The Apartheid Myth and 98 Points to the Contrary
By Jock L. Falkson
Plus excerpts from the writings of Nonie Darwish, David Bedein, Mitchell Bard and Irshid Manji.
I offer this 98 point compendium of factual evidence that Israel is not an apartheid state. Furthermore that the Palestinians with their Islamic way of life are those who practice apartheid. Though I`m so naïve as to believe that this will in any way prevent another Israel apartheid week from happening. On the contrary I have little doubt that the hypocritical universities involved in this dishonest publicity scheme will again scapegoat innocent Israel this time next year.
In these circumstances, when so much evidence points in one direction, what accounts for the fact that our accusers point the opposite way?
There is only one conclusion that fits this situation and that is anti-Semitism ”“ hating Jews for what we are and not for what we do. I believe that if we are ever to overcome our opponents in coming years we will have to succeed in attaching that anti-Semitic label to our opponents. (Oddly enough anti-Semites dislike being called anti-Semitic!)
Here now is the evidence from yours truly, to be followed evidence from Nonie Darwish, David Bedein, Mitchell Bard and Irshid Manji:
- It takes sheer ignorance and criminal chutzpah to attach the South African apartheid label to democratic Israel. One might think they
re protesting because Israel segregates the Arabs in their midst but thats not true.
- While Israel`s not quite 6 million Jews stand accused of apartheid, more than a billion Indians who oppress some 180 million (Wiki) untouchables (Dalits) are not. How on earth the universities which castigate Israel for being an apartheid state when India and China (in Tibet) have such appalling apartheid records is beyond honest belief. Except when it is accepted that anti-Semitism is the Joker that trumps all.
- The Muslim world is not only the enemy of the Jews but equally the enemy of the Christians. The Muslim faith requires non-Muslims within their sovereignty to convert or die. Jews may however, be toleratedas second rate citizens provided they pay their annual Poll Tax, called Jizya.
- Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians have increased in number these past 40 years, and where the Bahai religion is not only tolerated but profoundly respected.
- The Arab states are the only states where Muslim apartheid in the world does not permit building a church or a synagogue.
- Apartheid in South Africa was based on race and color. It was the whites (the “Europeans”) versus the “non-Europeans” (Blacks, Coloreds [mixed race], Indians, Malays and Chinese).
- All suffered from legalized deprivations decreed by the South African government determined to impose white domination on the rest.
- The philosophy of apartheid was encapsulated in the slogan of the ruling National Party in South Africa which came into power in 1948. “Die kaffir op sy plek en die koolie uit die land” (“The kaffir (indigenous black) in his place and the koolie (Indian) out of the country.”) Israel never practiced such racist ideology. Indeed there is no color or racial apartheid in Israel.
- Blacks had to carry a “Pass Book”. Employers had to sign the pass books monthly. Pass book infringements by blacks led to jail sentences and often to deportation to the black homelands.
- Blacks, Coloreds, Indians, Malays and Chinese were legally classified as “Non-Europeans” and did not have the vote in apartheid South Africa.
- Job Reservation laws kept non-Whites from a wide range of jobs.
- Black-white sex was a serious jail time crime in South Africa. Not in Israel.
- Hospitals were segregated, ambulances too.
- There was free education for whites till matriculation. Not so for blacks whose educational prowess was strictly limited by an oppressive Bantu Education Act.
- No mixed sport was allowed ”“ by law.
- “Europeans Only” benches were available in parks.
- Blacks were not permitted to use the main entrance of buildings. They had to use the “tradesmen`s” entrance at back.
- Strikes were banned and strikers severely repressed.
- Non-whites were not entitled to pensions of any kind.
- Public beaches, swimming pools, transport, libraries and cinemas were racially segregated.
- There were practically no pools or libraries for Non-whites.
- Blacks were not permitted to buy, nor to imbibe, alcoholic drinks until very recently.
- Non ”“whites were not permitted to dine in white restaurants.
- No mixed sport was allowed by law.
