31.08.23
Editorial Note
Articles in the Palestinian media in Arabic reveal that the PLO, which established an anti-apartheid department last year, as IAM reported in December 2022, is sending delegations to meet European officials to escalate the fight against Israel.
The delegation included Ramzi Rabah, a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, the Head of the Anti-Apartheid Department, and Dr. Maher Amer, the Director General of the Department. The Department’s delegation concluded its visits to several European countries in June. It is part of a plan to form a “global front against apartheid and Israeli settler colonialism” in preparation for holding an international conference against apartheid.
The Department had organized several visits to countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France to meet with the German Left Party, the German and Belgian Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the German “Kobe” Foundation, representatives of the Labor and Green parties, the Belgian Socialist Party, the ECCP Foundation and solidarity institutions with the Palestinian cause, representatives of the “Sinn Féin” party, the official of the Left Bloc in the European Parliament, the Center for Human Rights Support in the Netherlands, and the European Center for Legal Support.
During these visits, the delegation discussed the “most important developments” in the Palestinian arena, notably the “policies of the extreme right-wing occupation government, which are based on displacement and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, and control over the Palestinian land according to a systematic policy, based on the annexation of more than 60% of the occupied West Bank, and the intensification of settlement within the framework of a project to undermine the possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state, and liquidating the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.”
During its visits, the delegation touched on the need to hold European forums at all levels to convene an international legal conference to “combat the system of apartheid and Israeli colonialism.” During its visits, the delegation explained the Anti-Apartheid action plan and the Department’s international movements to combat the “system of apartheid and settler colonialism.” During this series of visits, the delegation delivered a “detailed document on settlement operations and the annexation of Palestinian lands, and a list of the names of ministers and Knesset members residing in settlements established on occupied Palestinian lands in flagrant violation of international law, in addition to the appeal issued by the first national conference against the apartheid system and Israeli settler colonialism.”
The Department’s delegation has met with Dr. George Rishmawi, Hamdan Al Damiri, and Dieter Lewin Bergker of the European Palestinian Initiative against Apartheid, representatives of the Palestinian embassies in Germany and Belgium, and the Palestinian ambassador to the European Parliament. At the end of the meetings, the Palestinian community in Germany and the Palestinian and Arab Youth Gathering in Belgium organized several political gatherings with members of the community and its frameworks, on the developments of the Palestinian cause in Berlin, Cologne, and Bonn in Germany, and Brussels in Belgium. During this visit, Ramzi Rabah, spoke on the current Palestinian situation, and the dangerous developments of the Palestinian cause, as a “result of the Israeli occupation policy through displacement, annexation and settlement expansion, adding that the Palestinian people will remain steadfast in the face of the racist plans of the occupation, through popular resistance in all its forms.” During the meetings, Rabah saluted the Palestinian community in Germany and Belgium for their distinguished role in supporting the Palestinian cause, calling for coordinating their efforts and developing their work through integration and influence with European frameworks and parties. He praised the support for the Palestinian cause and the historical role of the Palestinian community in Europe in general and in Germany in particular.
Ramzi Rabah has met with Hubert Corman, the Middle East Department official of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to discuss “forming a global front against apartheid and Israeli settler colonialism.” The meeting was attended by Frederick, responsible for the Palestine file at the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Counselor Hassan Balawi, the Consul of the Palestinian Embassy in Belgium, Dr. Maher Amer, and Dr. George Rishmawi, a member of the European Palestinian Initiative Against Apartheid. Ramzi Rabah presented the situation “under the extremist Israeli ‘troika’ government, which pursues a policy of annexation, ethnic cleansing and settlement strengthening in the West Bank, calling for besieging this government, and the need to expose its brutal and racist policy and practices, and link the Palestinian struggle in the face of apartheid with other means of struggle, until the occupation is defeated and its demise, and its independent state is established with Jerusalem as its capital. Escalation of killings, arrests and land confiscation,” Ramzi Rabah explained, “The racist, far-right occupation government, led by Netanyahu, continues its aggressive policy against the Palestinian people, noting that the years 2022 and 2023 were among the bloodiest years against the Palestinian people, according to the testimony of international human rights and humanitarian organizations, as killings, arrests, and land confiscation escalated, and the expansion of settlements, in addition to the demolitions and destruction of homes, the enactment of a number of racist laws in the Israeli Knesset and the Israeli courts, and the demand of this racist government to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, and other racist laws that violate international humanitarian law and human rights law.”
