Israel Apartheid Week 2014 is based on a lie. The true reason behind it is hatred for Jews
Kennith Meshoe, a member of the South African Parliament and a man who
suffered through the true apartheid of South Africa speaks about the
false claim of Israeli apartheid. Kennith Meshoe exposes the false lie
and fraudulent narrative that Israel is an apartheid state.
In
Israel Arab, Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, can
live in freedom compared to most Muslim countries in the Middle East
and majority Moslem countries. Gays and Lesbians are free to live their
lives in Israel, while in majority Muslim countries are either killed or
imprisoned.
The real reason there are attacks on Israel is
based on anti-Jewish hatred. The Palestinian leaders during World War II
were backers of Hitler and the Nazi movement of Germany.
In
Muslim countries they treat people practicing Christianity, atheism,
Buddhism, Judaism, or Hinduism like second class citizens without any
rights...why aren't people in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United
States protesting those countries. In fact in some Muslim countries
slavery is still practiced.
No, this post is not about Jimmy Carter or Barack Hussein Obama. It's about their good friend Desmond Tutu, who once again proves that his unbridled hate of Israel and Jews overcomes anything - including supporting his own people.
"I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women
and children by members of the Israeli security forces," he said in a
statement. "Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans
who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the
security forces of the apartheid government."
The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town made the statement as the 10th annual Israel Apartheid Week
opened Sunday in South Africa. The initiative, part of the
international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement’s campaign
against Israel, is being marked in 87 cities this year. Tutu visited
Israel in 1989.
International pressure similar to the BDS movement led to the end of apartheid in South Africa, the statement said.
"In
South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help
of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means,
such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other
corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid
regime.
The same issues of inequality and injustice today motivate
the divestment movement trying to end Israel's decades long occupation
of Palestinian territory and the unfair and prejudicial treatment of the
Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them."
Tutu,
who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for standing up against
white-minority rule in South Africa, added that people who don't act
against injustice are complicit in it.
''Those who turn a blind
eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in
situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor," he
said. "It doesn't matter where we worship or live. We are members of one
family, the human family, God's family."
Tutu has apparently forgotten what real apartheid is like. Let's remind him. Recall that I linked to a post from a South African blog here. Here's some of what Steve - who grew up with it - had to say about apartheid:
There
were two components to Apartheid – grand apartheid with its goal of
political separation, and petty apartheid which sought to segregate
whites from non whites. Both components were equally important and
intertwined for one could not succeed without the other.
Grand
apartheid was to be achieved by creating separate political realities
for whites and non whites. This was done by revoking the citizenship
from non-white South Africans reducing the ‘legal’ population of South
Africa so that the whites would be the demographic majority. Homelands
called Bantustans were created and these were eventually to become
separate independent states. Blacks were to either be physically moved
into these homelands, or nationally tied to them (i.e. they would become
a citizen of the homeland that they might have never set foot in; and
not a citizen of South Africa). Naturally, even blacks that were not yet
assigned a Bantustan, were denied suffrage (i.e. they were denied the
right to vote).
Legislation was passed to legally separate blacks
from whites in all aspects of daily life. The separate public amenities
act ruled that blacks and whites would receive separate public
services. Blacks and whites were to have separate education, medical
care, transport and beaches. The legislation even pervaded to the use of
parks – blacks could not sit on the same benches as whites and they
could not even use the same water fountains used by whites.
Laws
were also passed prohibiting blacks and whites from having sexual
relations. This was policed to the extent that a white could be
incarcerated for allowing a black of the opposite sex to sit on the
front seat in their car.
Apartheid ensured the domination by a
white minority over a black majority in every apsect of their daily
lives. Blacks could not participate in the political process, they were
forced to study in languages selected by the government and their
education was geared towards making them useful labourers for their
white ‘bosses’.
It is thus easy to see that Israel is not an
apartheid state. All citizens of Israel (whether Muslim or Jewish, Arab
or European) have equality before the law. There is nothing close to
resembling the separate provision of amenities – Muslims and Jews use
the same hospitals, Muslims and Jews use the same public transport,
Muslims and Jews all vote in Israeli elections, Muslims and Jews can run
for election etc etc. Muslims in Israel can choose to study in the
language of their preference and Arabic is even one of the national
languages of Israel. In apartheid South Africa, although blacks made up
over 80% of the population, not a single African language was recognised
by the state.
