apartheid |

Apr 11

Why a cultural boycott of Israel is justified

A fortnight ago, dozens of actors, playwrights and directors called on The Globe to cancel a planned performance by Israel’s national theatre company Habima, to avoid complicity with “human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land”.

Along with Emma Thompson, Mike Leigh and Caryl Churchill, opposition to the invitation includes Mark Rylance, founding artistic director of The Globe. The letter follows on from an earlier call by ‘Boycott From Within’, a group of Israelis who support the Palestinians’ Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Read more

Mar 29

Palestinians forge new strategies of resistance

A new generation of Palestinian activists is breaking down old divisions imposed by Israel.

A one-state solution in Palestine/Israel is a subject being increasingly discussed and debated. One way in which the conversation has emerged is through an analysis of the current situation as a de facto one state, a regime which privileges Jews above Palestinians (the latter being granted or denied different rights according to geography and legal status). Read more

Feb 5

Is Israel a democracy or an ethnocracy?

The Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) is one of the key Israel advocacy groups in the UK. In the last week BICOM has published a series of essays on ‘Israel’s democratic futures’ (if that’s a question, the answer is ‘here’s hoping’). BICOM’s worry, as its chief Lorna Fitzsimons wrote in her introduction, is that “a notion is spreading in the West that Israel is fast becoming an illiberal ethno-democracy”. Read more

Jan 12

he Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law aims to keep Palestinians and Israelis apart [EPA]

Human rights equated with national suicide

Israel’s high court upholds a law preventing Palestinians from living with their spouses in Israel.

The Israeli government has repeatedly demanded that Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. Recent developments in the Knesset and High Court are exposing exactly what this means, and in doing so, throw the spotlight on the issue that the ‘peace process’ – and Western governments – refuse to tackle. Read more

Nov 27

Israeli bulldozers demolish a hotel in East Jerusalem in January Source: Getty Images

Defending the indefensible

Away from the comatose ‘peace process’ and focus on Iran, a wave of anti-democratic and nationalistic legislation in Israel’s Knesset shows no sign of slowing down.

For Israel’s liberals, these are worrying times. The publisher and owner of Ha’aretz newspaper this week issued a warning about apartheid and democracy, while his colleagues have launched a special project on Israel’s “eroding freedoms” called “Black Flag Over Israel’s Democracy”.

The rhetoric of anger and fear about these “threats to democracy” reflects a definite shift in Israel. It is crucial to note that Israel has never been ‘democratic’ for Palestinians, who are excluded from their homeland entirely, live under military rule in the West Bank and Gaza or are second-class citizens in the pre-1967 borders. Read more

Nov 2

Goldstone’s ‘apartheid’ denial sparks strife

After his famous article earlier this year on Gaza, Judge Richard Goldstone has written a new op-ed, this time seeking to defend Israel against charges of apartheid.

There are numerous problems with Goldstone’s piece, but I want to highlight two important errors. First, Goldstone – like others who attack the applicability of the term “apartheid” – wants to focus on differences between the old regime in South Africa and what is happening in Israel/Palestine. Note that he does this even while observing that apartheid “can have broader meaning”, and acknowledging its inclusion in the 1998 Rome Statute. Read more

Apr 27

Netanyahu: Erasing the Green Line

In light of the Netanyahu-Lieberman coalition’s newly proposed (or passed) laws that target the Jewish state’s Arab minority, increasing attention is being paid to the discrimination and hate speech faced by Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Issues like the struggle of ‘unrecognised’ villages, and phenomena like the ‘don’t rent to Arabs’ rabbis’ letter, for example, are being covered by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, international media, and even the UK Foreign Office. Read more

Aug 6

Throughout Israel, Palestinians are being suffocated

Shortly after I had arrived in Palestine last month, I visited the devastated community in the Jordan Valley where the Israeli army had, just days earlier, demolished around 70 “illegal” structures. The same week, I visited Dahmash, an “unrecognised” village between Ramla and Lod, inside Israel, where Palestinian citizens face pending demolition orders. Finally, a few days later, I woke up to the news that the “unrecognised” Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib, in the Negev, had been destroyed in a raid involving 1,300 armed police (and cheering volunteers).

Whether under military rule in the West Bank, or as citizens in Israel, Palestinian communities’ ability to grow naturally is compromised by laws, “zoning” plans and permit systems designed to enforce a regime of separation and inequality. In 2008, a UN report detailed how 94 per cent of Palestinian building permit applications are denied in “Area C” of the West Bank, an area that covers 60 per cent of the territory. Read more

Apr 7

Israel’s Negev ‘frontier’

On this year’s Land Day, tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel marched in Sakhnin, an Israeli city in the Lower Galilee, to protest against past and present systematic discrimination. But with the focus on Israel’s policies of land confiscation, there was significance in a second protest that day.

In the Negev (referred to as al-Naqab by Palestinian Bedouins), over 3,000 attended a rally at al-Araqib, an ‘unrecognised’ Palestinian Bedouin village whose lands are being targeted by the familiar partnership of the Israeli state and the Jewish National Fund.

The historical context for the crisis facing Palestinian Bedouins today is important, as the Israeli government and Zionist groups try to propagate the idea that the problems, so far as they exist, are ‘humanitarian’ or ‘cultural’. Read more

Feb 23

Behind Brand Israel: Israel’s recent propaganda efforts

“The Delegitimization Challenge” report from the influential Israeli think tank the Reut Institute has put the spotlight on efforts by Israel and the Zionist lobby to counter the growing movement for justice in Palestine, and specifically, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. The work done by Reut has rightly attracted attention, but it is only one (particularly prominent) example of a wider trend, as the Israeli government and global Zionist groups mobilize to fight the threat to the apartheid system.

It was an issue discussed when Israeli policymakers convened for the recent Herzilya Conference where there was a session called “Winning the Battle of the Narrative: Strategic Communication for Israel.” There was also an associated working paper, prepared by a team that included Ido Aharoni from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), along with senior officials from the prime minister’s office, public relations firms and two key lobby groups — The Israel Project in the US, and Bicom from the UK (”Winning the Battle of the Narrative” (PDF)). Read more