Dispensing with the Israeli-Apartheid Myth

By Bobby Miller

Monday, December 12, 2022

 

Case Western Reserve University’s undergraduate student government in Cleveland, Ohio, passed a resolution last month endorsing the antisemitic “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) campaign against Israel, labeling the Jewish state an “apartheid” regime.

 

This is just the latest instance of anti-Israel lies taking root on the campus of an elite American university. As instances of Jew-hatred continue unabated, it’s important to debunk this pernicious lie. Israel isn’t perfect, but it is anything but an apartheid state. 

 

The word “apartheid” comes from 20th-century South Africa, where blacks were violently oppressed and treated as second-class citizens, segregated against their will in discontiguous enclaves with horrid living conditions known as “Bantustans.” That evil system doesn’t resemble Israel’s society in the slightest. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East. It is a country where all people, regardless of race, religion, or creed, are endowed with full and equal individual rights. Israeli democracy has undoubtedly had its hiccups, but name a country that hasn’t experienced its fair share of political paralysis and uncertainty at one point or another.

 

Israel’s detractors often counter this narrative by highlighting the West Bank, where military checkpoints act as hindrances to Palestinian freedom of movement. However, this is not a product of an intentionally discriminatory policy. The status quo in the territory reflects the stalled Oslo peace process that began in the early 1990s and that was derailed by the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish-nationalist extremist.

 

As a result, the boundaries between Israel proper and what was eventually supposed to constitute an autonomous Palestinian territory have remained frozen in time as both sides have lost hope in the prospects for peace. Palestinians certainly didn’t help themselves during the Second Intifada, when thousands of them chose to terrorize Israel, forcing the Israelis to erect further barriers to Palestinian transport. Palestinian leadership also didn’t do its people any favors when it rejected two generous peace offers in 2002 and in 2008, or when it stood by as Hamas, after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, bombarded Israel with rockets. 

 

There’s also nothing racial about the serpentine boundaries between the Israeli and Palestinian-controlled areas within the West Bank. Israeli Arab citizens can drive on Israeli-only roads that transverse the West Bank, and many do.

 

So the next time you hear this ludicrous accusation against one of America’s most important allies, think twice.