Tutu is cheapening what his own people endured out of hatred for Jews and Israel. He went through the entire experience of apartheid and learned nothing.
Mandela received weapons training from Mossad agents in Ethiopia
Haaretz reports that Mossad agents in Ethiopia gave weapons training to Nelson Mandela and tried to turn him into a Zionist. The training took place in 1962, before he was arrested by the apartheid regime in South Africa.
These revelations are from a document in the Israel State Archives
labeled “Top Secret.” The existence of the document is revealed here for
the first time.
It also emerges that the Mossad operatives attempted to encourage Zionist sympathies in Mandela.
Mandela,
the father of the new South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
led the struggle against apartheid in his country from the 1950s. He was
arrested, tried and released a number of times before going underground
in the early 1960s. In January 1962, he secretly and illegally fled
South Africa and visited various African countries, including Ethiopia,
Algeria, Egypt and Ghana. His goal was to meet with the leaders of
African countries and garner financial and military support for the
armed wing of the underground African National Congress.
A
letter sent from the Mossad to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem
reveals that Mandela underwent military training by Mossad operatives in
Ethiopia during this period. These operatives were unaware of Mandela’s
true identity. The letter, classified top secret, was dated October 11,
1962 – about two months after Mandela was arrested in South Africa,
shortly after his return to the country.
The
Mossad sent the letter to three recipients: the head of the Africa Desk
at the Foreign Ministry, Netanel Lorch, who went on to become the third
Knesset secretary; Maj. Gen. Aharon Remez, head of the ministry’s
department of international cooperation and the first Israel Air Force
commander; and Shmuel Dibon, Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia between
1962 and 1966 and former head of the Middle East desk at the Ministry.
The
subject line of the letter was “the Black Pimpernel,” in English, the
term the South African media was already using for Mandela. It was based
on the Scarlet Pimpernel, the nom de guerre of the hero of
Baroness Emma Orczy’s early 20th century novel, who saved French
noblemen from the guillotine during the French Revolution.
Video: Esther Meshoe, South African leader's daughter dispels libels of Israel as apartheid
Esther Meshoe, daughter of conservative South African parliamentarian,
Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, refutes false allegations of apartheidism on the
part of Israel.
The New York Times actually runs a story that's favorable to Israel
It's been going on for months, but with an increase in civilians being treated, the New York Times has finally deemed it fit to print: Israel is treating casualties of the Syrian civil war at Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya, Ziv Hospital in Safed, Rambam Hospital in Haifa and at a field hospital in the Golan Heights. They're getting better medical care than they could ever get in Syria, and the government of Israel is footing the bill (Hat Tip: Tamar H).
“Most come here unconscious with head injuries,” said Dr. Masad Barhoum, the director general of theWestern Galilee Hospitalhere in Nahariya, on the Mediterranean coast six miles south of the Lebanese border. “They wake up after a few days or whenever and hear a strange language and see strange people,” he said. “If they can talk, the first question is, ‘Where am I?’ ”
He added, “I am sure there is an initial shock when they hear they are in Israel.”
The identity of the patients is closely guarded so they will not be in danger when they return to Syria. Soldiers sit outside the wards where the adults are to protect them from possible threats and prying journalists. But doctors granted access to the children in the closed intensive care wing, on the condition that no details that could compromise their safety were published.
Like many Israeli hospitals, this one serves a mixed population of Jews and Arabs; its staff includes Arabic-speaking doctors, nurses and social workers. In the lobby, a glass display case contains the remnants of a Katyusha rocket that was fired from Lebanon and hit the hospital’s eye department during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The rocket penetrated four floors but nobody was injured because all the north-facing wards had been moved underground.
With more than 100,000 people estimated to have died in the Syrian civil war, Dr. Barhoum, an Arab Christian citizen of Israel, acknowledged that the Israeli medical assistance was “a drop in the ocean.”
But he said he was proud of the level of treatment his teams could provide and proud to be a citizen of a country that allowed him to treat every person equally. He said the cost of the treatment so far had amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars and would be paid for by the Israeli government.
