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Why Israel is not an apartheid state

Within the Green Line, Israel is a multi-ethnic democracy. Arabs and other minorities are full citizens, have equal voting rights, and sit in the Knesset, writes Luke Akehurst.

November 27, 2017 09:56
Jerusalem
2 min read

The accusation that Israel is an apartheid state has very little to do with the reality of Israel. It is an attempt by Israel’s critics to “South Africanise” the conflict through an analogy with apartheid South Africa. They want to make Israel a pariah, to generate an international campaign for the Palestinians as iconic as the anti-apartheid movement, the most successful solidarity campaign of the 20th century, and to justify the same tactics used to put pressure on the apartheid regime: boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Apartheid in South Africa involved racial categorisation, discrimination and segregation. South Africans were classified into four races: White, Black, Coloured or Indian. It was illegal for the races to mix sexually or marry. Whites – under 20 per cent of the population - controlled the political system and only whites were allowed to vote and sit in parliament until 1983 when separate chambers for Indians and Coloureds were created. The non-white population was brutally repressed. Place of residence was restricted according to race, with forced relocation of 3.5 million non-whites. Public services and leisure facilities from hospitals to beaches and park benches were segregated by race, with first world standards for whites and third world ones, or nothing, for blacks.

This is not analogous to the situation in Israel, as any visit to the country shows.

Within the Green Line, Israel is a multi-ethnic democracy. Arabs and other minorities are full citizens, have equal voting rights, and sit in the Knesset. There have been Arab cabinet ministers, generals, diplomats, Supreme Court judges, even an acting President from the Druze minority. Every citizen is guaranteed equal rights under the law. Universities and hospitals are integrated. The judiciary counters discrimination.