Last week’s edition of Black Commentator featured an excellent cover story by Bruce Dixon on the global standards that allow Israel to function as an apartheid state.
And like South Africa before it, Israel’s current aggression towards a neighboring country is an extension of the ethno-racial supremacy underlying its de jure system of segregation towards the natives. As Dixon points out:
The old South Africa bombed, strafed and invaded all its neighbors with some regularity, crippling their commerce and extracting horrific death tolls from refugee camps and other civilian targets. The last time Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon, it left 30,000 corpses
It reminds me of the quote by an Israeli Rabbi, Yaacov Perrin, in 1994: “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” Sure he was an extremist, so it was easy to chalk this statement off to the hyperbolic fringe of Israeli politics.
As Israeli militancy manifests today in Palestine and Lebanon, it is not hard to imagine that some psychic ratio does exist in Israeli officialdom. How many Arabs are worth the “security” of Israel’s Jewish-first system? How many people have to die so one group has a state on a land of diverse peoples?
The problem in the Middle East is not some irrational Arab rejection of Israel’s right to exist, it is Israel’s domination and oppression — which Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, resist. So long as Israel chooses to privilege one ethno-religious group on the historic land of another group, there will be conflict. The essence of apartheid is perpetual oppression.
The problem apparently is that there are Jews in Seattle.
Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2006, 8:54 am“It reminds me of the quote by an Israeli Rabbi, Yaacov Perrin, in 1994: “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” Sure he was an extremist, so it was easy to chalk this statement off to the hyperbolic fringe of Israeli politics.”
You’re right Will, he’s an extremeist, so it is easy to write it off. After all, do we really want to go down a road where everything an Islamic extremist says should be representative of all Muslims or Arab countries?
I would hope not, cuz given the racist hatred spewed by many Arab countries and Muslim leaders every fucking day, it’s a losing battle. It’s sad how you rally against people confusing real Islam with some of the backwards thinking racist propoganda some Imams will say, but you find a quote from a crazy loon rabbi, admit he’s an extremist, and yet you still quote it as if its representative.
The victim mentality that you have based on whatever experiences you might have survived have clouded your ability to be objective and rational.
An irrational Arab rejection of Israel’s right to exist is an underlying theme to the conflict. I don’t need to tell you how corrupt many Arab goverments are.. and it’s a lot easier to keep people living under those regimes concerned with evil Israel and their opression of the Palestinians than have that attention focused on the often times corrupt society in which they live.
The reason you throw around the term “apartheid” is because it’s a loaded word that gets people’s attention. The sad bottom line is that NO ONE cares about the Palestinians except the Palestinians. Arab countries use Palestinians as a political football to achieve their own ends. Like many before you, it’s easier to point the finger at Israel and its apartheid ways than to really take a step back and see whats really going on. Also, by throwing around the word ‘apartheid’, it shows a lack of understanding of what apartheid really is — either that, or you really have no idea of what it’s like in Israel as an Israeli Arab.
holla back mr. sheik
Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2006, 10:28 am10:28 AM
Your arguments are entirely pointless. You write:
“Also, by throwing around the word ‘apartheid’, it shows a lack of understanding of what apartheid really is — either that, or you really have no idea of what it’s like in Israel as an Israeli Arab.”
This is a dumb point because I could just as easily say that you have no understanding of what being a Palestinian or a South African black is like either.
And btw, my family is from Nazareth… so when I go visit them, I live as an Israeli Arab. And I know racism when I see it. They live under Jim Crow, but mostly de facto, segregation. true apartheid is in the territories, with its walls, separate roads, and checkpoints. BTW, I’ve stayed in the territories as well so I know militarized separation when I see it. The whole basis of Israel’s occupation is to create two realities on teh same land. For Jews, the settlers and the soldiers, it is about supremacy, and freedom. The Palestinian live under insufferable oppression — Israelis dictate when they can leave their houses, travel (in Palestine or to foreign places), if they have access to water and electricity, and pretty much every aspect of their lives. I know, I’ve seen it. Jews on the other hand are privileged by the state. The highest manifestation of that privilege is the fact that Israel took Palestinian land and lets Jews live on it.
All of this is factual and there is nothing you can say about it. Hell, Israel decalres itself as a “Jewish state” yet rules over more non-Jews than Jews. That says it all. And all you can do is try to distract from that. But until you understand that this is the basic problem, the root of the conflict, you condemn yourself to miscomprehension and continual propagation of your pathetic apologetics.
No one likes living under oppression.
Will
Posted by Will | July 29, 2006, 11:43 amIsrael doesn’t rule over more non-Jews than Jews. That’s a fact.