Since late March, almost 100 Syrians have arrived at two hospitals in Galilee. Forty-one severely wounded Syrians have been treated here at the Western Galilee Hospital, which has a new neurosurgical unit as well as pediatric intensive care facilities. Two of them have died, 28 have recovered and been transferred back to Syria, and 11 remain here.
An additional 52 Syrians have been taken to theRebecca Sieff Hospitalin the Galilee town of Safed. The latest, a 21-year-old man with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, arrived there on Saturday. A woman, 50, arrived Friday with a piece of shrapnel lodged in her heart and was sent to theRambam hospitalin the northern port city of Haifa for surgery.
Little has been revealed about how they get here, other than that the Israeli military runs the technical side of the operation. The doctors say all they know is that Syrian patients arrive by military ambulance and that the hospital calls the army to come pick them up when they are ready to go back to Syria.
The Israeli military, which also operates a field hospital and mobile medical teams along the Syrian frontier, has been reluctant to advertise these facilities, partly for fear of being inundated by more wounded Syrians than they could cope with.
Flock Builder on how to conduct a National Referendum and simulation of the peace talks
Flock Builder explains how to conduct the National Referendum on
Israel's future and computer expert Geek Bizarre presents a computerized
simulation of the anticipated rounds of peace talks. Yes, it's the weekly LATMA update.
Livni: Coalition members have 'collective responsibility' to blindly support 'peace process'
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, whose party has six of the 68 seats in the coalition, is insisting that the other members of the coalition have a 'collective responsibility' to blindly support the 'peace process.'
Livni, speaking to Army Radio, appeared to be directing her comments at
Bayit Yehudi Leader Naftali Bennett and former foreign minister and
Israel Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman's after they inferred Israel's
negotiating partner Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is an
anti-Semite.
"I know that there are partners in the coalition that are not
interested in a two state solution, but they have a collective
responsibility and as long as they are part of the coalition they must
support negotiations," Bennett said after Abbas said that no Israeli
settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and
that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within
the land occupied in the 1967 Six Days War.
“The president of the
Palestinian Authority said he doesn’t want to see any Israelis on his
land. Bad things happen when good people are silent. Good people need to
act,” Bennett said yesterday.
Isn't it amazing how Livni (and the Americans) are giving the racist Abu Mazen a pass? Can you imagine what the reaction would be if an Israeli politician said that we don't want Ethiopians in Tel Aviv or if an American politician said that they don't want blacks in Greenwich, Connecticut (one of the richest cities in the US)? And rightfully so. So why does Abu Mazen get a pass?
Livni's bigger problem is that most of the Likud does not support the 'peace process' and has long since moved on from a 'two-state solution.'
Likud MK Miri Regev told Israel Radio on Wednesday that there was not
majority support in her faction for the idea of a two state solution.
I will tell you where I see this going, and it's not a good place. Livni will come back with a 'deal' that no Israeli can accept. Netanyahu won't even be able to get it through the cabinet, let alone the Knesset (although he'll try). And then we'll have an explosion.
When the 'peace talks' inevitably fail, who will be blamed
Like most of the legacy media, the Washington Post is already preparing to blame the 'settlements' for the inevitable failure of the current 'peace talks' between Israel and the 'Palestinians.'
In the past five years, the population of Jewish settlements in the
West Bank has grown by about 20 percent, and pro-settler politicians
have become major players in Israel’s government.
Here in the
West Bank, which Palestinians claim as a basis of their future state,
settlers have built museums, a full-fledged university, archaeological
parks, shopping malls, heritage sites and wine bars. The
impossible-to-miss message: These settlements are here to stay.
...
[T]he growth of the settlements presents a particularly thorny
challenge. About 340,000 to 360,000 people live in Jewish settlements in
the West Bank, according to Israeli government data. An additional
300,000 Jews live in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as their
future capital.
Although there are still rugged encampments of
tents and trailers on isolated hilltops, manned by youths with extreme
views, many of the settlements in the West Bank have taken on the air of
middle-class permanence: comfortable villas of white stone and red-tile
roofs, landscaped with olive trees and date palms. They are the kind of
gated communities that look more Southern California than Holy Land.
