Israel: A failed state

http://tinyurl.com/nfaqvns

Charles Abelsohn

Charles Abelsohn retired several years ago as the legal manager of one of the most well–known entities in Israel. He is a graduate of three universities (Cape Town, Stellenbosch and U. Of South Africa) in South Africa in Law, Transportation Economics and Finance. His interests, even as a young student, were Judaism, Israel, Economics and Finance.

I grew up in South Africa and left for Israel in the 1970`s. So I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable on South African apartheid. In view of the criticisms of Israel as an apartheid state, I felt it my duty that my understanding and knowledge of apartheid should be put to good cause by exposing the evil manifestations of apartheid in Israel

I started in my neighbourhood. I went to the municipal park. In South Africa, only whites would have been allowed to enter. I could not believe my eyes. Arabs and Jews were mixing peacefully, Arab and Jewish children socialising and shouting at each other in their home languages. This cannot be, where is the separation? So I went to the shops and restaurants of the adjoining mall. What a major let down! Arabs and Jews shopping together as customers, Arabs and Jews employed together in the shops as assistants and cashiers, Arabs and Jews sitting in restaurants, an Arab dentist with his sign for all the world to see and the only missing ingredients were the “blankes alleen – whites only” signs. Clearly, in matters of commerce and common use of public and transport facilities, open to all, Israel is a failure in implementing apartheid: there is clearly no South African style apartheid to be found in public areas.

I had a brainwave. There are four places where there simply has to be South African apartheid – beaches, hospitals, universities and the army. I rushed to the beach and another failure. Jews, Arabs and tourists mixing, unaware that according to the world they should have been separated; even worse, I learnt that one million Arabs from the Palestinian Authority`s West Bank had visited Israel`s Mediterranean beaches during summer, mixing with Israelis as if it was the most natural thing to do. These failures to comply with the most elementary requirements of apartheid were making me sick and I rushed to hospital requiring medical attention. I was treated by Arab nurses before being ignominiously delivered to Arab doctors for further treatment. I heard that twenty percent of the medical staff are Arab and that the Israeli hospitals, medical staff, administrative staff and patients, are open to all, even the Syrian enemy or the Palestinian terrorist injured while setting off his bombs to kill and injure Israelis. In a children`s ward could be found in adjoining beds, Jewish, Israeli Arab, Palestinian Arab and Syrian children. Last year, 220,000 West Bank Palestinians, including 20,000 Palestinian children, took off time from shouting to the world about their ill-treatment and oppression at the hands of Israelis in order to visit Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. What a lousy advert for apartheid.

I was going crazy. Apartheid – where are you? I drove like a madman to an Israeli university to search for this elusive apartheid thing. Again, about twenty percent of the students at Israeli universities, no less than 30% at Haifa university, are Arabs. There are Arab professors and lecturers mixing with their Israeli colleagues. The Palestinian, Bargouti, leader of the world-wide anti-Israel boycott (BDS) movement, which bases itself on alleged Israeli apartheid, is a student at Tel Aviv University. Kafka, where are you when you are so desperately needed? This is becoming a mad, mad, mad world. When it comes to imposing apartheid, Israel does not appear to have a clue as to what is required.

I knew I could rely on the army to provide me with a first success that apartheid exists in Israel. After all, why would any but Jews want to serve in the Israeli army? I charged to army headquarters and suffered possibly my biggest defeat. In the Jewish/Israeli army serve, as commanders, officers and soldiers, Ethiopians, Beduin Arabs, Christian Arabs, Moslem Arabs, Druse and Circassians (Moslems originally from the Northern Caucuses). Worse, the world famous Golani Brigade is commandeered by a….. Druse Brigadier General! What sort of fictitious apartheid permits Arabs to serve and even command in the Jewish army? Israel, you failure you, don`t you know anything about implementing apartheid?

