Rundle: Israel’s de facto apartheid
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One grim upside of Israel’s massacre in Gaza has been the way in which a widespread view of the Israeli state has come into alignment with those who know something of the region’s history. As more revelations about war crimes come out, the contradictions of Israel’s complex idea of itself — as both victim and the end of victimhood — and the way it sells its wars, come to the fore. Thus crushing blows can be delivered on subject populations because their rockets represent an existential threat — but the blow can be delivered so crushingly because they actually don’t. But in the long slide to paranoia, one signal moment that people will look back on is today’s announcement by Ehud Barak that Labour would enter a coalition with Likud and Yisrael Beitenu (Israel, We’s Takin’ a Piece of the Action — sorry, Israel, Our Home), the latter’s leader Avigdor Lieberman, taking the role of Foreign Minister. Lieberman, a former nightclub bouncer from Kishinev Moldova (which is like being a bouncer from downtown Pago Pago, where even the quiet customers are 300-pound Samoans), has two key policies: a loyalty oath for Israeli Arab citizens, and the “swap” of Arab Israeli towns for West Bank Jewish settlements. Both are clear apartheid policies, effectively making Israeli Arabs provisional — i.e. non — citizens, a status they explicitly lived under from 1948 to 1966. The second is simply the re-establishment of the policy of transfer, ethnic cleansing 3G, whereby Israeli Arabs are transferred into a stateless, sequestered entity, and any prospect of contiguous territory in the West Bank sliced up even further. The Labour move, voted up by its 1400 member executive by about 650 votes to 550, may yet split the party — which has been reduced to 14 seats (out of 120 in a parliament it ran for 30 years), which would be the end of Labour in its current form, and of a certain idealised form of what Israel is. The Labour approach to Zionism was always somewhat self-deluding — Labour’s Haganah forces had been as heavily involved in the ethnic cleansing of 1948 as the terrorist groups who eventually became Likud, and Labour was instrumental in establishing the de facto apartheid that dominates Israeli Arab life — but it had the remnants of something resembling an approach guided by ultimate reconciliation. With a Likud/Beitanu/Labour government, that is sealed off. The “left opposition” in Israel is now Kadimah, a party founded by Ariel Sharon. With this tripartite alliance, Israeli Arabs — one of the least violent subject people around — have become the official social enemy, a move foreshadowed before the elections when MPs of all Israeli Jewish parties voted to ban the Israeli Arab parties from participating. What remains of the idea of a secular democratic polity in Israel is being squeezed between an increase in orthodox literalism — with an increasing base in the army — and an influx of Russian immigrants, who provided Lieberman’s support base, and whose background is the torpid late-Stalinist politics of the outer regions of the USSR, in particular its search for social enemies, without whom everything would be hunky-dory. You couldn’t blame anyone Jewish for wanting to get out of Moldova, or points surrounding, but the cute secret of the current phase of Israeli immigration is that a lot of them aren’t Jewish at all. Faced with a grievous decline in western Jewish immigration, Israeli authorities have quietly relaxed the rules so that anyone digging up a Jewish female relative or two a few generations back — or even dodging up faked ancestry — can get in. The bizarre result was that last year the cops uncovered Israel’s first neo-Nazi cell — a bunch of Russian kids who finally got out of whatever sh-t hole they were in, only to find that everything they were told was spot-on. Wherever they looked in Israel, the Jews were in charge. One would have thought that the last thing you wanted to do, would be to disenfranchise a minority population so definitively that an entire section of such population see insurgency as both necessary and legitimate? As sh-tty a deal as Israeli Arabs get from Israel, a significant number of them obviously want to live in an actual constituted state rather than an undefined no-place like the territories. To systematically push them to define themselves wholly against that state is really a substantial anti-achievement. But once you lose sight of the bigger picture — as did the white South Africans or the Ulster protestants — then you can trek a long way from reality. What better sign of that than the country would choose a racist thug for a foreign minister, one who wants a two tier society, at the same time as the country that pays for its army chooses its first black President? Why not segregate the public buses and lunch counters, and have done with it (indeed this is already happening in Jerusalem, where there are now significant public areas where Arabs are forbidden to walk)? Hubris and paranoia are two sides of the same shekel in this case. The very fact that Israel can exist at all can only come about because of the consent of the Israeli Arabs — which must be spurned and alienated to, um, protect Israel. With the latest revelations about war crimes in Gaza — deliberate shooting of civilians, white phosphorus use — the “invasion” is acquiring the character of an experimental massacre. Israel’s leaders seem to have been intent on using the population for experimentation with new weapons. They seem intent on testing their own country to destruction — theirs and others. |
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20 Comments
Hey quit foolin around just call the Israeli’s for the murders they are. Milosevic was put on trial for Sarajevo why not some Israeli leaders and soldiers. Oh! I forgot there our friends, gee sorry for even thinking that. How about Johny and Phil they both deserve some Bastille time and that would satisfy me.
wajsbrem 1.54 on the dot! ! amazing!