“Settlement
life is a great life,” said Veronica Gareleck, who moved with her
husband and family to the Ofra settlement. She tends to guests who want
to sample some Psagot chardonnay at the Binyamin Regional Council’s
visitor center — a 15-minute drive and only one checkpoint north of
Jerusalem.
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett,
the third most powerful member of Netanyahu’s coalition, was formerly
the director general of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of
Jewish settlement councils.
“As negotiations get underway, we
will insist on continuing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank,”
Bennett said at an event in the Shiloh settlement this month. “History
has taught us that building produces life, while dismantling settlements
produces terror.”
Indeed, unlike the last time that the Obama
administration launched Middle East peace talks — a short-lived effort
in 2010 — there is no settlement freeze this time around.
Kerry
announced Monday that veteran diplomat Martin Indyk will run the talks
for the United States. Indyk, who will take a leave from the Brookings
Institution, maintains deep contacts in the region, particularly among
Israeli officials.
In his 2009 memoir of the Clinton-era efforts to win a peace deal, “Innocent Abroad,”
Indyk wrote that “future presidents need to insist that during final
status negotiations all settlement activity be frozen, including in the
settlement blocs, unless it is done in agreement with the Palestinians.”
But most Israelis don't see the 'settlements' as the fundamental issue. Seth Mandel argues that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was apparently given a choice of releasing terrorists, agreeing to negotiate based on the 1949 armistice lines or imposing a 'settlement freeze,' should have imposed the 'settlement freeze' because it's the easiest of the three choices to undo when negotiations collapse. He also argues that Netanyahu should not have to have met any preconditions at all.
It’s difficult to argue that freeing murderers is preferable to
freezing settlement building–and I don’t intend to argue it. Indeed, a
simple comparison between the Israeli public’s response to the previous
settlement freeze and its viscerally aggrieved reaction to the prisoner
release makes clear which is the more painful concession to Israeli
society.
But it should at least put in stark relief how silly and
counterproductive it is to have such preconditions in the first place.
It’s fair enough to criticize a prime minister for choosing the worst
among three terrible choices. But what does it say about the peace
process, and the American diplomatic role in these discussions, that
Israel was forced to choose between three terrible options in the first
place?
Freezing settlements as a precondition would be unjustifiable this
time around on its own; it only seems reasonable in light of the
possibility of freeing child murderers instead. But a settlement freeze
has been tried before, and the talks still went nowhere. Employing it as
a precondition yet again would be a cartoonishly impractical
suggestion. It would also predicate the negotiations on a false premise
by elevating settlements as a primary obstacle to peace. What do Western
negotiators think will be the result of talks based on a lie?
That we even have to ask the question is dispiriting enough. That
Netanyahu would be forced by American pressure to choose between freeing
murderers or basing negotiations on a lie that delegitimizes the status
of Jews, most of whom are on land that would be part of Israel in any
final deal, reflects terribly on Secretary of State John Kerry and the
administration he represents. And it only encourages stories like
today’s Washington Post feature that distort the reality of settlements and undermine the chances for true peace.
Coinciding
with Kerry’s efforts to jumpstart the negotiating process, Palestinian
president Mahmoud Abbas laid out part of his vision for a future
Palestinian state, before a group of mainly Egyptian journalists in
Cairo:.“In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,”the Palestinian leader said.
If
Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Jewish state plans to evict a
minority religious group from its territories, there would be no
shortage of outrage from the European Union and violence would likely
emerge from pro-Palestinian quarters.
Meanwhile, Abbas gets a free pass for bigotry.
The
incorrigibly reactionary view of Abbas’s is hardly surprising. It is
worth recalling the remarks of Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian
envoy to the United States, back in 2011 in Washington. Commenting about
the presence of Jews in the disputed territories, he said, “Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated . . .”
...
The persecution of Christians in the West Bank has
intensified under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, too. Dexter Van
Zile, an expert on Christians in the Middle East, brought the case of
the Bethlehem pastor Reverend Naim Khoury and the First Baptist Church
to the fore; the Palestinian government ruled that the church lacks the religious authority to operate.
In short, Israel simply
does not have a meaningful negotiating partner. Palestinian society is
divided between the undemocratic, scandalously corrupt Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian-backed Hamas organization in Gaza.