I decided to catch this Israeli apartheid thing slyly through the back door. South African apartheid was anchored by legislation. I went to a lawyer to obtain details of legislated apartheid in Israel. I came out with my tail between my legs. Not only is there no legislative apartheid but Israel`s Declaration of Independence and subsequent Basic Laws specifically provide for full democratic and human rights for all. Arabs serve as judges and in fact an Arab judge recently sentenced an ex-president of Israel to jail for being naughty with the ladies. Arabs vote as equals with Jews and sit as members of the Knesset (Parliament) as members of all parties. What an abject failure for Israel; even the judiciary up to and including the Supreme Court and the Knesset (Parliament) are devoid of “apartheid”.

The bottom line is that, when it comes to implementing apartheid, Israel is a failed state. Israel fails every test evidencing the existence of South African style apartheid.


But all was not yet lost. My lawyer pointed out that the Palestinian had learnt much about apartheid from their good South African friends. Could I snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by changing direction? Apparently, yes. The Palestinians have legislation forbidding the sale of property to Jews; the sentence for transgressions: death. Good. Apartheid at last. There are no Jews or Israelis living in Areas A & B under Palestinian Authority control. Better. More apartheid. The Palestinians have announced that no Jews or Israelis will be entitled to live in their state after it is founded. Eureka! Success at last! If you want to find South African apartheid in the Middle East, all you need to do is visit the Palestinian Authority`s areas, or for that matter, most Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Libya etc (where Jews and Israelis have no rights or are even allowed). By now it must be clear to all why the Palestinians, their supporters and the Arab world are always shouting “apartheid”. These folk are the real success stories when it comes to implementing apartheid.

The Apartheid Bus Blitz

by David Ha'Ivri
The new trending topic on the anti-Israel network is “Apartheid Buses.” According the narrative, Israel has now launched Arab-only bus lines as a new means of oppressing the local Arab population.

In fact, however, the truth behind this story is a special service that this Israeli bus company has begun to provide for Palestinian Arab workers from the security checkpoint they pass though to the work areas they want to reach in central Israel.

To draw this in a negative light, propagandists have spiced up the story by reporting that the new service was launched after Jewish Israelis complained about the workers traveling on their regular buses. As usual, the propagandists do not allow small details - like the facts - to get in the way of the twisted picture they wish to project about Israel.

Tens of thousands of non-Israeli Palestinian Arabs are permitted to work in Israel every day. Those who receive these work permits consider themselves lucky, because the economy in the Palestinian Authority areas is so bad that work places there are hard to find and pay very poorly. Those holding work permits are allowed to enter only at designated security crossings. This is a rule determined by the government security agencies, and has nothing to do with the preferences of the Jewish commuters.

After this blitz grew wings and became the center of media attention, Israel journalist Chaim Levenson of Haaretz wrote on his Facebook page that he was going to meet with the Arab workers on the new bus line at 4:30 AM leaving the Eyal crossing. Many workers are headed for early starts at building jobs, where they need to be on site by 6 or so. Obviously, these buses have been provided as a special service, at the time and place that suit the needs of the worker population from that area. Does someone suggest that they wait for the first bus leaving Ariel at 5:30am, and be late for work?

Arab-only bus lines owned by Arabs and travelling throughout Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem are nothing new. There are Arab-owned lines running between Shechem (Nablus), Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hevron. You will never see them stop for a Jew waiting at a bus stop on the way. There is an Arab-only bus station in the American Colony in Jerusalem. Don't expect to see Jewish people walking around there or getting on that bus. Why, you might ask? It’s because the Jews feel threatened there, and, correctly, fear for their safety.

On the other hand, Israeli-owned public transportation in all of these places is used by Jews and non-Jews alike. The same bus company, Afikim, which is being accused of running special bus lines - actually tailored to the needs of Palestinian Arab workers - as also launched special bus lines that suit the needs of the students at the university in Ariel. 80% of the university's 14,000 students are commuting from Israel's more central areas, and need more buses coming in during the morning hours, and more leaving at the end of the day. The university’s Arab students enjoy those buses just as Jewish students do.

The rumor that Jewish residents were involved in the new bus arrangement was thrown in by some propagandist to make the story more sensational. It is an obnoxious distortion of the facts. The Jewish commuters have nothing to do with security regulations.

