What is the best defense of the apartheid-like system Israel enforces in occupied/settled/disputed territories?

Great Debates
101

It’s justifiable because of the disinterest among the Palestinian community for advancing democracy, self-rule, and economic development. As opposed to liberation and other ideals orthogonal to a thriving and successful society. All of this applies in spades to Gaza. I have no idea what to do about the patchwork West Bank, though I’d appreciate more constructive discussion along the lines of “We’ll define the missile lobbers as criminals on our side and furthermore throw them in prison, if you lay off on the military incursions a little”. You know, confidence building steps.

As it is, Hamas wants conquest though of course they sorely lack the military power to act on it.

Banquet Bear:
You falsified my claim. BBC:

The commission said its latest report was “the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date” on the war. However, it does not officially speak for the UN.

It was a 3 member UN commission, not a legal ruling. But I was unaware of it. There is a good Q&A on the report by Just Security:

Every State has an obligation under international law to prevent genocide. This obligation kicks in as soon as a State “learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.”

This is an obligation worth supporting. I’m shifting to, “Serious risk”.

Legal point:

Does the U.N. Commission finding mean that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are guilty of genocide?

That is a question for the International Criminal Court, and not something that the COI can speak to. Determining whether any particular individual is guilty of genocide is something that can only happen through a criminal trial and requires proof that meets the criminal law standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” By contrast, the COI looks at the responsibility of the State using a “reasonable grounds to conclude” standard (COI, para 7).

102

…That’s a very big ask for a people that have been illegally occupied for decades and are subject to an apartheid-like system.

Perhaps it isn’t “disinterest”. Perhaps when you’ve got Israel on one hand and (in Gaza) Hamas on the other, you don’t really have much of a choice.

Only if you ignore the complete lack of agency. Gaza used to have an airport. What happened to that? Israel blew it up.

I asked for clarity.

I never claimed it was a “legal ruling”.

You claimed “the UN reviewed the evidence and decided that no genocide was occurring in Gaza.” When did they do this?

103

…just a general question to all the people defending Israel’s apartheid-like system that they have imposed on the illegally occupied Palestinian people, one that requires a simple yes or no answer: Do you support apartheid?

104

I tend to be very skeptical about claims along the lines of “this subjugated people deserves to be kept subjugated because we consider they’re just not able or willing to handle sovereignty/autonomy properly.”

And again, those arguments cut both ways. How come Israel’s attacks on Palestinians should be considered “justifiable” because the Palestinians won’t leave them alone, but not vice versa? For decades Israeli expansionism has continued, irrespective of whatever Palestinians at the time happen to be doing: constant incremental taking over and appropriating resources from Palestinian territories, in addition to all the Palestinian-owned properties in “Israel proper” that were annexed in the Nakba and never compensated.

How come we can just arbitrarily decide that all of that doesn’t constitute an adequate “justification” for Palestinians to continue to lob missiles at Israel, but the missile-lobbing is automatically accepted as adequate “justification” for Israel to continue its oppressive and aggressive policies?

Mind you, I’m not advocating for violent conflict even when some kind of exculpatory excuse can be found for it. I’m of the mind that both Israelis and Palestinians should prioritize responding nonviolently to attacks, rather than risk harm to innocents. There is way too much “they started it” self-justification rhetoric being used on both sides.

But if we’re not expecting mutual forbearance and pacific compromise, we’re not entitled to demand it from only one side in the conflict. The notion that Israel somehow has the self-evident right to go on whaling on the Palestinians at will for causing harm to Israelis, while the fact of Israel’s causing continual harm to Palestinians is not accepted as a valid reason for them to be whaling on Israelis in their turn, is morally bankrupt.

105

The thread is itself about evaluating defenses to an apartheid-like system. It solicits defenses. It solicits debate. The original post specifically excluded debate over the definition of “apartheid”. Is this really the place to ask pointed personal questions like, “Do you support apartheid?” Can’t we give our fellow board members the benefit of the doubt?

Your position seems to be that there are no convincing defenses. That does not tell us which defense you think is the best…

~Max

106

…yes.

No.

My position here, and I suspect the reason why this thread was originally written, is because there is no good defence of apartheid. Every single one of them fails either at the legal threshold or the moral one.

And I think that many of the arguments defending apartheid aren’t just “going with the hypothetical”. It’s what people actually believe.

So I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question. I don’t think the people defending apartheid-like systems actually believe they are defending apartheid-like systems. They think the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people is sensible policy.

I think we need to confront that. And that starts by firstly them acknowledging exactly what it is they support.

107

Even if you think there are no ‘good’ defenses, surely you can agree that some arguments are worse than others?

~Max

108

…every single argument in defence of apartheid-like systems is bad. Which ones do you think are good?