Of course 'Palestinian' bigotry against anyone for any reason other than the fact that they are Jewish would not prevent a deal. But when you combine that bigotry with the undemocratic nature of 'Palestinian' society and the fact that a 'Palestinian state' would be sitting on the outskirts of Israel's major cities, one has to wonder why we are starting these 'negotiations' at all.
Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a
future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish
settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Six Days War.
...
"In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single
Israeli - civilian or soldier - on our lands," Abbas said in a briefing
to mostly Egyptian journalists.
"An international, multinational
presence like in Sinai, Lebanon and Syria - we are with that," he said,
referring to United Nations peacekeeping operations in those places.
We Israelis refer to 'Israeli Arabs' but both the 'Palestinians' and many, if not most of the 'Israeli Arabs' refer to the 'Israeli Arabs' as 'Palestinians.' So when Abu Bluff says 'no Israelis' what he really means is 'no Jews.'
Will anyone call him on it? Don't hold your breath.
A South African talks about 'Palestinian' apartheid claims
Here's a talkback from YNet (sorry, I don't have a link) in which a South African talks about 'Palestinian' claims of apartheid (Hat Tip:: Herb G).
I'm
insulted. I'm extremly glad that this article come up in my google alert. I
grew up with apartheid here. and for the last year's I get angry because we
always hear apartheid in Palestine.
I started visiting Gaza
and west bank 7 years ago. ive even stayed in tel Aviv twice. the
Palestinians do not understand what apartheid is. after being in Palestine I saw
Palestinians in Israeli government. I saw over a million Palestinian living
in Israel
with rights. everything I learn when I was there was that there may be
discrimation but to say apartheid is a insult to us that lived with
apartheid. I was in west bank last November. I could not believe how much
west bank has prosper in the last 2 years. buildings being built. many
stores. shopping plaza. everyone dressing nicely. I still donate through
the UN for Palestine.
but I don't think I'm going to anymore. using apartheid for propaganda
purposes is an insult to us. the Palestinians do not know how good they
have it. the west bank is still better then where I live in pretoria. and muslims
in Israeli government is a big sign that show no apartheid. I'm tired of
being lied to. and most of my friends here after they visit west bank they
say the same thing. I'm sad, im angry the Palestinians lie about this. try
living in a real apartheid in 1980s south Africa. west bank is like
a heaven. and almost all Israelis I speak to want peace. almost no white
south African before would believe we were even allowed to walk on streets.
this Palestinian propaganda must stop, because if anyone with a open mind
come visit there, they would see prospering city with lots of buildings and
great dressed people. what Is funny is that in Israel I would see Muslim
amongst Israelis. but in Gaza
and Arab west bank, they would never allow Jewish people into their area.
I'm starting to believe apartheid is alive and well in Gaza and west bank since only one peoples
there. in Israel
it is diverse, with diverse people in government. apartheid is lie, and
disrespect to true apartheid victims.......thembi
Another day, another anti-Israel Chuck Hagel speech discovered
Rutgers President Richard L.
McCormick (l.), Eagleton director Ruth B. Mandel, and
former New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Kean (r.), who
introduced Hagel at his public lecture in New Brunswick
Chuck Hagel probably regrets ever accepting a speaking engagement at Rutgers University. The Washington Free Beacon has uncovered another Hagel speech on the New Jersey campus, this one from 2010, in which Hagel claims that Israel is 'headed toward apartheid,' that Prime Minister Netanyahu is a 'radical,' and that Hamas must be brought into the negotiations (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Kenneth Wagner, who attended the 2010 speech while a Rutgers University law student, provided the Washington Free Beacon
with an email he sent during the event to a contact at the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee. The email is time-stamped April 9,
2010, at 11:37 AM.
“I am sitting in a lecture by Chuck Hagel at Rutgers,” Wagner wrote
in the email. “He basically said that Israel has violated every UN
resolution since 1967, that Israel has violated its agreements with the
quartet, that it was risking becoming an apartheid state if it didn’t
allow the Palestinians to form a state. He said that the settlements
were getting close to the point where a contiguous Palestinian state
would be impossible.”