In fact, the new buses are set to save the Palestinian Arab commuters a lot of money, as their previous alternative was to pay for expensive private taxis to their workplace destinations.

This is racism?

The demand to ban an Israeli dance company from performing in Edinburgh is bigotry dolled up as politics

By Brendan O'Neill Politics  Last updated: August 30th, 2012

http://tinyurl.com/cjapfdr  

These are tough times for bigots. Speaking ill of ethnic minorities is frowned upon and hate speech is increasingly outlawed, which means there are fewer opportunities to be openly bigoted, to express naked intolerance of people who are allegedly inferior. So how are bigots supposed to get their rocks off? Fear not, they have found a way. Forced by the pressures of PC to carve out a form of bigotry that appears right-on rather than rotten, modern-day bigots are coalescing around hatred of Israel, and specifically around campaigns to ban Israeli artists and academics from coming anywhere near this morally pristine country of ours.

Boycotts of everything Israeli have well and truly crossed the line from political campaigns into expressions of bigotry against the people and produce of Israel. This week, a bevy of Scottish writers became the latest to join the bigoted bandwagon, as they demanded that the Edinburgh International Festival ban an Israeli dance troupe from performing. The Batsheva Dance Company was due to perform a one-hour show at the Edinburgh Playhouse and this has riled the sensibilities of some of Scotland’s literary big-hitters. Novelist Iain Banks, poet Liz Lochhead, short story writer AL Kennedy and others had a letter published in this morning’s Glasgow Herald in which they demanded that Batsheva be banned from Edinburgh on the basis that it is a “global ambassador of Israeli culture”. Well, we can’t have any of that toxic Israeli culture infecting Edinburgh, can we?

This highly intolerant effort by one group of artists to have another group of artists banned – or perhaps quarantined at the borders until they renounce their home country and everything it stands for – is part of a bigger chattering-class trend to ghettoise Israeli culture. Earlier this year, actress Emma Thompson and other luvvies sought to have the Israeli theatre company Habima banned from taking part in an international Shakespeare festival at the Globe Theatre in London. They accused the Globe of “associating itself with policies of exclusion practised by the Israeli state”. Last year, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was loudly jeered as it performed at the Proms, by people who think that even beautiful music can be evil if it is performed by Them, people who hail from Israel. Click here to watch the orchestra struggling to be heard over the din of the jeering – it’s a depressing spectacle.

Meanwhile, no decent, politically aware household in the leafier bits of Britain will have any Israeli produce in its fridge or larder. Not buying Israeli figs is one of the main ways that certain sections of society express their probity these days. Outside Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street, you will often see a group of keffiyeh-wearing radicals holding a banner saying “Boycott Marks & Spencer” in dripping, blood-red writing. They never picket other shops that sell Israeli produce, such as Sainsbury’s or Tesco. Only Marks & Spencer. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that Marks & Spencer was founded by J*ws.

The Israeli boycotters and banners always present their campaigning as politically informed, as a well-thought-through attempt to shame Israel and champion the Palestinian cause. They depict their erection of an anti-Israeli forcefield around Britain as an attempt to challenge what they call “Israeli apartheid” – the irony being that, in the process, they practise cultural apartheid against Israelis, against dancers, musicians and thinkers whose only crime is to have been born and trained in Israel. But there is nothing political about these censorious efforts to keep everything Israeli out of Britain. It is just an acceptable form of bigotry, a way of advertising one’s own moral decency by contrasting oneself to an inferior, infected people from Over There.

Is This Really Apartheid?

Some interesting questions were posed by friends of mine recently in the debate of Israel as an apartheid state.

