THE MYTH OF ‘ISRAELI APARTHEID’
Yoram Elron
National Post, March 6, 2009
This week, at Concordia and McGill, and on university campuses throughout the world, scores of events will take place under the banner of Israeli Apartheid Week. An annual tradition running in its fifth year, Israeli Apartheid Week is a hate-fest devoted to demonizing
. As the nomenclature suggests, the goal of this forum is to portray as the modern-day incarnation of
’s morally repugnant apartheid regime. Such comparisons are pure fallacy and demonstrate ignorance to the true meaning of the word apartheid. Derived from the Afrikaans words “apart” (apart) and “heid” (hood), apartheid is the state policy of racial segregation involving political, legal and economic discrimination based on notions of racial superiority. How one can even begin to compare , the
Middle East
’s only liberal democracy, to such a regime is beyond comprehension. One need only turn to
’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, to discredit the myth of “Israeli apartheid.” In it, full civil rights and “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture” are extended to all citizens—Jews and Arabs—“irrespective of religion, race or sex.” This document drafted in 1948 still serves as the basis for relations between the state and minority communities. Today,
’s Arab citizens, who make up 20 per cent of the population, enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the Jewish majority. These rights include the right to vote and run for public office, the right to form political parties and criticize government policies in the free press, the right to purchase and lease private land, and the right to travel without restriction. Arabic is even recognized as an official language together with Hebrew, and appears on all legislation, roads signs and in all public buildings. In
freedom of religion is sacrosanct and access to all holy places is safeguarded by the state. Adherents of the Baha’i faith maintain their central religious shrines in Acre and Haifa, where they are free from the persecution faced in their native , while the Islamic waqf (endowment) enjoys custodianship over the
Temple
Mount
, where Muslims worship freely.
’s legal system recognizes the religious courts of all faiths and even accords equal status to Jewish talmudic law, Muslim sharia law, Druze law, and Christian law for all personal status issues including birth, marriage and divorce. Politically, ’s 1.4 million Arab citizens enjoy many more freedoms in than citizens of any other country in the
Middle East
. In the Knesset, Israeli Arabs account for 10 per cent of the current seat distribution and are represented by three Arab parties with ideological views ranging from anti-Zionist Marxism to Islamism. Like all citizens, Israeli Arabs are free to petition
’s Supreme Court for any violation of their basic rights. In the free press, which includes dozens of Arabic-language media outlets, Arabs can express their views more freely than in neighbouring countries. During the past several years alone, Israeli Arabs have made tremendous strides in all facets of Israeli life. Raleb Majadele, a member of Knesset for Labour, became the first Israeli Arab to sit in the cabinet, while Salim Joubran, is
’s first Arab Supreme Court justice. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israeli Arabs serve as ambassadors, while in the army many Arab senior officers have risen to the rank of general. Enrolment in institutions of higher learning has risen steadily among Arabs, especially at
Haifa
University
, where today they account for more than 20 per cent of the student population. At
Hadassah
Hospital
in
Jerusalem
, about one third of the medical staff is Arab.
’s national soccer team, which includes Jewish and Arab players, is yet another example of peaceful coexistence between communities.It is sad that the very rights and freedoms enjoyed by ’s Arab minority remain unknown to many Arabs in surrounding countries, let alone to minorities including Jews and Christians, who are barred from acquiring citizenship in countries such as
. Today, in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestinian women, who were once among the most educated and avant-garde in the Arab world, are coerced into wearing the hijab, while in Israel women of all faiths are free from all forms of religious repression. In , homosexuals live free from harassment, while in
they are lynched in the public square. In
, alleged criminals—including terrorists captured by police—are given due process, while in other Middle Eastern countries they are decapitated or, in the case of terrorists, glorified as martyrs. If it is “apartheid” that
’s critics are looking for, they are looking in the wrong place.Perhaps next year universities will think twice before giving a tribune to those who propagate such fallacious myths.
