Middle East Conflict

@Human1000 How is it an apartheid state when Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are the same race? Apartheid is defined as one racial group oppressing another. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs; the only difference between them and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is which side of a geographic line they live on.

Using emotional words like "apartheid" incorrectly doesn't help your argument.

@LeopoldBloom I don't think race would render Israel exempt from the designation, although it is not the same as South African apartheid. It conveys what I consider an unjust ghettoization of Palestinian Arabs and their lack of rights, and I think has the appropriate weight. If it creates an expanded definition of the word, I'm alright with that as well. As for the rights of Arabs in Israel proper, although there are some limitations on their rights, I do not place them in the same category as those in the West Bank or Gaza.

@Human1000 The problem is that the official definition refers to race, and is specific to the situation in South Africa. So it can be "similar to apartheid" or "apartheid in all but name," but applying the word for its emotional effect is no different from pro-lifers calling legal abortion "baby murder."

It's interesting that apartheid today is [i]only[/i] applied to Israel. It hasn't caught on to refer to the Jim Crow era in the U.S., even though that was virtually identical to the situation in South Africa. And if you're going to ignore the racial aspect, it's still not applied to China's treatment of the Tibetans. So I have to oppose the use of an emotional buzzword as convenient shorthand. Same for calling it "genocide" or "colonialism."

@LeopoldBloom I do think it applies here because the injustice is analogous, and the fact that it’s ethnicity v race doesn’t make it less egregious from a human rights perspective. It’s state sponsored ghettoization and lack of rights based on ethnicity and religion. That it is not based on “race” is a distinction without a difference, at least to me.

Amnesty International also considers it an apartheid

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/

As for the other injustices you mention I would need to think further, but the Jim Crow South sure seems like it would be.

@Human1000 Amnesty International is making up their own definition which they only apply to Israel. If Israel is "apartheid," then the word would apply to dozens of situations around the world. It's merely a buzzword to equate Israel with the hated regime in South Africa.

@LeopoldBloom Yes, we are both using the word. I appreciate that if you disagree it would seem like “making it up” but obviously I have a different take, and mean it as a conclusion rather than a “buzzword.” I do equate it to South Africa, that is true.

@Human1000 Ethnicity is not race. Nobody uses apartheid to refer to China's domination of Tibet, even though it would apply to that if it's expanded to include ethnicity. It is only used to denigrate Israel, no other reason.

@LeopoldBloom I said it was a distinction without a difference to me. I have no intention of denigrating Israel. I have based my conclusion on studying the issue. I’m Jewish, and resisted the conclusion for some time. I make the conclusion in good faith, and wish it were not so.

@Human1000 It requires you to redefine the word. You can say "ethnic apartheid" or "apartheid in all but name," but applying apartheid without qualifications is, in fact, using the word to denigrate Israel even if that's not your intention.

Another difference is that the West Bank isn't part of Israel the way Black townships were part of South Africa. It's under military occupation. No one uses "apartheid" to refer to the UK's control over Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1998, even though it had more similarities to the West Bank than it does to South Africa.

@LeopoldBloom I am okay with expanding the definition because I don't see ethnicity and race as being so dissimilar in kind when used to discriminate and rationalize human rights abuses. If I didn't see Israel as qualifying I wouldn't use the term. I understand you see it as denigrating.

I don't think your providing examples of how it is not used in other situations means ipso facto it can't be used for Israel. Some of those other situations it might very well apply, although I don't think it does for Northern Ireland.

Your distinction between the West Bank and Black townships is similarly not a sufficient distinction. The West Bank is under de facto Israeli sovereignty. The Palestinians are ghettoized, which for Jews to allow is of course crushingly hypocritical.

@Human1000 First, I oppose Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank. Most of the problems stem from that. I don't see any lasting solution that doesn't include either dismantling many of the settlements as was done in Gaza, or the Israelis in them living under a Palestinian government of some form.

The problem with expanding apartheid to include ethnicity is that it would definitely have to include Tibet, but I've never heard anyone use it that way. It also makes no sense in Israel as 20% of Israel's population are Arabs who are identical to Palestinians, except they live in Israel and are Israeli citizens. There were no people classified as "Black" in South Africa who had full citizenship based on where they lived.

Since apartheid today is used [i]only[/i] in reference to Israel, and the South African version was universally reviled, it's simply an emotional marker, shorthand for saying "evil Jews oppressing innocent Palestinians." If it was used widely in other contexts where it applies, I'd amend that assessment.

@LeopoldBloom Tibet has been referred to as an apartheid by the Dalai Lama, but the oppression there is also not really a present issue in the US, and the Dalai Lama’s credibility isn’t what it uses to be. The situation in Israel has accelerated and gotten worse. It’s understandably covered much more and Israel has gone from oppressed to oppressor.

I don’t think the word must duplicate the situation in South Africa. I understand you do, or nearly so, or that it shouldn’t be used in Israel because Israel is being singled out. Maybe it is, but I don’t think that means the word should not be used. It is a label, a marker, a designation, I agree. I don’t think that is all it is, however.

I appreciate its complex, and I do have strong emotions about it. You make valid points, and I appreciate the conversation.

@Human1000 Tibet was more of an issue when Richard Gere was publicizing it. I have no idea why Gere backed off; maybe because nothing changed and he realized the issue was futile.

I do have a problem when specific terms are applied solely to Israel. I feel the same way when someone brings up George Soros, as if he's the only wealthy person who contributes to political causes. Alvin Bragg is routinely described as a "Soros-backed prosecutor," but no one ever refers to Ron DeSantis as a "Koch-backed governor." It would be correct to call Clarence Thomas a "Crow-backed judge," but you're not going to hear that, either. "Soros" of course is shorthand for "Jewish-controlled." Calling Israel "apartheid" feeds into the same antisemitic trope of evil Zionist puppetmasters, going back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Blood Libel, and accusing the Jews of killing Jesus. At least, that's my opinion.

We can criticize Israel's settlement policy without tying it into that.

@LeopoldBloom. While I don’t agree with you conclusions, I understand your arguments, and appreciate the time you took to make them.

If you’re interested there is a pretty long article of the subject. Thanks..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_apartheid

@Human1000 It's based on the assumption that Israelis and Palestinians are different "races." The 2002 Rome Statute redefined it to include "political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds."

Further down, we have "The question of whether Israelis and Palestinians can be said to constitute "racial groups" has been a point of contention in regard to the applicability of the ICSPCA and Article 7 of the Rome Statute. The HSRC's 2009 report states that in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jewish and Palestinian identities are "socially constructed as groups distinguished by ancestry or descent as well as nationality, ethnicity, and religion". On this basis, the study concludes that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can be considered "racial groups" for the purposes of the definition of apartheid in international law."

It is significant that the term, originally describing the situation in South Africa, is applied nowhere else today besides Israel.