How, we wonder can Israel possibly be called an Apartheid Country?

a)If this is true, then why, when we needed some medication from the pharmacy in our upmarket Jerusalem shopping mall this week, was the charming and helpful pharmacist who served us and gave us some excellent advice, an Arab?

b) Why, the last time Nxxx had his eyes tested, (in the opticians in the same mall) was the optometrist a young Arab woman?

c) Why are there always a large number of Arabs shopping in said mall? Why, when Lxxx fell last year and needed emergency treatment at Sha’arei Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, was the doctor who examined her an Arab

d) and why, out of the 9 people queueing for X-rays was she only non-Arab?

e) Why is the professor that Lxxx sees every year for a breast-check an Arab who, incidentally, pioneered the liver-transplant programme in Israel.

If someone can explain this to us we would be very pleased to hear from them!

Oldest Flea Market in the World

One of the oldest bazaars in the world, the Jaffa flea market is now rapidly becoming the hottest new location in Tel Aviv, famed for fashion and food.



The Jaffa flea market is one of the oldest bazaars in the world. Whereas it used to be a place to find knick-knacks and second-hand furniture or clothing, today it is also rapidly becoming one of the trendiest spots in Israel.

Fashion designers, artists, antique dealers and gourmet chefs have all converged upon the portside area just south of Tel Aviv, making it a destination for bargain hunters and fashionistas from Israel and abroad, and even a newly desirable place to live.

"It's not exactly Soho in NY or Camden in London," says Ava Rodan of Alma Jewelry. "It's an original place where you can find really old antiques or new shops with a lovely atmosphere."

And, of course who does one see there - Jews, Muslims, Christians and others in this "apartheid state" !!

Where’s the international outcry against Arab apartheid?

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH 17/03/2011


As Israel Apartheid Week continues, a Palestinian boy was left to die at Lebanese hospital because father couldn’t afford treatment.


Mohammed Nabil Taha, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy, died this week at the entrance to a Lebanese hospital after doctors refused to help him because his family could not afford to pay for medical treatment.Taha’s tragic case highlights the plight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in squalid refugee camps in Lebanon and who are the victims of an apartheid system that denies them access to work, education and medical care.

Ironically, the boy’s death at the entrance to the hospital coincided with Israeli Apartheid Week, a festival of hatred and incitement organized by anti-Israel activists on university campuses in the US, Canada and other countries.It is highly unlikely that the folks behind the festival have heard about Taha. Judging from past experiences, it is also highly unlikely that they would publicize the case even if they would hear about it.

Why should anyone care about a Palestinian boy who is denied medical treatment by an Arab hospital? The story has no anti-Israel angle to it.Can anyone imagine what would have happened if an Israeli hospital had abandoned a boy to die in its parking lot because his father did not have $1,500 to pay for his treatment? The UN Security Council would hold an emergency session and Israel would be strongly condemned and held responsible for the boy’s death.All this is happening at a time when tens of thousands of Palestinian patients continue to benefit from treatment in Israeli hospitals.Last year alone, some 180,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip entered Israel to receive medical treatment. Many were treated despite the fact that they did not have enough money to cover the bill.

In Israel, even a suicide bomber who is only (!) wounded while trying to kill Jews is entitled to the finest medical treatment. And there have been many instances where Palestinians who were wounded in attacks on Israel later ended up in some of Israel’s best hospitals.Lebanon, by the way, is not the only Arab country that officially applies apartheid laws against Palestinians, denying them proper medical treatment and the right to own property.Just last week it was announced that a medical center in Jordan has decided to stop treating Palestinian cancer patients because the Palestinian Authority has failed to pay its debts to the center.

Other Arab countries have also been giving the Palestinians a very hard time when it comes to receiving medical treatment.It is disgraceful that while Israel admits Palestinian patients to its hospitals, Arab hospitals are denying them medical treatment for various reasons, including money. But then one is reminded that Arab dictators do not care about their own people, so why should they pay attention to an 11-year-old boy who is dying at the entrance to a hospital because his father didn’t have $1,500 handy? But as the death took place in an Arab country – and as the victim is an Arab – why should anyone care about him? Where is the outcry against Arab apartheid?

Reprinted with permission of the Hudson Institute (www.hudson.org)

Yet Another Example of Israeli "Apartheid"?