Ramzi Rabah, referred to “the important European role in confronting the apartheid system, by unifying the efforts of all European human rights and humanitarian institutions, in order to achieve accountability for the Israeli apartheid state.” Ramzi Rabah explained, “The anti-apartheid department’s work strategy is represented by building a global front to end apartheid and settler colonialism, and to work with everyone who advocates international human rights law and Palestinian national rights.”
As IAM noted before, Settler Colonialism is a construct originally adopted by academic circles in the 1970s, while recently, Palestinian officials adopted the term.
However, some Israeli academics are still promoting the delegitimization of Israel in Europe and backing the baseless Palestinian accusations of apartheid.
One such example comes from a recent article titled “Apartheid is real in Israel,” published by the German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and authored by Professor Amos Goldberg of the Hebrew University’s Holocaust Studies. He wrote that “Blaming Israel apartheid is not anti-Semitic. It describes the reality. The Israeli government fights human rights, democracy, equality and promotes the opposite: authoritarianism, discrimination, racism and apartheid.” Iranian Press TV and Al-Jazeera celebrated Goldberg.
According to the Palestinian press, Hubert Corman, the official of the Middle East Department at the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, affirmed his government’s “continuous support for the Palestinian cause, to preserve the option of a two-state solution.” Corman pointed to “the importance of holding the Palestinian general elections, and improving and strengthening democratic performance in the internal issues of the Palestinian people, as they are a key to self-determination and state building for the Palestinian people.”
Corman’s short statement explains the essence of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. In a recently declassified report from a meeting of the Israeli cabinet in August 1993, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed serious doubts about the ability of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to conduct a democratic election as the Oslo Peace Agreement stipulated or stop terrorism. Despite such misgivings, the Israelis signed the agreement in September 1993. Soon after, under the tutelage of Iran, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) started a wave of suicide bombings that killed scores of Israelis and undermined the faith of Israelis in the peace process. As is well known, after the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Strip became a terrorist citadel. Lately, Hamas and the PIJ have tried to set up a terror infrastructure in the West Bank, again with support from Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. Hezbollah is also involved in drug trafficking across the border and mobilizes Israeli Arabs to smuggle both weapons and drugs. There has been a sharp increase in terror attacks associated with the West Bank and a dramatic increase in gang violence in the Arab sector.
Goldberg, like other Israeli academic activists, has never acknowledged what Rabin feared: the Palestinians, led by the Islamists beholden to Iran and Hezbollah, have zero interest in democracy or a two-state solution. Their only interest is to dismantle Israel.
References:
https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2023/06/26/1526408.html
(Google Translate)
The Organization’s Anti-Apartheid Department ends its visit to Europe
2023-06-26
The delegation of the Department against Apartheid in the Palestine Liberation Organization concluded its visits to several European countries, within the framework of the department’s work to form a global front against apartheid and Israeli settler colonialism, and in preparation for holding an international conference against apartheid.
The department had organized several visits to the countries of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, to meet with the German Left Party, the German and Belgian Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the German “Kobe” Foundation, representatives of the Labor and Green parties, the Belgian Socialist Party, the ECCP Foundation and solidarity institutions with The Palestinian cause, representatives of the “Sinn Féin” party, the official of the Left Bloc in the European Parliament, the Center for Human Rights Support in the Netherlands, and the European Center for Legal Support.
The delegation included a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Head of the Anti-Apartheid Department, Ramzi Rabah, and Director General of the Department, Maher Amer.
During his visit, the delegation discussed the most prominent developments in the Palestinian cause, and the policies of the extreme right-wing occupation government, which are based on displacement and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, and control over the Palestinian land according to a systematic policy, based on the annexation of more than 60% of the occupied West Bank, and the intensification of settlement within the framework of a project to undermine The possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state, and liquidating the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.
During the meetings, the department’s delegation discussed the conditions of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), and the US-Israeli policy, which aims to liquidate UNRWA’s work, by drying up its funding sources, in order to end its tasks and services to the Palestinian people in all refugee camps, where the delegation demanded The necessity of continuing stable and sustainable funding for the Agency.
