Europe, the real “Apartheid” continent

It is astonishing how easily and indiscriminately people repeat and use terms they seem to have very little understanding of.

“Apartheid,” a rather popular one, especially when associated with the state of Israel, seems to be one of them. The teacher in me is begging to educate those who seem to have fallen prey to ignorance and/or disinformation. A very basic Google search of the term produced several results. Here is one definition of the term from the Oxford Dictionary:
“(In South Africa ) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race…. Adopted as a slogan in the 1948 elections by the successful Afrikaner National Party apartheid extended and institutionalized existing racial segregation.”

The key words in the above definition, of the term “Apartheid” are “policy” and “institutionalized.” Plainly put for the simple minded, it is a set of laws that spells out the system of segregation in that society.

In all of my years of being an Israeli citizen, I have never come across such laws in my Jewish Homeland. Not a single law enforces segregation or spells out prohibitions on the basis of color, creed, or religious affiliation. I have shopped with Muslims, Christians and other non Jews in the same malls, we have sunbathed on the same beaches  dined next to each other in the same restaurants and shared the same public parks for picnics on public holidays and weekends. We have Arab Supreme court judges who put Jewish Israeli presidents behind bars, we have Arab doctors delivering Arab and Jewish babies in the same hospitals. Where then is the “Apartheid?” Where is the segregation and where are the “institutionalized” racial policies ?

I will tell you where they are. They are all over the Arab world and recently in Europe as well.

The wording of a letter by the foreign Ministers from 16 out of 18 EU member countries sent to EU Foreign policy chief Frederica  Mogherini, several days ago, on April 13th, is a good example of it.  In the letter, the Ministers are urging her to push forward the process which was started two years ago, of labeling goods produced by “Israeli settlements” that are sold in grocery chains across Europe.

Don’t be misled by the use of the word “Israeli,” dear reader. I promise you that they mean “Jewish.”

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that “Israeli settlements” in the  “West Bank” are nothing but a euphemism for : Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. For who else inhabits those towns? What they say and in line with the prevalent belief in the Arab world, is that “Jews” should not and cannot build towns or live in what they consider another future Arab state.

This is, according to the above definition, what “Apartheid” is.  Jews, an ethnic group by one designation would be officially prohibited from living in certain areas.

But wait a minute, where have we heard that before and not so long ago?

Yes, you guessed it right! In Nazi Germany where similar laws spelled it out without the deceiving language that the more “refined” more “humane” EU is using to divert any suspicion of institutionalized segregation and racial policies.

The only missing detail to put the final touch to this travesty is that such labeling would be required to be in the form of a yellow Jewish star.