To mark Baha'i New Year, an international conference will be held at Hebrew University, Jerusalem on Baha'ism, Judaism, Christianity & Islam

To mark the Baha'i New Year on March 21, an international conference will take place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on 'Modern Religions and Religious Movements in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Babi-Bahai Faiths'.

"The circle of Baha'i believers is expanding every year – especially in the Western world," says Prof. Moshe Sharon, the conference organizer and head of Baha'i Studies at the Hebrew University. "The number of Baha'i believers has been increasing by about four percent a year, and in recent years there has been an increased penetration into new areas in eastern Europe."

The Baha'i faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in nineteenth-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are currently about six million adherents of the Baha'i faith around the world, of which 250,000 live in Iran, the birthplace of the religion's prophets. The largest Baha'i population can be found in India.

The Baha'i Faith is the world's only religion run by a local, national and international administration. The Baha'is' World House of Justice sits on Mount Carmel in Haifa. Haifa and Acre are the holy cities of the Baha'i faith, and the Bab himself, the first founder of the religion, is buried in Haifa.

Lectures and sessions during the conference include: 'The spread of the Baha'i faith from East to West', 'A 19th century Zoroastrian-Baha'i dialogue', 'The Bab and the Babis – Early accounts in the Western press 1845-1851' and 'Promoting sexual equality through education: Baha'i girls' schools in Iran'.

Other lectures include 'Stretching the borders of religious legitimacy: Baha'is and latter-day saints in China', 'The Bydzhov Israelites and the Frankists – Two sects in 18th century Bohemia', 'Jewish Christianity in 20th century Russia as a form of Jewish national revival' and 'The promise of Monotheism'.

First Israeli Arab Woman Becomes a Plastic Surgeon

Another first for the Rambam hospital in Haifa - click on the title to link to a video of this story

For Dr. Rania Elkhatib, the first Israeli Arab woman to become a plastic surgeon in Israel, the job at Rambam Medical Center is a chance to be an emissary for her community.

The first Israeli Arab woman to become a plastic surgeon, Dr Rania Elkhatib works at the Rambam Medical Center, the largest hospital in northern Israel.

After studying medicine at the Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and then specializing in general surgery, the 28-year-old doctor decided to focus on plastic surgery: "... It was important to me because in our community plastic surgery isn't very advanced and it's not well accepted so I feel a bit like an emissary for my community, to go into this field and take it forward," she says.

Situated in Haifa, Rambam is the referral center for 11 district hospitals. Its plastic surgeons treat a number of conditions, ranging from burns, war injuries and cleft palates to breast and facial reconstruction for cancer patients.

Thirty percent of doctors at Rambam are women, and the representation of Arab physicians is proportionate to the numbers in the population in the north.

While the hospital is committed to providing equal opportunities, Prof. Yehuda Ullmann, head of the plastic surgery department, stresses that doctors are chosen purely on merit: "Plastic surgery residency is the most wanted residency in medicine not just in Israel but all over the world, and she was elected not because she's Arab, not because she's a woman, because she is Dr. Elkhatib and she is good and she is a very good doctor over here so we are lucky to have her here."

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.

They say it's good for your health

I have just completed the annual eye tests for glucoma and the like and I suddenly thought to myself how we have come to take these routine tests for granted. If I review the various tests I automatically do each year, even routine blood tests it does seem that there is a great effort in preventative medicine here in Israel.

Life expectancy in Israel at birth is: 79.32 years (2005 est.), males: 77.21 years and female: 81.55 years. the comparable figues for the UK are 78.7 yrs, 76.23 yrs and 81.3 years. by the way the figures for the USA are even lower than the UK. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

With all the controversy of boycotts, the charges of apartheid and racism, the reality is that in the medical field these charges just reflect ignorance.

In a letter to a paper this weekend by the head of a department in the hospital in Safad, he writes: " I invite anyone to visit my hospital to see for themselves the complete equality the Arab citizens enjoy not only as professionals but also as patients".

I must add that I have a number of friends working in the Haifa University and their comments re the academia echo that of the doctor.