Accusation: Israel an Apartheid State

With the Durban II conference around the corner anumber of accusations are leveled at Israel, initiated by the Muslim majority in the conference with Libya and Cuba acting as chair and vice chair of the meeting. What an honest setting!!

To answer some of the accusations, Ariel Radal who is a Coordinator of the World Jewish Diplomatic Corps at the World Jewish Congress states the following to the claim Israel is an Apartheid State

1. The Reality:

Israel is first and foremost a democracy and, as every democracy, it struggles to understand and grant its minorities the largest degree of equality and understanding to which any of its citizens may have a right. In this sense, Israel is no different from any other state in which large groups of diverse populations live together. There may be other factors, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, that influence the sociological conditions of integration of these minorities. However, Israel strives to correct this through affirmative action, judicial activism and many other measures designed to fully integrate its minorities into the mainstream of its society without taking anything away from their own cultures.

2. The Facts:

Israel is first and foremost a democracy. Every Israeli citizen has the right to vote, to seek redress in trial against the government, to be elected, to health, to education in accordance with the values of his own culture and faith and to be treated equally, not only by government institutions but by private parties as well. Discrimination of any kind is severely prosecuted in Israel. If a private party discriminates against any person this is considered not only a Tort but also a criminal offense.

Israel is the only predominantly Jewish State. Approximately 75.5% of its population is of the Jewish faith and ethno-religious background. Making up 16.2% of the population, Muslims constitute Israel's largest religious minority. About 2% of the population is Christian and 1.5% is Druze.

All of Israel’s minorities are granted the totality of the rights stated above in addition to having certain autonomic rights according to their faiths and cultures. The clearest example of this is the administration of justice in civil matters. Israel maintains 3 parallel systems of justice in civil matters in which justice is administered by judges of each individual ethno-religious community and in accordance with their respective codes of conduct. Oversight over the decisions of these courts is granted to the High Court of Justice of Israel, which routinely overturns deviations of justice and rulings contrary to due process or Israel’s basic law on human rights.

The Muslim community constitutes the largest minority in the State of Israel. The system of education grants parents of Muslim/Arab children the choice of sending them to schools where the primary language instruction is Arabic or to send them to schools where the primary language of instruction is Hebrew. All official publications and announcements must be written in both Hebrew and Arabic (the official languages of the State) and any request to the government may be presented in either of the two.

Having given a birds eye view of rights granted to minorities in Israel, lets examine the concept of Apartheid enshrined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

"The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”

We fail to see how the rights and guarantees stated above even remotely resemble the requirements described in this definition. Of course Israel as any democracy is in a perpetual state of imperfection, which it strives every day to correct and improve. Every democracy struggles to understand and grant its minorities the largest degree of equality and understanding to which any of its citizens may have a right. In this sense, Israel is no different from any other state in which large groups of diverse populations live together. There may be other factors, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, that influence the sociological conditions of integration of these minorities. However, Israel strives to correct this through affirmative action, judicial activism and many other measures designed to fully integrate its minorities into the mainstream of its society without taking anything away from their own cultures. As such, Arab-Israelis serve as Civil Servants, Ambassadors, Ministers and Vice-Ministers in the Government, Supreme Court Justices and Members of Parliament.

Its quite clear from the rights and conditions described that Israel not only attempts to integrate all of its citizens and grant them equal rights while respecting their individual cultures and religions, but also that the degree of rights granted in particular to Arab-Israelis is unparalleled in any Arab theocracy.