“He said that he [thought] that Netanyahu was a radical and that even
[former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi] Livni, who was hard nosed
thought he was too radical and so wouldn’t join in a coalition
[government] with him. … He said that Hamas has to be brought in to any
peace negotiation,” Wagner wrote.
AIPAC had no comment.
At the time, Hagel was on campus at Rutgers as the Clifford P. Case Professor of Public Affairs. But the key to this one is the demand that we negotiate with Hamas. That and the term 'apartheid,' which I don't recall any other American politician using in connection with Israel. Hagel is beyond the pale.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon slammed South Africa for mandating special labeling on products emanating from Judea and Samaria, saying that South Africa remains an apartheid state.
"The changes that took place in South Africa over the years did not yield a truly fundamental change," Ayalon said. "South Africa remains an apartheid state."
Ayalon also took a stab at South African authorities for killing 34 striking platinum miners in the bloodiest operation since the end of white rule. "At the moment South Africa's apartheid is aimed at Israel, and against miners within South Africa itself," Ayalon said. "Instead of deciding to label Israeli products, South Africa should have acted courageously towards the 34 innocent miners that were just asking for an improvement in working conditions."
The Foreign Ministry also released a statement Wednesday, saying South Africa's decision “brings to mind ideas of a racist nature which the government of South Africa, more than any other, should have wholly rejected.”
...
The Foreign Ministry statement said the measure adopted was unprecedented and constituted “blatant discrimination based on national and political distinction. This kind of discrimination has not been imposed – and rightly so – in any other case of national, territorial or ethnic conflict. Israel and South Africa have political differences, and that is legitimate. What is totally unacceptable is the use of tools which, by essence, discriminate and single out, fostering a general boycott.” The Foreign Ministry will summon the South African ambassador Thursday to register its displeasure.
Israel's better off without Alice Walker's The Color Purple translated into Hebrew
In an earlier post, I published an open letter to feminist author Alice Walker, who has refused to allow her novel The Color Purple to be translated into Hebrew. Walker accuses Israel of 'apartheid.' After reading what Walker's daughter Rebecca has to say about her, I think we're better off without Israelis reading Walker's book (Hat Tip: Steve B).
A neighbour, not much older than me, was deputised to look after me. I never complained. I saw it as my job to protect my mother and never distract her from her writing. It never crossed my mind to say that I needed some time and attention from her.
When I was beaten up at school - accused of being a snob because I had lighter skin than my black classmates - I always told my mother that everything was fine, that I had won the fight. I didn't want to worry her.
But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.
Now I simply cannot understand how she could have been so permissive. I barely want my son to leave the house on a play-date, let alone start sleeping around while barely out of junior school.
A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.
Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl. I don't remember my mother being shocked or upset. She tried to be supportive, accompanying me with her boyfriend.
Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I'd never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.
As a child, I was terribly confused, because while I was being fed a strong feminist message, I actually yearned for a traditional mother. My father's second wife, Judy, was a loving, maternal homemaker with five children she doted on.
There was always food in the fridge and she did all the things my mother didn't, such as attending their school events, taking endless photos and telling her children at every opportunity how wonderful they were.
...
when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes housesitting, and told her my news and that I'd never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put the phone down and sobbed - she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?
Worse was to follow. My mother took umbrage at an interview in which I'd mentioned that my parents didn't protect or look out for me. She sent me an e-mail, threatening to undermine my reputation as a writer. I couldn't believe she could be so hurtful - particularly when I was pregnant.
Devastated, I asked her to apologise and acknowledge how much she'd hurt me over the years with neglect, withholding affection and resenting me for things I had no control over - the fact that I am mixed-race, that I have a wealthy, white, professional father and that I was born at all.
But she wouldn't back down. Instead, she wrote me a letter saying that our relationship had been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother. She even signed the letter with her first name, rather than 'Mom'.
That was a month before Tenzin's birth in December 2004, and I have had no contact with my mother since. She didn't even get in touch when he was rushed into the special care baby unit after he was born suffering breathing difficulties.
Read the whole thing. By the way, Rebecca Walker's father, Alice Walker's ex-husband is - you guessed it - Jewish. We Israelis - whether we read English or not - are better off without Alice Walker. And so are her daughter and grandson.
