Second of four parts.
Re: “Apartheid in Israel: The New Blood Libel”
As I asked yesterday, what renders Israel an “apartheid state,” as charged by members of the BDS movement – boycott, divest and sanction?
East Jerusalem and Golan Heights Arabs who so desire may apply for Israeli citizenship. Even Arabs in East Jerusalem who have rejected Israeli citizenship can vote in municipal elections.
West Bank Arabs, of course, are not restrained by Israel from participating in West Bank elections (were the Palestinian Authority ever to hold them).
State-owned companies have been instructed to seat Arab citizens on their boards. An Arab woman has even been chosen as Miss Israel, representing Israel in international competitions.
So what are the critics talking about when they assert that Israel is an apartheid state? Or, as Secretary of State John Kerry has warned, Israel is at risk of becoming one? An op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and comparative literature at the well-known University of California at Los Angeles, is representative of the arguments made to justify the “apartheid” label, and has the virtue of setting out each element of the claim.
Mr. Makdisi argues that Israel is an apartheid state because, he says, it identifies itself as a Jewish state, maintains formal and informal housing segregation in Israel and the West Bank settlements through admissions committees that use ethnic criteria banned in the United States, that the Jewish National Fund holds land exclusively for settlement by Jews; that Palestinians in the territories are governed by military law while their Jewish neighbors are governed by Israeli civil law; that the freedom of movement of West Bank Palestinians is obstructed by checkpoints, that West Bank Palestinians often don’t have access to Israeli healthcare institutions, that the educational institutions within Israel are often separate and unequal, that Israeli law bars an Arab Israeli who marries a West Bank Arab from bringing the spouse to live in Israel, and that Jews can’t marry non-Jews in Israel.
The coup de grace for Mr. Makdisi is that the Law of Return applies to the immigration of Jews only (including, of course, Jews from Arab lands), and that the Star of David, a Jewish religious symbol, adorns the Israeli flag.
This is hardly a robust list.
(To be continued)
Mr. Smith, an attorney in Los Angeles, may be contacted at gsmith@irell.com
