Rights Talk

Bruce Haddad February 3 2012. 

Nowhere does Professor Matas state that merely questioning Israel's actions makes one an anti-semite.  Nor does he state that comparing Israel's actions to the actions of the South African regime is anti-semitic.  Professor Matas recognizes that people have the right to be wrong.  What the professor is arguing is that IAW is a propaganda exercise which is likely to have a discriminatory impact on Jewish individuals on university campuses. 

The statement that Israel is an apartheid state is false.  Israeli Arabs serve in the Knesset, serve on the Supreme Court and hold a plethora of jobs in the Israeli private sector.  They all have the right to vote.  You cannot in good faith equate that with the treatment of blacks in south Africa.  Your assertion that Israeli Arabs are prevented from owning or developing %90 of Israeli land is  wrong.  I take it that you are referring to the Jewish National Fund's policy of only renting or selling lands to Jews?  The JNF owns %13 of the land of Israel.  It is a private body which receives donations from people around the world to hold and develop land in the state of Israel for the benefits of the Jewish people.  In 2007, after court challenges initiated by Arabs, who have the right to go to cout in Israel unlike blacks in South Africa, it was decided that this policy was discriminatory, so now all JNF held lands can be bought and rented by Arabs as well as Jews.  Until 2007, Israeli Arabs were barred from owning or renting %13 of Israeli land based on the policy of a private charity.  It has never been true that Israeli Arabs are barred from developing or owning %90 of land in Israel.  That is completely false, after 2007 no land is restricted to Arab citizens of Israel and before 2007, only %13 was.    

You also fail to take the security context into consideration in mentioning the wall.  You present a one sided view of what happened in 1948, ignoring the Jewish narrative.  You fail to mention the one million Jewish refugees who fled to Israel from the Arab world between 1947-1967.  You fail to explain why economic conditions in the West Bank and Gaza should be compared with Israel instead of with Syria, Jordan and Egypt.  You fail to consider the experience of the Jews during the holocaust and how that experience would have informed their sense of urgency in forming Israel.

Your conclusions as to the nature of what Professor Matas is arguing show that you have a tenuous grasp of logic.  Your outright factual errors and omissions show that your factual premises are deeply flawed.  You demonstrate exactly what the problem is with IAW because you show how people like yourself are going to encounter a completely one sided presentation and reinforce your poorly informed views.  This is why Professor Matas' suggestion that IAW be replaced by an event where diverse views are presented makes so much sense.  I do not assume that you are an anti-semite, however I do believe that people who subscribe to the Israeli apartheid lie are either anti-semites and/or poorly informed.  You have certainly brought yourself into the latter category.  Finally, you state "If we start labeling the other as the enemy before the discussion begins, where does that leave us?" Well, exactly where we are now with IAW.  It labels Israel and by extent, almost all of the Jews in the world as perpetrators of apartheid, making them enemies. 

In response to the above comment, one cannot reasonably discuss the issues in Israel in terms of "apartheid" in that the Apartheid in South Africa was, by definition, a legal and governmental system that discriminated against a portion of its population based on race. In Israel no such system exists or has ever existed to deny the rights of Arab individuals. Arab citizens of Israel have all of the same rights as any other citizen within Israel's democratic society, including the right to vote, and access to healthcare and education. The barriers and security check points around the Palestinian Territories were established by Israel in response to the Second Intafada, when countless suicide bombers were being sent from these territories to kill civilians in Israeli cities. It is undeniable that these security measures, while effective in preventing suicide attacks, have been a considerable hindrance to the quality of life and freedom of movement of the Palestinian people. As such, one could reasonably argue that it represents a case of unfair collective punishment whereby the population in general is being made to suffer for the acts of terror perpetrated by a few. Such security measures are, however, essentially different from social segregation based on race. It is not, and never has been, a means of segregating Arabs from Jews, but rather an attempt to stem the flow of violent extremists from one region to another. One can fairly criticize Israel’s security policies; however, to equate these policies with Apartheid is manifestly incorrect and constitutes a grievous misrepresentation of the history of both the Middle East and South Africa.