking Godwin today.
Decent people, shira, don't try to hide the fact that Israel is an apartheid state by pretending to care about Palestinians elsewhere when the solution lies with Israel ending apartheid, allowing RORand removing its colonistas.
BTW, shira, what country do you live in? I ask that since you seem to have a blind spot WRT Palestinian human rights within their own land.
shira
(30,109 posts)David Duke supports BDS.
Hamas supports BDS.
It's near impossible to distinguish between BDS views on Israel vs. the anti-Israel rhetoric of David Duke or Hamas. They're practically identical.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)BDS is growing, and that sucks for Israel, its amateur hasbarists, and the easily upset on DU.
BTW, shira, what country do you live in? Are you an Israeli? Something else?
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2015, 06:05 PM - Edit history (1)
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Undoubtedly, apartheidists in South Africa were saying the same thing about ant-Apartheid movements.
Oh well, birds of a feather...
shira
(30,109 posts).....while advocating for Apartheid (no Jews) in a future Palestine.
That's what makes BDS a fascist movement, aside from the fact they falsely label Israel an Apartheid state (when it's really a thriving democracy).
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Perhaps even the scales will fall from your eyes one day.
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)It's hard for them to see the error of their ways.
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)around when the day comes that they are held accountable.
shira
(30,109 posts)Both Mandela and de Klerk never made such an odious comparison b/w Apartheid S.Africa and Israel.
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)If somebody points out that Israel us what it is, namely an apartheid state, then they must be bigoted anti-semites.
Igel
(35,309 posts)SA apartheid imposed a multiply-tiered set of laws on RSA citizens in RSA territory. This was done to keep them separate and preserve inequality. That's the standard people compare Israel to when deciding "apartheid" or "not apartheid."
Israel has a more complicated set of rules. The laws concerning Israeli citizens in Israeli territory are, from what I've heard and read, fairly even. There are differences when it comes to how some lands and properties held by religion-specific trusts are set up. Lamentably, those trusts "went native" and are sometimes almost run like waqf land (which is quite discriminatory in practice). Still, the laws don't keep the ethnicities separate. A lot of the social pathologies can be traced to other things.
But Israel also administers a second set of territories, the West Bank. (It doesn't administer Gaza.) There there are clearly two sets of rules. However, those are also "occupied territories" in which a number of things are taking place. The first is active "resistance" or "struggle," so you get different security concerns depending on population. You second are instances where the local population insists on "resisting" the Israeli governments restrictions and regulations by ignoring or intentionally defying them. In some cases they reach back for Ottoman-era or British-era laws and pointedly ignore more recent regulations or interpretations. Settlers often get cut slack--on the other hand, more than one illegal settlement has been uprooted. (We just don't notice them or remember them so often here because that would efface boundaries.)
In any event, while there is a fairly clear distinction in the West Bank I don't know that treating the inhabitants of an occupied territory different from "your own citizens" really counts as apartheid.
Full disclosure: By "occupied territory" I'm not declaring it to be the occupied territory of another recognized, established country but that it's ground that's held militarily but not part of that country's sovereign territory.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It's one geographical area under one rule, where there are two administrative systems depending on your ethnicity. One of them confer full civil rights, the other none.
If there were no settlers,there wouldn't be apartheid, only occupation. But as soon as the settlers move in, the occupation becomes illegal, and, as soon as there's a different administrative system for the settlers that disenfranchises the local population, then there's apartheid.
shira
(30,109 posts)Not that the haters of Israel care about helping Palestinians. They never have given a crap about Palestinians.
Rejecting 'odious' allegations Israel is an apartheid state, Nobel Prize laureate says he 'prefers dialogue'
A boycott of Israel is not helping the Palestinian cause, just as similar measures against the white-majority rule in South Africa in the late 20th century only served to hurt that country's black minority and deferred the solution, the country's last head under the apartheid era said Sunday.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is "more counterproductive than helpful to change any country on the course it is taking," F.W. de Klerk told Israeli radio.
De Klerk was awarded a Nobel peace prize for his contribution to ending the oppressive regime together with Nelson Mandela, his successor and the country's first black president.
"In the case of South Africa, our experience has been that sanctions at times delayed reform. It had the effect of driving the white population, who at that stage had all the power, into a corner and they resisted it fiercely," de Klerk further added.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)At least that's how I interpret what he said.
shira
(30,109 posts)I'm curious:
Do you believe China is practicing Apartheid vs. Tibetants, considering massive illegal Han colonization & settlement?
The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us.[1][2]
I'm curious to see if you deny Apartheid in both Lebanon and Tibet?
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)like South Africa, where the name apartheid comes from.
But if the discrimination is of a fundamentally systemic nature and also one of cultural annihilation, then from the point of view of the victim of such discrimination, it's certainly apartheid, even though perhaps cultural genocide is the name used more often. So, in Tibet - apartheid IMHO.
When it comes to Lebanon, there's simply not enough state authority to administrate an apartheid system. There are many people living in Lebanon under "special" circumstances, many of them not Palestinians. So Lebanon - Nope...
While I think that Israel isn't an apartheid state, simply because all citizens are able to exercise their basic rights, things are quite different in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The total lack of basic civil rights for Palestinians while Jewish Israelis have full civil rights is for me an apartheid system.
Do you think apartheid is the right definition, or too strong for describing what Israel is doing in the West Bank?
shira
(30,109 posts)China is not a democracy, but that's Apartheid in your view.
You're contradicting yourself.
The following is and has been administered against the Palestinians of Lebanon for decades:
a) Denied access to professions in banking, medicine, management, law and education.
b) Denied public healthcare & social security
c) Denied public education
d) Denied ownership of land
They are denied political, economic, and social rights
Consider that the vast majority of Palestinians in Lebanon were born there.
If that's not Apartheid, nothing is.
Regardless, those claiming to be most concerned about Palestinian human rights totally ignore these Palestinians (not to mention the overwhelming majority of the population denied rights in Gaza). The reason is obvious, isn't it? It's not about Palestinian human rights. It's not about being anti-Apartheid.
Tell me what it is.
shira
(30,109 posts)Too strong, and here's proof: The "Apartheid Wall". Is that what it really is? It's not a barrier erected to prevent terror attacks? All BDS activists refer to this wall as "Apartheid", and it's an obvious ploy to demonize & delegitimize Israel. An odious and ugly way to legitimize or explain away all terror attacks on Israeli citizens (freedom fighters against apartheid).
Here's Richard Goldstone:
When people advocate for a Jew free future state of Palestine (which the Palestinian leadership has called for many times) is that not support of Apartheid in your view?
