Essentially, apartheid was a totalitarian system of governance – not unlike many of the regimes in the Arab world today. A white minority subjugated the overwhelmingly black population. It was ideologically driven and obsessed with racial superiority. The superior whites could not mingle with or even sit on a bench with the inferior black peoples. Even the education system was “dumbed down” for black people because they were deemed mentally inferior.
THERE IS absolutely nothing equivalent to this in the dispute between the Palestinians and Israel today. Within Israel itself, Arabs and Jews share the same shopping malls, benches, hospitals, theaters and, in many cases, suburbs. The educational institutions do not have a
deliberately “dumbed down” Arab curriculum and the privilege of voting is given to all. The Knesset has Arab members, and Jews, Arabs and Palestinians often work together at construction sites, businesses, hotels and elsewhere.
Most important of all is the fact that Israel is a democratic state. Not a perfect one, but it does have democratic institutions and is definitely not governed by a totalitarian minority! In the disputed territories, some 98 percent of the Palestinian Arab population now lives under the governance of their own Palestinian Authority, where they have the right to vote and change their leaders – at least theoretically. True, Israel has adopted security measures that curtail their movement, but these have been necessitated by the conflict and are legitimate acts of self-defense, rather than acts of racial discrimination
This has absolutely nothing to do with apartheid. The State of Israel is a democracy which must answer to its citizens and thus has demonstrated a willingness to make painful concessions to secure a future of peace with its neighbors. In all cases, it alone has paid the real price by giving up land, which has then been used as a launching pad for further acts of terror.
Even in response to Israel’s most generous peace overtures during the Oslo era, the Palestinians have opted for violence. Waves of suicide bombers attacked Israelis from the porous boundaries surrounding the West Bank. Men, women and children were indiscriminately murdered in buses, restaurants, hotels and shopping malls. To protect herself,
Israel built a security barrier, which in some built-up areas consists of a wall. It was not built to segregate people or discriminate against them, but to protect its own citizens from attack. In this connection, the security fence has been highly successful though even Israelis admit it is regrettable.
