4-3-2017 Why 'it's not apartheid' arguments fail: Response to NYT op-ed - Dahlia Scheindlin +972

https://972mag.com/why-its-not-apartheid-arguments-fail-response-to-an-nyt-op-ed/126386/

A New York Times op-ed argues that Israel is not the South African apartheid its author sat in jail to expose. But to make his case, Benjamin Pogrund ignores the heart of what occupation really is…

The tragic reality is it doesn't actually matter if Israel is a carbon copy of apartheid's policies or not. It doesn't matter whether the mentality is rooted in obsolete racial ideologies, or in the desire to decimate Palestinian statehood. The result is a systemic separation of Arabs from Jews, by education, by opportunity, by land, roads and water and, in the West Bank, by law.  The lived experience of the people in this land show the results: 74 percent of settlers, some five percent of the whole population in the region, say life conditions are good. Just 23 percent of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians — about one-third of the total population — say the same.  As an Israeli, I ask the author: Is this the discussion we want to be having? Should we be splitting hairs and tallying scores to decide whether Israel is practicing apartheid or not? Occupation is bad enough. Let's end it.

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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