Former South African journalist Benjamin Pogrund lived through apartheid, was imprisoned for reporting on apartheid, was even declared an enemy of the state. He exposes the lie that Israel is an apartheid state and the hidden antisemitic agenda…
“South African apartheid rigidly enforced racial laws. Israel is not remotely comparable. Yet the members of the boycott movement are not stupid. For them to propagate this analogy in the name of human rights is cynical and manipulative. It reveals their true attitude toward Jews and the Jewish state. Their aims would eliminate Israel. That is what's at stake when we allow the apartheid comparison”.
“Here’s why the apartheid comparison does not stack up.
Apartheid in South Africa maintained privilege for the white minority and doomed people of color to subservience; it determined every aspect of life - the school you attended, the work you did, where you lived, which hospital and ambulance you used, whom you could marry, right down to which park bench you could sit on without facing arrest.
I know this because I lived it.”
“Unlike nonwhite South Africans under apartheid, however, Israeli Arabs have the vote and enjoy full citizen rights. The Supreme Court has an Arab judge, the head of surgery in a leading hospital is Arab, and Arabs head university departments. In hospitals and clinics, Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses, secular and religious, work together, giving care equally to Jewish and Arab patients - unthinkable under apartheid. Even the current right-wing government has pledged billions of dollars to upgrade Arab living conditions and education (though it has yet to deliver much).
During the yearslong struggle for freedom in South Africa, the African National Congress, now in government, refrained from violence against white civilians, with very few exceptions. This was, in large part, a strategic decision to avoid scaring whites into a refusal to yield power. Suicide bombings and murders by ramming pedestrians with vehicles never happened in South Africa. Yet Israel has had them aplenty. Security concerns have dictated Israel's precautions and responses, not an ideology of apartheid racism”.
“South African apartheid rigidly enforced racial laws. Israel is not remotely comparable. Yet the members of the boycott movement are not stupid. For them to propagate this analogy in the name of human rights is cynical and manipulative. It reveals their true attitude toward Jews and the Jewish state. Their aims would eliminate Israel. That is what's at stake when we allow the apartheid comparison”.
“Here’s why the apartheid comparison does not stack up.
Apartheid in South Africa maintained privilege for the white minority and doomed people of color to subservience; it determined every aspect of life - the school you attended, the work you did, where you lived, which hospital and ambulance you used, whom you could marry, right down to which park bench you could sit on without facing arrest.
I know this because I lived it.”
“Unlike nonwhite South Africans under apartheid, however, Israeli Arabs have the vote and enjoy full citizen rights. The Supreme Court has an Arab judge, the head of surgery in a leading hospital is Arab, and Arabs head university departments. In hospitals and clinics, Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses, secular and religious, work together, giving care equally to Jewish and Arab patients - unthinkable under apartheid. Even the current right-wing government has pledged billions of dollars to upgrade Arab living conditions and education (though it has yet to deliver much).
During the yearslong struggle for freedom in South Africa, the African National Congress, now in government, refrained from violence against white civilians, with very few exceptions. This was, in large part, a strategic decision to avoid scaring whites into a refusal to yield power. Suicide bombings and murders by ramming pedestrians with vehicles never happened in South Africa. Yet Israel has had them aplenty. Security concerns have dictated Israel's precautions and responses, not an ideology of apartheid racism”.