109

I think the religious argument that the West Bank was covenanted to the Jewish people by God is the “best” of all possible arguments, by far. It is, I think, the only one that makes sense internally and independently without being intentionally evil (as opposed to tragically evil). Please do not confuse “best” with “good”.

~Max

110

…I mean, what do you want me, a person who is not religious at all, to do with that?

I don’t think god exists. Is this really the best argument in favour of the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people? That people think a fictional construct gives them permission to treat an entire people as subhuman?

Jesus wept. If Jesus were real, of course.

111

My metric for best is not whether or not it convinces you. It is whether it would convince people who actually put Israel’s policies into action.

I think by absolute numbers, the security argument wins, but only given the existing religious/nationalist settlements. If it weren’t for people who believe the religious argument, there wouldn’t be settlements and the security argument would wither and die, in my opinion.

~Max

112

…so I can’t ask the question, “Do you support apartheid?”

But you want to use this thread to “convince people who actually put Israel’s policies into action?”

How do you plan to do that? Do you want me to give Netanyahu a call and ask him to read this thread?

What do you mean by “win”?

Because of the security situation, one party gets to treat the other party as subhuman?

I think there are settlements because settlers want the land.

113

No. I am not trying to convince anyone that Israel’s policies are just or unjust. I participate in this discussion because:

And I think religious entitlement is a major factor in this.

~Max

114

…but you just said that you want to “convince people who actually put Israel’s policies into action".

What are you wanting to convince them of?

And this thread is in Great Debates. I’m allowed to debate the things you say. I think that the “best defence” you can offer up for an apartheid-like system is really, really bad. “God said we can treat the Palestinians as subhuman” isn’t a great argument.

115

I don’t find religious arguments compelling. What I do find compelling is that it is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people and that the British Empire and the UN acknowledged their right to a sovereign state there when the Mandate ended, and that they therefore have the right to defend that territory.

116

“My metric for best … is whether it would convince people who actually put Israel’s policies into action.” This is just my metric for telling which defense is the “best”, not me saying I want to use this thread to convince people to support/oppose Israel’s policies.

I don’t think the religious argument calls for treating Palestinians as subhuman (other than forcibly displacing them, which arguably falls under that category). See my post #59. And, I suspect we define “best” differently.

~Max

117

Not the West Bank, they didn’t. The partition plan called for an Arab state there, unless I am mistaken.

~Max

118

The territory of which was then seized by Jordan until Israel captured it in 1967, which is why it remains under occupation now.

119

It’s a small ask. The ANC for example advocated constitutional democracy and delivered.

Agreed, insofar as Gaza children or even Gaza citizens who just want a decent life for themselves are concerned. But there’s a real missing piece within the politically active portion of the Palestinian community and it’s been missing for decades.

FTR, you didn’t. I was issuing clarification after you provided evidence that falsified my claim.

January 2024. Not sure why you’re asking. I overstated the case a little: South Africa brought the case before the ICJ (as is their right and some could argue their obligation), and made a case that genocide was occurring. The ICJ refused to immediately confirm those allegations and ordered Israel to play nice.

BBC has a treatment more concise than wiki and more accurate than me:

On 26 January 2024, the court ruled on a number of interim steps which South Africa had asked it to take against Israel.

The key request was for the court to order Israel to immediately halt operations in Gaza, but the court did not uphold this.

However, it did instruct Israel to prevent its military from committing acts which might be considered genocidal, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and to enable humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

The court also ruled that it had the legal right to proceed with the genocide case. The president of the court at the time, Joan Donoghue, told the BBC in April that the ICJ did not decide that there was a plausible case for genocide, but rather that the Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide.

I don’t hand out blank checks to self-proclaimed agents of liberation.

Your instincts are healthy, but this subjugated people have had opportunity to set up a functioning local democracy and at best have failed twice. Can they ever get it right? Are they even capable of it? A: Sure. And I have sympathy for those Palestinians who push for Palestinian economic development, democracy, and the sorts of policies that promote the same. Especially since the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank puts reporters under surveillance, fines them, arrests them, confiscates equipment, etc.

The point being that the energies of politically active Palestinians don’t seem to be directed towards economically constructive ends.

That one is super easy. Don’t lob missiles at Israel or blow up pizza parlors and Israel won’t retaliate. Most organizations representing subjugated people grasp this concept, and I would opine that rational subjugated people should be pissed at organizations that don’t.

120

I may have misunderstood you. I thought you claimed that the British Empire and the UN acknowledged the right of the Jewish people to establish a sovereign state in the West Bank when the Mandate ended, which contradicts my understanding that those authorities acknowledged the right of the Arab people to establish a sovereign state at that place and time.

~Max