I am sure that many of you have heard that Alice Walker has refused to let her Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Color Purple be translated into Hebrew because (she claims) Israel practices 'apartheid.' Here's an open letter to Ms. Walker from Dr. Denis MacEoin, whose writings I have posted before (Hat Tip: Ricky G).
You have spoken out against racism, yet you accuse a country that is visibly anti-racist to be the opposite of what it is. Please don’t dismiss what I say without further thought. It seems that you condemn Israel because it practices apartheid. Have you ever been to Israel? Have you ever walked Israeli streets, spoken to Jewish and Arab Israelis, sought out clear signs of the apartheid you’ve been told you will find there?
I do not think you have, for had you done so you would have been surprised by the absolute absence in Israel of any of the features of apartheid, as it was applied by the South African government years ago. That apartheid had as its principal aim the separation of blacks and whites and was hell for black people for many, many years. Though it pains me to say so, I find it offensive that you and other anti-Israel activists feel it necessary to indulge in an outright falsehood. Think of South African apartheid and all its ramifications. Did blacks have the vote outside their "homelands"? Did they serve in parliament or as government ministers? Were they sent abroad as diplomats? Did they serve as judges?
...
You may well say to me, "What about Gaza, what about the West Bank? – those are the places where apartheid takes place." But does it? Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and in doing so exposed itself to year after year of rocket and mortar fire from Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The territory is currently under the control of Hamas, one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist entities.
Israel has two functions there: to exercise a wholly legal sea and land blockade in order to prevent Hamas acquiring (mainly through tunneling) advanced weaponry, most of it supplied by Iran, another country which openly calls for genocide in Israel. To mitigate the impact of the blockade, Israel has set up an important border control station, through which thousands of tons of goods pass into Gaza every week. Life is not easy for Gaza, but it is controlled by an armed group whose charter calls for the killing of Jews and rejects peace-making of any kind. This is many things, but it’s not apartheid.
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I could write pages more in an attempt to help you see reason, but I don’t think that would, in itself, achieve very much. You don’t want to be preached to, I’m sure of that – and I’ve already preached more than I intended at the outset of this letter. But we do share one thing and that is the power of imagination. It takes imagination to see beyond the dogmas on either side of an argument like this. And that is what I want you to do, to use your imagination to see past the innumerable lies and obfuscations that have blinded people’s eyes to what has really been going on between the Jews and the Arabs.
The 'Palestinians' learned the value of a Big Lie from the master himself, Adolph Hitler.
The time is now long overdue to recognize that Adolph Hitler's contribution to political wisdom -- the Big Lie -- has reappeared in the Palestinian narrative of the state of Israel as an "apartheid state." "[T]he broad masses of a nation," Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "will more readily fall victim to the big lie than to the small lie." The constant repetition of the Big Lie, he explained, made it acceptable, especially when it could be manipulated to appear to have a certain credibility. The world is all too familiar with the success of Hitler's Big Lie narrative that the Jews were internationally powerful, responsible for World War I -- and, in his view, for most of the problems of the world.
This new Big Lie about Israel being an "apartheid state" that has been trumpeted by the Palestinian narrative of Middle Eastern history and politics has, in recent years, been accepted not only been accepted by "the broad masses," but also by more educated and supposedly politically sophisticated individuals in the media, the churches, and academia.
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The declaration of Durban 1, which reads as an indictment, was certainly applicable to the old, unlamented South Africa where blacks were indeed segregated in many ways by legal and other restrictions, and were treated as inferior human beings; but it has no application to the state and society of Israel. Within the state of Israel, Israeli Arabs, 20% of the population, have equal political and social rights as Jews; full citizenship; members of the Israeli Parliament, called the Knesset; a seat on the Supreme Court; diplomatic representation at the most senior levels, a free press in Arabic, which is, along with Hebrew, an official language; the capacity to move freely; equal opportunity to enter universities, to be employed, and to enter freely into marital relations with fellow Arabs or with Jews. If Jews and Arabs do live in different areas of the country it is not through a state-imposed segregation, enforced by legal means, but by choice. There are no segregated roads, as there are in Saudi Arabia, and there are no segregated schools, housing, drinking fountains, buses or any officially imposed limits whatsoever. Discrimination does not exist on the basis of race, religion, or sex; and all groups have legal protection of the law. Unlike Muslim countries Israel has no state religion, but rather contains some 15 recognized religions. Israel, unlike the old South Africa, is a multiracial society.
