Israel has many injustices. But it is not an apartheid state

The A-word reappeared in Israel this week. The country’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, approved a scheme that would have seen a crude form of segregation of Jews and Arabs in the West Bank, with Palestinians banned from using Israeli-run bus services in the occupied territory. At the last moment the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, intervened and overturned Ya’alon’s decision, suspending the scheme – but not before a collective howl of protest from Israeli opposition leaders and human rights groups. The leader of the leftwing Meretz party, Zehava Gal-On, could not have been clearer: “This is how apartheid looks,” she said. “There is no better or nicer way to put it.”

The charge is not new. Two Israeli former PMs have warned that if the country continues on its current path, it will become the successor to apartheid South Africa. Some campaigners claim that point has already arrived – that Israel is a racist, pitiless oppressor of Palestinians, killing them en masse whenever it wants to, that it is an apartheid state. There are few charges more grave. I should know: during 26 years as a journalist in South Africa I investigated and reported the evil that was apartheid. I saw Nelson Mandela secretly when he was underground, then popularly known as the Black Pimpernel, and I was the first non-family member to visit him in prison. I have now lived in Israel for 17 years, doing what I can to promote dialogue across lines of division. To an extent that I believe is rare, I straddle both societies. I know Israel today – and I knew apartheid up close. And put simply, there is no comparison between Israel and apartheid.



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/22/israel-injustices-not-apartheid-state