The game is up…Israel is now a pariah State, in the same way that South Africa was.
It is an intellectually & morally corrupt society & should be subject to sanctions & boycotts world-wide until some sanity prevails politically. Moderate Israelis must step forward now.
Not one square centimetre of the West Bank should remain in Israeli hands, and Jersuslaem should be placed under the control of an inter faith commission.
For the record, I have the support of my many Jewish Aussie friends in making these statements.
Alan , for your interest.
Lenna
My original response to this absurd article was to point out that it is, simply, obviously, factually wrong.
Rundle does not know the first elements about Israel.
His claims about amendments to broaden Israel’s immigration policy are simply wrong. What he says in the article on this point is simply incorrect.
Labor has gone into coalition with Likud in order to remove Lieberman from any real position of power. None of his obnoxious policies will be implemented. If he is made Foreign Minister it will be a set-up for him to fail. It is a tragedy that Israel has a proportional representation system, because this allows some pretty weird electoral outcomes. However, it also ensures that Arabs have representation in the Knesset in roughly proportional terms when they participate in elections.
It is like the hysterical articles in Crikey about the “banning” of Arab parties from elections a while back. This was an obnoxious decision, but anybody who knew anything about Israeli politics and law knew that it would never be implemented.
Israeli Arabs have vastly more democratic rights and legal protections than any Arab Moslem citizen of an Arab country. Ironic but true.
The reportage about white phosphorus bombs and other alleged actions during the Gaza offensive have come from Israeli reporters and soldiers - what does that tell you about Israeli society, democracy and law? It would never happen in an Arab country.
If you expect Israelis to give up their country, they will not. If you expect them to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, in return for a guarantee of peace, that is entirely legitimate.
How are you going to get Hamas to agree to this?
Free Palestine - from Hamas.
@Marylin
At least Hamas, unlike Israel, has a constitution for all to see what they are all about.
Not that long ago I heard a still alive, famous and internationally highly revered expert on apartheid having spent most of his life fighting it in South Africa say his recent official tour of Gaza (before recent ‘war’) indicated something worse than the worst South African apartheid. Sowing & Reeping (from the hapless). A new film project for Cannes?
A one state solution means no Jewish state in the long run and maybe that is only a matter of time. Maybe, with an Arab-Israeli population approaching that of the Jews, and more and more Jews getting fed up with the extremists, religious and otherwise, even though only the Ultra Orthodox will be reproducing the Jewish population (and partly because of their growing interest and narrow self-interest) so many of the laws which make Israel a Jewish state will disappear and Israel will be left to try and work out some sort of constitutional balance which hasn’t worked for Fiji or Sri Lanka, just works for Malaysia etc. In the meantime Israel can stagger on because Egypt simply cannot afford to take it on, even if the Muslim Brotherhood were to take over, because destruction of the Aswan Dam would ruin Egypt and wouldn’t even require nuclear weapons. Presumably no Middle Eastern state will bomb Jerusalem but any serious threat of mass casualties within Israel and Israel’s willingness to use overwhelming force would generally be credible so it should be able to stagger on for a long time yet. America’s Jewish population is steadily declining as a proportion of US population though its wealth and lobbying power remains formdidable. But, in the end, even that essential, indeed absolutely critical, US support may diminish as the opinion of an Israeli-born US friend spreads more generally (even if not true and just an expression of exasperation), namely that Israel resembles a Latin American country in civic efficiency and that “it is a good place to keep all the mad Jews”. I continue to admire Israel’s toughness and vigour from afar, but can’t see any happy solutions any more than my Jewish friends can. Maybe the internationalisation of Jerusalem and honest and fair redistribution of the lands of Palestine (starting with the 1967 borders) so a genuine Palestinian state can be formed with peace-keeping forces guaranteed to actually enforce peace for however long…
There are worrying trends becoming apparent in the only “democracy” in the Middle East (since Operation Ajax anyway).
“According to the Israeli Association for Civil Rights, anti-Arab incidents have risen sharply. “Israeli society is reaching new heights of racism that damages freedom of expression and privacy,” says Sami Michael, the organization’s president. Among the Association’s findings:
* Some 55 percent of Jewish Israelis say that the state should encourage Arab emigration;
* 78 percent of Jewish Israelis oppose including Arab parties in the government;
* 56 percent agree with the statement that “Arabs cannot attain the Jewish level of cultural development”;
* 75 percent agree that Arabs are inclined to be violent. Among Arab-Israelis, 54 percent feel the same way about Jews.
* 75 percent of Israeli Jews say they would not live in the same building as Arabs.”
http://www.alternet.org/audits/1298 /disturbing_idea_of_expelling_arabs_from_israeli_territory_gains_ground/
Marilyn, your right about historical context. It is not 1945, if the bombing of Dresden occurred today, regardless of the scale of the war, it would be considered a war crime due to the gross lack of military necessity, distinction and proportionality.
Regardless of the historical context for Israel’s actions, its actions in Gaza lacked military necessity, distinction and proportionality in both the strategic and tactical environments. The unnecessary suffering and destruction this caused for the ordinary civilians of Gaza is unforgiveable.
