Of course it’s apartheid, and it isn’t antisemitic to say so.
Ummm, wait. I’m confused. Are we saying that apartheid means whatever we want it to mean in this context?
Are the Isreali’s seeking to commit genocide?
Are they not allowing the muslims (and Palestinians) withing Isreali’s 1948 borders to live, work, and worship as they please? (I could use a short intro here…)
As far as I know, the harsh measures used in the occupied zones are beacuae the people in those zones are being used as proxies to kill Isreali’s…
I thought apartheid was the same as genocide…
Please banish my ignorance.
VR, Mlees.
Apartheid is not genocide. You seem to have the wrong understanding of the word. Apartheid refers to South African policy of racial segregation and subjugation. It is now more generally used to refer to racial segregation and political disenfranchisment in general. The word has no connotation of genocide.
Okeedokee. Thanks. Amazing, ain’t it?
I can get to be 41 years old, and totally misunderstood that. wince
I do not believe that Carter is antisemitic.
I do believe that Israel has been negligent in its obligations as an occupier. She has made many mistakes.
But, whatever his motivations Carter is just plain wrong. Apartheid, as John well points out, has a very particular meaning and to use it when that meaning does not apply serves no purpose except to do the real world equivilant of trolling: it inflames rather than informs.
Is Carter on target for being critical about Israel’s poor stewardship of the occupied lands? He has some points, yes. Israel needs to get herself as much out of those areas as she securely can and with as little delay as possible. A negotiated solution if possible, but unilateral disengagement behind a secure border if not. No passes for roads or checkpoints on their side of the border, unless they want them.
Apos’s defintion of apartheid, btw, would have the United States as apartheid unto Mexicans and Canadians both because we have territorial segregations enforced between us. Is it apartheid to desire those borders to be more secure? It is a ridculous assertion to claim that wanting a secure border between your country and your citizens (who consist of Arabs and Jews and others all with full rights) and others who include those who desire to do them harm.
Oh do try not to be silly. The US government has absolutely no authority in Canada and Mexico. The Israeli government is the de facto government of the occupied territories.
And “Nazi” is commonly used to describe a wide range of politicians and policies with which someone disagrees. That doesn’t make it valid usage.
I think the Israeli occupation is unsustainable, costly to peace and prosperity on both sides and as big an obstacle to resolving the conflict as the Palestinian goal of eradicating Israel.
Calling the occupation “apartheid”, sounds like yet another attempt to influence debate by invoking a bogeyman. The facts of this stupid stalemate should be enough, without streeeetching historical fact to fit one’s convenience.
You are aware, of course, that Yassir Arafat was also awarded this so-called honor. And, according to this article, Carter only won it after 20 years of desperate lobbying and the financial assistance of Blowjob Billy in paying two Norwegian PR firms to lobby on his behalf. To their credit, it doesn’t appear the Nobel committee was exactly faunching at the bit to give it to him, though ultimately they did anyway.
If anyone is curious as to why I routinely scourge Carter anytime I happen upon mention of his wimpy, ineffectual and incompetent name, you are invited to read the above article in its entirety. While I wouldn’t necessarily agree 100% with some of its editorial comment, factually and analytically it explains better than I ever could just what an inept, ineffectual, and ultimately disastrous presidency his was in terms of human suffering and loss of life (not to mention what happened to this country’s economy during his almost unbelievably inept reign).
My apologies to the OP for the quasi-hijack. I thought it was important, since we’re judging Carter’s opinion on this matter, to put his thought processes and the conclusions he somehow arrives at into their proper perspective. It is not for nothing that Carter was reduced to being He-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken in Democratic politics for the better part of the last twenty-six years.
In the US it is fair, but inaccurate.
It is to laugh, the necessity for circumlocution in US politics. Anyway, that’s how international relations go I suppose, nevermind. Instead ask yourself what is the question of the moment in US foreign policy. This is not a difficult question, or even tricky.
Carter’s answer is that the US can avoid getting into messes like Iraq when it eases on the cozying up to Israel, casts a cold and critical eye on what the tight relationship with the Israeli right brings and takes a moment to take stock of what it has signed up to.
The apartheid analogy is the easiest, wide open door into that burbling train of thought. Similarly Jim Baker now makes the point that even when it is no trouble fooling the folks at home, nobody in the middle east is duped in the slightest; The US is there to do Israel’s dirty work.
So that’s what the larger discussion is all about and why the self-styled anti-defamation league is up in arms about ‘apartheid’. It’s their job; preventing the US putting some clear blue sky between it’s own policy goals and the welfare of Israel.
Israel is most certainly not an apartheid state.
Virtually every argument for Israel being an apartheid state focuses on the treatment of Arabs living in the so-called “Palestinian Territories.”
Apartheid was a system of racial segregation within the state of South Africa, it was an attempt to create a dual-society situation in which white South Africans had their society and black South Africans had theirs. In practice it resulted in virtually all political power being centered in the hands of whites, as well as denial of many services and basic human rights to black South Africans.
Within the state of Israel, and when I say the state of Israel I mean the state of Israel, do Arab Israeli citizens have the right to vote? Do they have the right to hold elective office? Are there public schools that you can only attend if you are a Jewish Israeli and other schools for the Arab Israelis?
In fact, can any one point to anything in Israeli laws or the Israeli constitution which suggests Arab Israelis do not have full rights of citizenship?
