This week, we witnessed a partial solar eclipse in the skies of Israel. But the claim that an Israeli declaration of sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and settlements in Judea and Samaria will make Israel into an "apartheid state" is a total eclipse.
The term "apartheid" was always unique to the policies of racial separation in South Africa, where a white minority gave itself an excess of rights and controlled most of the population, from whom basic rights were withheld based on their skin color. In recent years, the term has been expanded to be used in accusing Israel of treating the Palestinians as if the discrimination were based on race, rather than the result of the Palestinians' violent and ongoing struggle against the Zionist movement.
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Since the application of sovereignty under discussion addresses areas of the Land of Israel in which there is only very sparse Arab presence, the claim is incomprehensible, since most of the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria are clustered in Areas A and B, which are already under Palestinian Authority law, not Israeli law. If Israel is not currently an apartheid state, applying Israeli law to places of Jewish settlement will not change that.
But the apartheid claim, in its various formulations, is recycled at every seemingly opportune moment to question the Jewish people's right to a national home in the Land of Israel; a right that was recognized by the San Remo Conference 100 years ago – and includes the right to make aliyah, settle there, and manage the land in a manner that will facilitate that; a right that was also approved and ratified in Article 80 of the UN Charter.
The claim was raised in the past, when Israeli declared sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the Old City, when it applied Israeli law to the Golan Heights and when the Knesset amended the Basic Law: Citizenship to prevent family unification between Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. When the High Court challenges the policy of developing Jewish settlement in Israel; tramples the Basic Law: The Knesset, which disqualifies parties and candidates that reject Israel's existence as a Jewish state from participating in elections; and might soon do the same to the nation-state law, heaven forbid – it lends its voice to the claim that the fulfillment of Zionist values is inherently racist. That is what formed and still forms the base of the claims about apartheid.
But they are false. Israel works to develop the nation for the sake of all its citizens, but it is still the nation-state of the Jewish people alone.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, do not see self-definition for Arab residents of Judea and Samaria as the end of their national demands. The PLO charter determines that "the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation," and that "Palestine is the homeland of the Arab-Palestinian people and is inseparable from the greater Arab homeland." According to the charter, even Arab Israelis inside the Green Line have the right to self-determination in Palestine and outside it. The partition of the land and the establishment of Israel are fundamentally unacceptable, as is the Balfour Declaration and the rights given to the Jewish people under the Mandate. This is also the position of the Joint Arab List, whose members want to cancel the Law of Return.
Under international law, a state has the right to defend itself, not only from physical terrorism but also from existential threats. The dangers that a Palestinian state in the heart of the country would pose to Israel should deter those who love peace – true peace – and pursue it from supporting such a "solution" before conditions are right. The Trump administration's deal of the century stresses that there is no place for another failed state in the Middle East, and sets conditions that will allow a Palestinian state to be established only when Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled.
The use of the term "apartheid" is designed to make Israel, a democracy fighting for its life while respecting the civil and religious rights of all its citizens, an outcast in the world, and paint it with the mark of Cain. It is a false accusation, and it's time to finally put an end to it.
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