You need to understand that this is not about defending Hamas fighters. This is about defending the ordinary civilians of Gaza, of which a very small minority are Hamas fighters. Did you see the British destroying catholic areas in Northern Ireland to stop the IRA firing rockets and mortars at the British bases? Of course not, and it was not only because that course of action would have been illegal, but because it would not have worked. The British would have lost the moral high ground, and international support would have fallen behind the Republican cause. Israel lost the moral high ground when they destroyed Gaza (if they had not already lost it), and I suggest their international support is about to be lost too.
Eric L, sorry mate but your wrong and simply warmongering. Just as Saudi terrorists flying planes into the World Trade Centre does not require war between the US and Saudi Arabia to resolve the problem, just as Pakistani terrorists shooting Indian civilians does not require war between Pakistan and India to solve the problem, Palestinian terrorists firing rockets into Israel does not require war between Palestine and Israel to solve the problem.
The immigration laws for Israel have not been changed. Anothre factual error. It has nothing to do with female ancestors. You betray your fundamental ignorance.
The Law of Return allows entry to Israel of people with a Jewish grandparent, whether they are Jewish or not. This was based on the selection criteria that the Nazis adopted in the holocaust. It has not changed to boost migration or for any other reason..
Where is the evidence that Arabs are not allowed to walk in parts of Jerusalem?
If the firepower at Israel’s disposal was in the hands of Hamas, there would not be a Jew alive in Israel. That is the difference between the sides to this dispute.
Far from seeking to maximise casualties, Israel sought to minimise them.
That illegal actions almost certainly occurred during the war has been exposed by the Israeli media and is being investigated. Is there a single Arab country where the government could be similiarly investigated.
Labor has joined the coalition to sideline Yisrael Beitenu and push forward with a two state solution.
A single state will never happen, and those who promote it merely want the Jews of Israel to commit collective suicide.; Those days are over and will not return.
Wait for it…
Marilyn: Hamas may have a constitution that calls for the destruction of Israel, but how many Israelis did it kill? Israel talks peace, but how many Palestinians, including women and children, did it kill? Actions always speak louder than words.
your ignorance and bias astounds me!
Rachel
you ask about the prospect of the number of Jews being swamped by Arabs in Israel in the future.
I believe there will be a two state solution and Israel will have to abandon the west bank as it has Gaza and agree to Jerusalem being the legal capital of both states.
In this context a Jewish majority will prevail in Israel.
Just as Israel will have to accept this outcome and withdraw from all settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, the Arabs will have to accept the reality.
Once the Palestinians have a state, they will have to accept that one, solitary missile or other attack on Israel will be an act of war, and Israel will be entitled to - and should - launch an overwhelming military response. In my view, in the event that the Palestinians achieve a state, they will have to accept that, just as with any other country in the world, if they attack Israel it will mean war. In such a context, I would hope that Israel would react with force that would make the recent Gaza incursion look like a picnic.
The problem is that Israel maintains the settlements - and this the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis - and a series of Israeli governments - recognise that this simply cannot continue.
If the Palestinians leaderships (plural) adopted peaceful means to achieve a two state solution they would have had one years ago. The very demographic pressures raised by Rachel dictate that Israel must accept it. If the Palestinian leaderships demonstrated that they also support it (Hamas does not), with a new American President the opportunity for resolution has never been better.
Gazan blogs said pretty much the same thing weeks ago. You have to pay the Israeli media’s robustness - and we should. Is it a time when more of the world now knows and accepts what the real Israeli reality is? Or, more, as one person observed recently: it is the beginning of the death of zionism as an legitimated political ideology. If the latter maybe the one-state solution has a chance. But not in my lifetime.
Somewhere along the line, well into the future, all the inhabitants of the settler state of Israel and most occupied areas will need to be accommodated within a new political entity. The current configuration is unsustainable and getting more dangerous by the day - for everyone.
If its bias to perorate as Rundle has done, we need more of it.
You see, the other side of this is that Israeli hawks are talking up a raid on Iran: A non-declared nuclear state aiming at a not-yet-nuclear state. Great, what a TV event that will be. Sorry, this is now more directly affecting all of us.
I’m sure the victims of white phosphorous are comforted by that.
Guy Rundle, writing from London, is, like Sparrow & Barnes viewing events from the end game. The Russians murdered million of Germans in late 1945 – decrying these crimes without reference to 1933-45 would be just plain ludicrous; which is what makes this in a series of Crikey anti Israel attacks so disturbing.
Hamas – the people you are defending, have a stated constitution of the destruction of Israel and the elimination of its 5 million citizens, which includes almost a million Christians.
Israel’s actions are indefensible if proven; but without historical context, that would be like accusing Churchill of war crimes for the bombing of Dresden.
Eric L, what do you think Israel will be like in a few decades when Arab Israelis outnumber Jewish Israelis and are living next to millions of marginalised and brutalised Palestinians?