During its visits, the delegation touched on the need to hold European forums at all levels, in order to convene an international legal conference, to combat the system of apartheid and Israeli colonialism.
During its visits, the delegation explained the action plan of the Anti-Apartheid Department, in addition to the department’s movements at the international level in order to combat the system of apartheid and settler colonialism.
During his series of visits, the delegation of the department delivered; A detailed document on settlement operations and the annexation of Palestinian lands, and a list of the names of ministers and Knesset members residing in settlements established on occupied Palestinian lands in flagrant violation of international law, in addition to the appeal issued by the first national conference against the apartheid system and Israeli settler colonialism.
The department’s delegation participated during its series of visits; Dr. George Rishmawi, Hamdan Al Damiri and Dieter Lewin Bergker of the European Palestinian Initiative against Apartheid, representatives of the Palestinian embassies in Germany and Belgium, and the Palestinian ambassador to the European Parliament.
At the end of the meetings, the Palestinian community in Germany and the Palestinian and Arab Youth Gathering in Belgium organized several political meetings with members of the community and its frameworks, on the developments of the Palestinian cause in Berlin, Cologne and Bonn in Germany, and Brussels in Belgium, during which a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization spoke. Ramzi Rabah on the current Palestinian situation, and the dangerous developments of the Palestinian cause, as a result of the Israeli occupation policy through displacement, annexation and settlement expansion, adding that the Palestinian people will remain steadfast in the face of the racist plans of the occupation, through popular resistance in all its forms.
During the meetings, Rabah saluted the Palestinian community in Germany and Belgium for their distinguished role in supporting the Palestinian cause, calling for coordinating their efforts and developing their work, through integration and influence with European frameworks and parties. Support for the Palestinian cause, praising the historical role of the Palestinian community in Europe in general and in Germany in particular.
===================================================
https://panet.com/index.php/story/3788237
(Google Translate)
A delegation from the Anti-Apartheid Department of the PLO meets the Belgian Foreign Ministry
Panet website and Panorama newspaper
17-06-2023 09:54:26 Last update: 17-06-2023 23:02:00
Ramzi Rabah, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, head of the Anti-Apartheid Department, recently met with the Middle East Department official.
In the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Herbert Corman”, as part of the department’s delegation’s visit to several European countries, to discuss “forming a global front against apartheid and Israeli settler colonialism.”
The meeting was attended by Frederick, responsible for the Palestine file at the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Counselor Hassan Balawi, the Consul of the Palestinian Embassy in Belgium, Director General of the Department Dr. Maher Amer, and a member of the European Palestinian Initiative Against Apartheid Dr. George Rishmawi.
A member of the Executive Committee of the PLO presented the situation in the Palestinian territories under the extremist Israeli “troika” government, which pursues a policy of annexation, ethnic cleansing and settlement strengthening in the West Bank, calling for besieging this government, and the need to expose its brutal and racist policy and practices, and link the Palestinian struggle in the face of apartheid With other means of struggle, until the occupation is defeated and its demise, and its independent state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.
Escalation of killings, arrests and land confiscation
Ramzi Rabah explained, “The racist, far-right occupation government, led by Netanyahu, continues its aggressive policy against the Palestinian people, noting that the years 2022 and 2023 were among the bloodiest years against the Palestinian people, according to the testimony of international human rights and humanitarian organizations, as killings, arrests, and land confiscation escalated, And the expansion of settlements, in addition to the demolitions and destruction of homes, the enactment of a number of racist laws in the Israeli Knesset and the Israeli courts, and the demand of this racist government to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, and other racist laws that violate international humanitarian law and human rights law.
The head of the Anti-Apartheid Department referred to “the important European role in confronting the apartheid system, by unifying the efforts of all European human rights and humanitarian institutions, in order to achieve accountability for the Israeli apartheid state.”
A member of the Executive Committee of the PLO explained, “The anti-apartheid department’s work strategy is represented by building a global front to end apartheid and settler colonialism, and to work with everyone who advocates international human rights law and Palestinian national rights.”
