This past Saturday, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the US Congressional Progressive Caucus, called Israel a "racist state". She issued an apology the next day, but her remarks are very emblematic of the anti-Israel extremism expressed by a growing number of progressive Democrats.
If Jayapal knew anything about Israel, she would know that Israel is far from a racist state. In fact, it is the least racist state in all of the Middle East and North Africa. For instance, inasmuch as progressives love to bash Israel for oppressing the Palestinians, it is in Israel where Palestinians live better than anywhere else in the region.
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Indeed, Israel is home to more than two million Palestinian Arabs, otherwise known as Israeli Arabs โ all of whom enjoy full political and civil rights. In contrast, Palestinians living in other countries in the region have few rights, if any. Many of them are confined to squalid refugee camps and have few economic opportunities. In Lebanon, Palestinians are banned from 39 professions.
But in Israel, Palestinians have risen to the highest levels of society. They make up 30% of the country's doctors and 50% of the country's pharmacists, despite comprising just 20% of the total Israeli population. An Arab Muslim is the head of Israel's biggest bank, Bank Leumi. An Islamist Arab party was even part of the previous governing coalition.
If Jayapal visited Israel, she would find that it is home to the most diverse society in the region. More than half of the country's population is of non-European descent. This includes Israel's Arab population and more than half of the country's Jewish population, who mostly hail from Africa and Asia, 170,000 of whom are Black Ethiopians.
Indeed, it is a lot better to be Black in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunisia, for example, Blacks are currently being rounded up by the country's government and forcibly deported. In Sudan and Mauritania, Black people are still the victims of slavery. In fact, Mauritania was the last country in the world to ban slavery in 1981, though it still persists.
I would even contend that if Jayapal visited Israel, she would find that it's significantly less racist than the US. After all, Israel never had Jim Crow laws. No Israeli is barred from using a hospital or visiting a park based on his or her race. And in Israel, there is no concerted effort by some politicians to disenfranchise voters of certain ethnic or racial backgrounds. All Israeli citizens, Jewish, Arab, etc., have had the right to vote since day one of Israel's independence in 1948.
In contrast, certain American voters, particularly people of color, have been the victims of laws and policies designed to prevent them from voting for decades. Even today, some American politicians gerrymander voting districts to weaken the voices of voters from racialized minorities.
Perhaps Jayapal and the rest of her progressive ilk should look closer to home for evidence of racism rather than referring to Israel โ the most tolerant, diverse, enlightened, and democratic country in the Middle East and North Africa โ as a "racist state".
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