In the absence of a peace settlement between the parties that will determine the boundaries of territories currently dispute, both the Palestinian Authority and Israel control parts of the West Bank. Measures such as roadblocks, checkpoints and a fence have been imposed not for the purposes of segregation, but for security and for self-defense. Although it is true that these security measures cause inconveniences and some hardship, they have been created to prevent terrorist attacks, not to impose discrimination by an oppressive regime. It is a tribute to the nature of democracy in Israel that its Supreme Court on a number of occasions has ordered the state to make changes in the fence route, often by a small amount, when the fence seemed to be imposing hardship on the Palestinians.
The world is all too well aware of the disputes between Israel and Palestinians, especially on the complex issues of settlements, refugees, and Jerusalem, but to accuse Israel of being "apartheid" is not only false, it is unhelpful and counterproductive for any hope for a peaceful settlement.
The 'Palestinians' learned from the master how to use the Big Lie. May the purveyors of the Big Lie one day suffer Hitler's fate.
In Israel (West Bank area included,) Arab residents enjoy the kind of freedom and security that many in neighboring countries can only dream of - but they generally expect Israel to be better than others. The fact that Arabs are being oppressed, beaten and slaughtered by dictators in Arab countries is of no consolation to Israeli Arabs who are delayed at security checkpoints.
But are security checkpoints a sign of racism or a real security need brought about by terrorists who have come from largely Arab population areas and tried to transport bombs and weapons into largely Jewish population areas? There are security checks at all major airports throughout the world. Are they a form of racism, or a similarly necessary response to a known threat?
Israel has constructed a security separation barrier meant to obstruct the transit of terrorists and their weapons. Anti-Israel propagandists call the security barrier an “apartheid wall.” My question is: how could it be defined as an apartheid wall if there are both Jews and Arabs who live on both sides of the wall? My family and I, along with hundreds of thousands of other Israelis, live on the east side of the wall.
Non-Jewish Israelis - members of Christian, Muslim and Druze faiths (all considered Arabs) - serve in Israel's army and parliament. Members of each of these communities have served as judges in Israeli courts, officers in Israel's police force and other respected positions. Those who fulfill their civil obligations are rewarded with all of the same benefits as Jewish Israelis.
Very few Muslim or Arab countries have Jewish residents at all, due to the great expulsion of Jews from Arab lands that paralleled the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Most, if not all, Arab countries have laws forbidding Jews to own land or have other basic rights. Even those Arabs who have signed treaties with Israel - Egypt, Jordan and the PA - do not provide rights for Jews in their countries (not that this is very surprising in light of the fact that rights even to Arabs in those countries are very limited.)
The bottom line is that the apartheid charge is a sensationalist one that makes for good media sound bytes, but has no real substance behind it. In fact, it's a libel.
In this video we will try and answer the question that many of us are asking. Is Israel an Apartheid state? Do they discriminate against their own citizens?
Video: IAF evacuates 'Palestinian' boy hurt in traffic accident
In the 'apartheid' state of Israel, an injured 'Palestinian' boy, who probably imbibed Jew-hatred with his mother's milk, is evacuated from a traffic accident in Judea and Samaria by the Jewish air force who take him to a Jewish hospital.
The Jewish community is very small and the word is that Richard Goldstone is trying to make amends for his pernicious Goldstone Report due to his virtual excommunication from the Jewish community. The latest effort is an op-ed in the New York Times, in which Goldstone defends Israel from charges of apartheid. This passage made me wonder whether he gets it yet.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
So let me get this straight: Israel's rule in the West BankJudea and Samaria is not “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group” only because we have "agreed in concept to the existence of a 'Palestinian state' in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank?" And every country that does not agree to cut off part of its land is promoting apartheid? And every ethnic group that decides it's entitled to a 'state' is a victim of apartheid if it doesn't get that state? And were we one day to decide that we have had enough of the 'Palestinians' being unwilling to negotiate with us (and we all know why they are unwilling to negotiate with us), and we withdraw whatever offers of 'statehood' have been made, would we then be practicing apartheid?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