Problems faced by UNRWA
The head of the Anti-Apartheid Department addressed “the problems faced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), and the pressures it is exposed to from some parties to reduce its budget and reduce its services related to the needs and rights of Palestinian refugees, noting the need for European support to maintain the continuity of its provision.” Health, education and relief services.
In turn, the official of the Middle East Department at the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tarbit Kormana, affirmed his government’s “continuous support for the Palestinian cause, to preserve the option of a two-state solution.” The official in the Middle East department pointed to “the importance of holding the Palestinian general elections, and improving and strengthening democratic performance in the internal issues of the Palestinian people, as they are a key to self-determination and state building for the Palestinian people.”
======================================================
Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost
FAZ 23.8. 2023
Conflict in Middle East
Apartheid is real in Israel
Israel has been protected for a long time from the accusation of apartheid. In light of recent events in my hometown, this cannot be maintained. Therefore, the formula that anyone who talks about apartheid is anti-Semitic doesn’t apply anymore.
By Amos Goldberg
Felix Klein, the anti-Semitism representative of the federal government, recently, on the occasion of an insightful interview with German Middle East expert Muriel Asseburg, made the claim that whoever supports Israel apartheid delegates the Jewish state. Because that is an anti semitic narrative. The thesis is questionable. Because Felix Klein was right, some of the most well-known Holocaust and Antisemitism researchers from Israel, America, Europe and around the world would be Antisemites.
In a recently published petition co-initiated by Omer Bartov, one of the most respected holocaust and genocide researchers, it says “there can be no democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under an apartheid regime that Israeli jurists have characterized.” The petition has been signed by more than 1900 scientists, mostly Jews and Israelis, including Saul Friedländer, Shulamit Volkov, Eva Illouz, Dan Diner and Christopher Browning. They are all well-known in Germany. Many signatories consider themselves Zionists – such as Benny Morris, who has repeated in the past that the term apartheid cannot be applied to Israel.
The petition and its international appeal are extraordinary. But in the light of recent developments in Israel, many people in Israel and around the world, Jews and non-Jews, are changing their minds. This is how Benjamin Pogrund, a Jewish Israeli from South Africa and a sharp critic of all those who call Israel an apartheid state, wrote in a guest article for the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”: “For decades I have protected Israel from the accusation of apartheid.” I can’t do this anymore. “
A comparison with South Africa
Pogrund backs his argument with facts, including a detailed comparison between Israel and South Africa. Former Major General Amiram Levin, former high commander of the Israeli army, called Israel’s sovereignty over West Bank “fifty-seven years of absolute apartheid,” and Barak Medina, renowned law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and former Supreme Court candidate, wrote that the false statements of finance and second ministers at the ministry of security Bezalel Smotrich served to justify an apartheid regime in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel is changing before our very eyes, and many people are responding. So how is Felix Klein’s illiteracy to understand? Hannah Arendt might be able to help. As described in “elements and origins of totalitarian rule”, “ideological thinking” is characterized by the fact that it functions “regardless of any experience”, so to say “emancipated from reality”. In Arendt’s opinion, Felix Klein is an ideologist who closes his eyes to reality and doesn’t make it a secret.
In his criticism of Muriel Asseburg formulated in the newspaper “Die Welt”, he is not only trying to refute the argument that Israel practices apartheid. He simply explains that apartheid contradicts the ideological understanding of a “Jewish state” and therefore the corresponding accusations are anti-Semitic. What would he say if Israel can be shown as an apartheid state? That the political reality in the occupied territories and even within Israel corresponds to the criteria, as defined in international law, i.e. in the Roman Statute of the International Criminal Court, which was ratified by Germany in 2000? It would probably be irrelevant for the little one. Israel cannot be accused of apartheid a priori, regardless of the facts, because Israel is a Jewish state.
Contradictory statements
And since the anti-Semitism envoy with a view of Israel refuses to talk about apartheid because it would ignore the Jewish character of the state of Israel, he basically recognizes that a Jewish state can, maybe even should be, an apartheid state. From his point of view, this is not a problem, but a preference, as a “Jewish state”, and if it is an apartheid state that upholds Jewish supremacy, is an even higher value that we are morally obligated to defend and to criticize is anti-Semitic. In other words: Klein recognizes that Israel, as a Jewish state, could be an apartheid state, but finds it anti-Semitic to talk about apartheid in relation to Israel. With this attitude, he is no longer far away from those far-right politicians who belong to the current Israeli coalition government and openly demand that the Jewish character of the state should be above its democratic character.