- “Europeans Only” benches were available in parks.
- Blacks were not permitted to use the main entrance of buildings. They had to use the “tradesmen`s” entrance at back.
- Strikes were banned and strikers severely punished by law.
- Non-whites were not entitled to pensions of any kind.
- Public beaches, swimming pools, transport, libraries and cinemas were racially segregated. Even so there were practically no pools or libraries for non-whites.
- Non-whites were not permitted to buy, nor to imbibe, alcoholic drinks. Nor to dine in white restaurants.
- Israel has a;ready absorbed 70,000 Ethiopian Jews and plans to absorb 10,000 more.
- Circassians, Druze, Kurds, Armenians, Beduin and other non-Jews enjoy full citizen privileges and equal rights. Many Druze and Bedouin Arabs serve in Israel`s army.
- Some years ago a small shipload of 200 Vietnamese refugees sought asylum in Israel. Then Prime Minister Begin issued immediate instructions to accept them. They have since become full citizens. No Arab country took in a single boatload of the fleeing Vietnamese.
- Israel has also granted permanent residence and full citizen rights to quite a large number of illegal foreign workers and their families from the Philippines, Eritrea, Thailand, Columbia, Nigeria, Mauritius, Romania and Turkestan. No one was forced or required to convert to Judaism.
- Arab students may and do study in all Israel universities.
- Palestinians dishonestly imply that Israel`s security was built to oppress them. Fact is the world knows full well Israel decided to build this costly anti-terrorist barrier to keep Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel and killing and maiming our people. Thankfully the barrier has successfully achieved its intention.
- All Israel
s Arab citizens, some 20% or more of the population, have enjoyed equal voting rights from Israels day one. Eleven Arabs presently sit in Israels Knesset. Three are Deputy Speakers. Israels permanent minorities all vote in Israel`s elections.
- All children in Israel are entitled to publicly subsidized education till matriculation. There are no apartheid, racial or color restrictions.
- Fact is Arabs can do everything in Israel which non-whites in South Africa could not.
- Arab states still continue to execute criminals found guilty of murder. Hanging takes place in the public square.
- This punishment is meted out to homosexuals too.
- Male evidence is accepted by courts over female witnesses.
- Women have no choice as to whom they marry. They can be married off while still children.
- Incest is permitted.
- Palestinians who sell land or property to Jews face the death sentence.
- Women sentenced to death are stoned ”“ by members of the public.
- Palestinians dishonestly imply that Israel`s security fence was built to oppress them. Fact is the world knows full well Israel decided to build this costly anti-terrorist barrier to keep Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel and killing and maiming our people. Thankfully the barrier has successfully achieved its intention.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment By Nonie Darwish. Excerpts from a review of her book by Bill Muehlenberg. Darwish was an Egyptian Muslim for the first 30 years of her life. She fled to America and is now a Christian. She has written Now They Call Me Infidel, Why I Renounced Jihad for America and Israel and War on Terror.
- Muslim women are prohibited under sharia from marrying non-Muslim men.
- Muslim men can marry Christian or Jewish women.
- The sharia marriage contract “is essentially a document granting sexual intercourse rights to the male and giving him total control over his four wives”.
- There are temporary marriages purely for the purposes of (giving) sexual pleasure to the male, This “marriage” can last as little as an hour.
- There is also misyar, or traveller`s marriage to accommodate the male sexual appetite while travelling.
- Men can divorce their wives instantly by saying “I divorce you” three times.
- A Muslim woman cannot initiate a divorce.
- In custody cases, children after the age of seven (or sometimes nine) belong to the father.
- A male can beat his wife and sexually abandon her.
- Husbands deserve total submission and gratitude.
- Muslim scholar, Imam Ghazali has said, “Marriage is a form of slavery. The woman is man`s slave, and her duty therefore is absolute obedience”.
- Polygamy is also the right of Muslim men.
- There is no legal age for marriage under sharia. Ayatollah Khomeini said in an offici
al statement, “A man can quench his sexual lusts with a child as young as a baby.”
