Yahoo Finance Israel, apartheid claims and roadblocks to peace
What a pity that you unfairly defame Israel on the basis of a report by an extreme anti-Israel group, B’Tselem, that claims the country is an apartheid state (The Guardian view on Israel and apartheid: prophecy or description?, 17 January). Nothing could be further from the truth, and you would do well to note that Palestinian Israeli Arabs are treated far better in Israel than they are treated in many of the adjoining Arab countries. Israeli Palestinian Arabs have every democratic right, in exactly the same way as do Israeli Jews or Christians. Israeli Palestinian Arabs play a major role in the professional, business, medical, academic and political life of Israel, and to call Israel an apartheid state is simply a travesty.
So far as Palestinians outside Israel are concerned (in the West Bank and Gaza), first it is worth remembering that Israel only got there after it had to defend itself in three wars of aggression (long before there was an occupation or settlements), and after Palestinian Arabs refused to take the land back in exchange for an end to wars. Second, the Gaza regime (where Israel has not been in occupation, since 2005) still calls for the annihilation of Israel as its primary goal and, instead of looking after its people, spends all its resources on firing rockets and building attack tunnels against Israel (which is the reason Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade, in 2007).
As to the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority, they are not part of Israel and should not be treated as such. Israel is a reluctant occupier, and all they need do (as was offered to them immediately after the 1967 war) is to renounce and abandon their traditional hatred and belligerence, and declare genuine peace. The day they do that, they will have a state, peace and prosperity.
Joshua Rowe
Manchester
• The accusation of apartheid levelled against Israel by two of its leading NGOs is, as observed in your editorial, very dismaying for longtime supporters of the state. Their reaction to the charge is likely to follow the familiar pattern of many years with regard to other misdemeanours – of first ignoring them, then denying them, then grudgingly accepting them, followed by rationalising them and finally justifying them.
Israel’s only defence against the accusation of apartheid is that its hold over the West Bank is a temporary occupation. If this is not its case, it doesn’t have a case. Even if it were its case, after some 53 years it would be running perilously thin.
Before there can be a roadmap for peace, there needs to be a vision for peace, predicated on the principle of equality. In its own interests, as well as the Palestinians’, Israel should be strongly encouraged either to withdraw imminently from the West Bank in favour of a Palestinian state, subject to agreed equitable land swaps, or to offer all Palestinians subject to its jurisdiction the same rights as Israeli citizens until an equitable solution is agreed between the parties. Otherwise, in due course, Israel’s loyal supporters are likely to find themselves once again accepting and justifying a practice they once considered abhorrent.
Dr Tony Klug
London
• You call B’Tselem’s description of Israel/Palestine as a single apartheid state between the Jordan River and the sea “a deliberate provocation” and “incendiary”. I prefer Hagai El-Ad’s explanation of why he wrote what he did: “Calling things by their proper name – apartheid – is not a moment of despair: rather, it is a moment of moral clarity, a step on a long walk inspired by hope.” Where the long walk ends must involve equal rights, justice and a recognition of shared humanity for all Israelis and Palestinians. Many of us have come to believe that this vision can only be realised in a single democratic state, to replace the apartheid reality.
Richard Barnes
Windermere, Cumbria