Even if Israel, according to this logic, again carried out ethnic cleansing as during the Nakba 1948 and would deport countless Palestinians from the State of Israel or West Bank – as the journalist Amira Hass and many experienced observers warn and as threatened by some ministers of the Likud Party and ministers Smotrich is more or less explicitly formulated in his “decisive plan” -, even then Felix Klein would probably say that it is anti-Semitic to call this action an ethnic cleansing, because it helps to strengthen Israel’s character as a “Jewish state”. Perhaps he would agree that you could criticize such a crime without being anti-Semitic, well-known provided Israel’s legitimate security interests are taken into account, as he recently explained with regard to criticism of the illegal barrier wall.
Not surprisingly, that recent developments in Israel have not caused even a trace of irritation at Klein since the formation of the openly racist and anti-democratic government that practices its apartheid policies on a daily basis. And that, while the government continues to push the actual annexation of the occupied territories and deprives the millions of Palestinians living there of their rights, while the Israeli inhabitants of those territories, the settlers, enjoy full civil rights. Although the parallel legal systems are being expanded in West Bank – civil rights for Jews, war rights for Palestinians. Although the government is converting Israel into an authoritarian, anti-democratic state to enable the annexation of the West Bank without being legally challenged.
Although Itamar Ben-Gvir is the Minister of National Security, a man convicted of racism and supporting a terrorist organization in 2008 and an admirer of Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein who massacred 29 Palestinians in the Patriarch’s Cave in Hebron 1994. Although terrorist attacks on Palestinians — such as the pogrom in the Palestinian village of Huwara or the murder of a Palestinian in the village of Burqa — occur almost daily. Although Minister Smotrich publicly declares that the Palestinian village of Huwara should be wiped out, and Minister Ben-Gvir justifies the murder in Burqa. And yet minister Smotrich Gelder is cancelling Arab students in East Jerusalem and Arab communities, just like that. Klein can’t shake all that. Reality has no effect on your positions. Therefore, he is probably interested neither in the arguments of the Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, who pointed out in a detailed 2020 report that apartheid is practiced in West Bank, nor the reports of the Human Rights Watch from 2021, which also find that apartheid was practiced in the occupied territories. He is also not interested in the legal case analyses of the human rights organization B’Tselem (2021) and Amnesty International (2022), which yield the same result.
Felix Klein dismisses the allegations as anti-Semitic because they question Israel’s Jewish character. How slanted. Like a stranger to reality. How ideological. Small may not be receptive to reality, but reality is stronger, and more and more people in the world and in Israel are beginning to see it. Blaming Israel apartheid is not anti-Semitic. It describes the reality. The Israeli government fights human rights, democracy, equality and promotes the opposite: authoritarianism, discrimination, racism and apartheid. Felix Klein and all decent people need to decide on which side of history they want to stand in the fight against antisemitism.
Amos Goldberg is a professor of Holocaust History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As a co-editor, he last published “The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History” (Columbia University)
===============================
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/08/26/709643/Calling-Israel-apartheid-not-anti-Semitic
Hebrew University professor: Calling Israel apartheid is ‘describing reality’
Saturday, 26 August 2023 8:04 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 26 August 2023 8:16 AM ]
Calling Israel an apartheid regime has nothing to do with anti-Semitism but is the description of what is happening in reality, according to an Israeli university professor.
Amos Goldberg, a leading professor of the Holocaust at Hebrew University in the occupied al-Quds, made the comment in response to an earlier statement by Germany’s anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein, who said applying the framework of apartheid to discuss Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “an anti-Semitic narrative.”
In an interview with the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Goldberg rejected Klein’s remarks and said, “Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic—it’s describing reality.”
In a veiled reference to Klein, Goldberg added, “All decent people must decide which side of history they want to be on.”
The Israeli university professor also warned against the conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, describing the issue as a “disturbing” phenomenon as he argued that some of the harshest opponents of Zionism were Jews.
“These identifications are serious because they are derived from alleged lessons of the Holocaust,” he added. “And so it appears that any substantial criticism of Israel and Zionism is perceived in public opinion, and especially among national and international political and cultural institutions, as an ideological continuation of the Holocaust.”