- Muhammad himself had a six-year-old wife with whom he consummated relations when she was just nine.
- Women adulterers are to be stoned to death.
- Girls who fornicate are to be flogged.
- A woman
s testimony in a court of law is only worth half that of a mans.
- Women cannot be in the company of men who are not her relatives.
- Female genital mutilation is rife.
- A Muslim wife needs her husband`s permission to travel.
- While there is no sharia law that expressly gives men the right to kill their women to protect their family honor, there are existing laws which protect men who do commit such killings.
- The killer of an apostate, a robber or an adulterer cannot be punished for murder.
- Non-Muslim women are treated almost as poorly as in Muslim-majority countries.
- Jews and Christians are under dhimmitude, or second-class citizenship.
- Non-Muslims are oppressed, discriminated against, and denied basic human rights.
- Criticism of Islam is of course punishable by death.
- Muslim preachers regard Westerners and Jews as the embodiment of evil, the personification of Satan.
Therefore they can be cursed, deceived and killed. - The aims of the Islamists are the very opposite of those who champion freedom and democracy.
David Bedein is a community organizer who has run Israel Resource News Agency since 1987. He is also as the Middle East correspondent for the Philadelphia Bulletin. The following excerpts are from his article titled “Palestine is an apartheid state in the making”.**
- In 1948, the Arab League of Nations applied the Apartheid model to Palestine, and declared that Jews must be denied rights as citizens of Israel, while declaring a total state of war to eradicate the new Jewish entity.
- Since its inception in 1994, the newly constituted Palestinian Authority, created by the PLO, has prepared the rudiments of a Palestinian State, modeled on the rules of Apartheid and institutionalized discrimination.
- While 20% of Israel`s citizens are Arabs, not one Jew will be allowed to live in a Palestinian State.
- Anyone who sells land to a Jew is liable to the death penalty in the Palestinian State.
- Those who murder Jews are honored on all official Palestinian media outlets.
- Palestinian Authority maps prepared for the Palestinian State depict all of Palestine under Palestinian rule.
- PA maps of Jerusalem for the Palestinian State do not show the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.
- Recent PA documents claim all of Jerusalem for the future Palestinian State.
- The right of Jewish access to Jewish holy places is to be denied in the new Palestinian State.
- The Draft Palestinian State Constitution denies juridical status to any religion except for Islam.
- No system which protects human rights or civil liberties will exist in a Palestinian State.
Mitchell Bard is an American foreign policy analyst who specializes in U.S.-Middle East policy. He is the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and director of the Jewish Virtual Library and author/editor of 18 books. The excerpts below are from his article titled “Is Israel is an apartheid state?”
- Whites and nonwhites lived in separate regions of South Africa.
- Nonwhites were prohibited from running businesses or professional practices in the white areas without permits.
- Nonwhites had separate amenities (i.e. beaches, buses, schools, benches, drinking fountains, restrooms).
- Nonwhites received inferior education, medical care, and other public services.
- Nonwhites could not vote or become citizens.
- By contrast, Israel`s Declaration of Independence called upon the Arab inhabitants of Israel to “participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”
- The 156,000 Arabs within Israel`s borders in 1948 were given citizenship in the new State of Israel. Today, this Arab minority comprises 20% of the population.
- It is illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race.
- Arab citizens of Israel are represented in all walks of Israeli life ”“ in senior diplomatic and government positions and an Arab currently serves on the Supreme Court.
- Israeli Arabs have formed their own political parties and won representation in the Knesset. Arabs are also members of the major Israeli parties. Twelve non-Jews (10 Arabs, two Druze) are members of the Seventeenth Knesset.
- Israel allows freedom of movement, assembly and speech. Some of the government`s harshest critics are Israeli Arabs in the Knesset.
- Arab students and professors study, research, and teach at Israeli universities. At Haifa University 20 percent of the students are Arabs.
{} {} {}