Notice a word I used quite a lot up there, Israeli. Palestinians aren’t Israeli, they don’t want to be Israeli, they have strongly said all along that Palestine is their state, and that they have the right to govern it. How well they’ve been able to actually do that, varies based on the goodwill of Israel.
Ignoring the wider arguments about whether or not Israel’s actions vis-a-vis Palestine are appropriate, the situation when it comes to Israel and Palestinians is one in which a powerful state is intensely involved in the internal affairs of a weaker state. Both states only vaguely even recognize the existence of the other.
Unlike black self-governing enclaves in South Africa, the “Palestinian territories” were never part of the Israeli state, Israel’s involvement in those regions is based on the military outcomes of several conflicts in the area.
If Israel and Palestine are viewed as one state, then I agree, Israel is probably an apartheid state, but they aren’t one state, they are two separate states. Apartheid is first and foremost a racial segregation system, and within the state of Israel I’ve seen no evidence of an entrenched, widespread system of racial segregation between Israeli citizens based on their race.
Hooey. The national boundaries of Israel and the respective rights of citizenship are artificial and defined so as to to deny a majority of the governed people representation in the government. As others have indicated, it is a close analogy with the bantustans.
Just to make it clear: Carter isn’t talking about Israel proper, but just the West Bank. Nobody here is claiming that anything remotely apartheid-like exists on the Israeli side of the 1948 cease-fire lines.
For decades, the maps in Israeli schoolchildren’s textbooks didn’t even show the Green Line, just one big Israel from the Med to the Jordan. Right now, there’s a big controversy in Israel about actually putting the Green Line on the maps. Clearly, there’s substantial support in Israel for claiming “Judaea and Samaria” entire.
Israel is about as ‘apartheid’ as present day South Africa
Well in South Africa Zimbaweans in Zimbabwe don’t have SA citizenship, they can’t vote in SA elections and they do not have free entry into SA. How dreadful.
The Arab citizens of Israel (and there are an awful lot of them) have all the same rights as a ‘Jewish’ Israeli - although about 15 years ago they did not have to serve in the IDF (army) although quite a few did. The situation is probably the same now. Any Israeli Dopers around to expand on this ?
The West Bank and Ghaza are not under Israeli administration, they have their own Government, but because they democratically elected Hamas who are a bunch of maniacs instead of the reformed residue of Arafat’s mob (who are now considered civilized gentlemen), those areas are appallingly badly adminstered.
The Israelis pulled out settlements from Ghaza and were preparing to do the same in the West Bank when Hezbollah started chucking rockets at North Israeli towns.
Building the settlements was a stupid idea, but to be fair, they had conquered the area in a war that they did not instigate - nicking territory from a conquered state is pretty standard practise - but in this case it was impractical.
Also the West Bank originally was part of Jordan and Ghaza was originally under Egyptian administration. Neither want them back.
The Israelis control some roads in the West Bank, just as the British control some roads in Afghanistan, and for exactly the same reason.
Currently, my guess is that, the Israelis are crossing their fingers that Mahmoud Abbass’s call for new elections will work, that the WB and GS will elect a government that is prepared to recognize the very existence of Israel, and Israel, Europe et al can then flood money into the area.
Next Jimmy Carter will be saying that the USA is an apartheid state because it does not give the US vote to Iraqi citizens living in Iraq.
Palestine is a separate state? News to me.
Actually, the “article” doesn’t say this. It says, “This column has seen no reports that Mr. Carter, 78, hired the two Norwegian public relations firms paid by America’s only other living former Democratic President Bill Clinton to privately lobby committee members to give Clinton the $1 million Peace Prize.” (emphasis added)
That says a lot more about you than that piece of crap “article”, which is a good example of why conservatives can continue to live in their own insulated world unmarred by facts and logic. Well, you’ve got to give the writer of that article credit for at least not blaming Carter for any events that occurred before his Presidency! He at least has that basic an understanding of the concept of causality!
It is news to me that it is not news to you.
What the heck do you think the Abbass/Hamas scraps are about ?
Post natal abortion ?
The place is heading for civil war.
If the only thing preventing the situation in the territorities from meeting the criteria for apartheid is the fact that the territories are not officially a part of the Israel state, then I fail to see why Carter should be accused of disingenuous spin. To me that seems like a rather minor technical distinction that is not worth getting worked up over. Is there a better word that he could be using, and if so, what is it?
Does it control its borders? No. Israel does
Does it have sovereignty over all land within its borders? No. Isreali colonies, roads and barriers criss cross and segment it and the movement of its population is controlled by a pass system.
Of course its not a state.
I said, above, that Israel is an occupier and (arguably) a colonizer, and I think those terms better describe the situation. Apartheid (“apartness”) is a legal system, based on a belief in racial superiority, set up not only to keep races “apart”, but to ensure that one race is politically, economically, and socially dominant. Calling Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories “apartheid” is tantamount to calling it “racist”. But what Israel is doing is not different in any essential way than what any other occupying/colonizing power does.
I would agree that the Jim Crow laws in the South were a form of apartheid. Though not as extreme as the laws in South Africa, it shared the essential features of the South African laws even if it didn’t literally strip people of citizenship. It had the same basis (a belief in racial superiority) and served the same purpose (political, economic and social domination).
Have you ever been there ?