When Palestinians and Islamic terrorists stop attacking Israel and let the Jews live in peace, then there will be peace. That’s a fact.
No amount of your lies or evangelical-like alliteration (“propagation of your pathetic apologetics”–you sound like Eddie Murphy channeling a greasy haired preacher, by the way) will change those facts.
Am Yisrael Chai!!
Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2006, 12:19 pmAt nearly every turn, nearly every time Israel makes moves toward reconciliation and peace, it is faced with Katyushas, Quassams, kidnappings and suicide bombings. Remind me how that’s like apartheid?
Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2006, 12:21 pmKill the Jews for peace.
Posted by Average Arab | July 29, 2006, 2:59 pmi live in south africa and i hate the constant comparison between apartheid and israel. it is a ploy by palestinians to make references to systems that came down, such as apartheid and the berlin wall. they think that if they can get the world to buy this then they can bring down the state of israel.
Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2006, 6:26 pmAs Israeli militancy manifests today in Palestine and Lebanon
As opposed to the strictly non-militant attitude prevalent among the Palestinians and Hezbollans?
It’s a good thing you have Kabombfest push your hypocrisy, Will, because it won’t sell anyplace else.
Posted by Roy | July 31, 2006, 9:36 amThis place is full of slogans and rhetoric. Great for T-shirt ideas and not much else. What it lacks is critical thought and new ideas. Yes, we are aware that you all think if Israel disappeared tomorrow the whole world would join together, drink a coca cola, sing kumbaya, and have peace.
Got anything else?
Posted by Anonymous | July 31, 2006, 12:47 pmActually YES!
I have a great trick for keeping woodchucks out of my vegetable garden.
Interested?
Posted by nev | August 1, 2006, 7:42 pmLet me guess, it’s the old Palestinian farming method:
You rampaged through and then burned down your greenhouse?
Posted by Anonymous | August 1, 2006, 8:19 pmAs an American Jew, I can state vast evidence that during “times of peace” Israel has
a) relentlessly flown military flights over Lebanon for random killing and destruction, including of meek shepherds, goat herders, civilians, the poor. Not everyone knows this, anymore than Americans knew about mass slaughter of Vietnamese farmers or fishermen — and the Imperial Powers want to keep that out of the headlines.
there’s more openness in Israeli news than America.
b) relentlessly attacked Palestinians in “times of quiet”, but especially at moments when Palestinian politics was moving towards the possibility of reconciliation and/or maintaining a truce.
There was an imminent referendum planned for Hamas to agree on the ‘holy grail’ of recognition of Israel, when Israel decided to kill that family on the beach. Of course, they exonerated themselves.
I swear this is TYPICAL if you follow it closely, in other than the American press (or even British, though they’re slightly better and allow dead Arabs identities).
For Israeli politicians, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet, even if it’s a lot of poor Jewish eggs along with the many Arab eggs.
Don’t forget books like Perfidy which documented Zionists sacrificing non-Zionist Euro Jews for the sake of the the greater goal of the Jewish State.
http://www.Takeoverworld.info
Posted by Anonymous | August 5, 2006, 1:50 amCommunist crap. We all know who you are, and what you do in the US. Don’t worry, Big Brother is watching your anti-American activities.
The day will come when we will have to clean the house, and your ass will be the first to go, believe me.
Posted by Anonymous | March 15, 2008, 5:08 amIf anyone doubts the validity of the apartheid analogy, try googling “Desmond Tutu apartheid Palestine”.
The South African archbishop and renowned humanitarian who spent the entirety of his young life under the prototypical apartheid regime has no reservations about applying the term to zionist-occupied Palestine. Stop trying to manufacture controversy (in the spirit of the global warming and evolution “controversies” in the US) with regard to this situation. The zionist entity oppresses the native Palestinians in the exact same way whites did to indigenous Bantu and Khoi-San Africans (in addition to South Asian immigrants) in South Africa. The only “controversy” surrounding this comparison exists in the minds of zionist colonizers and their American evangelical protestant lapdogs.
I pray that my children live to see the swansong of this last vestige of colonialism.
Posted by Anonymous | December 16, 2008, 6:48 pmLike the Toon. The sad thing is history clearly indicates that Britian and United States founded Isreal in 1951 under the guise of Jewish Homes Land. The Zoinist are masons pure and simple, the so called Jews in isreal are white Aryans from dutch and scotland—the have a coloy in North Numberland Europe (an indedependent aryan nation).
Posted by jagakut | March 20, 2010, 12:58 ami love all Eddie Murphy movies. i like also the movie DAVE where he co stars with Elizabeth Banks.-”:
Posted by Sean Perry | June 10, 2010, 9:49 pmgay
Posted by fuck you | September 20, 2010, 12:49 pm