“From the moment Zionism appeared on the stage of history at the end of the 19th century, opposition to it was born within the Jewish world.”
In an open letter earlier in the month, hundreds of academics and public figures from across occupied Palestine and other nations equated the Israeli regime’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories with apartheid.
The signatories complained that the Palestinian people “lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.”
The Israeli oppression of Palestinians has witnessed a sharp rise under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition cabinet, which is composed of far-right Zionist parties that oppose Palestinian statehood and support the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied lands.
Over the past months, the usurping regime has intensified attacks against Palestinian towns. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested.
According to the United Nations, 2023 is already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since it began recording fatalities in 2005. The previous year, 2022, had been the most lethal year with 150 Palestinians killed, of whom 33 were minors, as reported by the United Nations.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
=====================================
‘Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic’: Holocaust historian
A growing number of Jewish academics are using the term apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
Published On 27 Aug 202327 Aug 2023
Amos Goldberg, a leading professor of the Holocaust at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has published a scathing retort saying that describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid” is not anti-Semitic, in a guest post in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
Felix Klein, Germany’s commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism, said using “apartheid” in such scenarios is “an anti-Semitic narrative” in an interview with Die Welt, one of Germany’s most-read newspapers.
The Israeli government, Goldberg stated, fights against human rights, democracy and equality and propagates the opposite: “authoritarianism, discrimination, racism and apartheid”.
“Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic. It describes reality,” he said.
‘The elephant in the room’
Goldberg’s standpoint was not an outlier, he urged Klein to understand. Rather, it represented a growing chorus of voices, including leading Israeli academics propagating the term apartheid to describe the treatment of Palestinians by the current regime.
In fact, if Klein were right, Goldberg wrote, then some of the best-known Holocaust and anti-Semitism researchers from Israel, the United States, Europe and worldwide would be anti-Semites.
He referenced a petition co-initiated by Omer Bartov, the Israeli-born historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, titled The Elephant in the Room, which states: “There can be no democracy for Jews in Israel while Palestinians live under an apartheid regime”.
The petition has been signed by more than 2,000 academics, clergy, and other public figures at the time of writing and is emblazoned with an illustration that includes a large elephant with the words “Israeli occupation” alongside a speech bubble that reads “Let’s just ignore it”, and surrounded by dozens of people freely waving placards for various social justice movements.
“Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest,” the petition reads, “Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.”
A rhetorical shift in Israeli academia
This represents a significant shift in rhetoric among many Jewish and non-Jewish academics, Goldberg wrote in FAZ.
The recent judicial changes proposal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently pushed through has forced many people to change their perception of the Israeli regime, including Zionists, he states.
Goldberg referenced Benjamin Pogrund, a South African-born Israeli author who was once quoted as saying anyone who labelled Israel an apartheid regime “is at best ignorant and naive and at worst cynical and manipulative”.
Pogrund recently wrote an op-ed for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in which he described his new position: “I have argued with all my might against the accusation that Israel is an apartheid state: in lectures, newspaper articles, on TV and in a book. However, the accusation is becoming fact.”
“We deny Palestinians any hope of freedom and normal lives. We believe our own propaganda that a few million people will meekly accept perpetual inferiority and oppression,” he wrote.
Goldberg also cited Barak Medina, a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a former Supreme Court nominee, who wrote that the untrue statements of Finance Minister and Second Minister of Security Bezalel Smotrich served to justify an apartheid regime in occupied East Jerusalem.
‘Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic’
Klein’s statement that accusing Israel of apartheid is anti-Semitic is not far removed from the position of the right-wing extremist politicians in the Israeli coalition government who demand that the Jewish character of the state take precedence over its democratic character, Goldberg argues.
It is a position shared by Bartov, who recently told the Washington Post: “You can call me a self-hating Jew, call me an antisemite … People use those terms to cover up the reality, either to deceive themselves or to deceive others. You have to look at what’s happening on the ground.”
Klein may not be “receptive to reality”, Goldberg concludes in his FAZ article, “but reality is stronger and more and more people around the world and in Israel are beginning to see it”.
israel-academia-monitor.com 