The Non Apartheid State of Israel

To call Israel an apartheid state is absurd as saying that there are equal rights to all peoples in any of the countries surrounding Israel. To call Israel an apartheid state is in the words of Colonel Richard Kemp:

Not only a blatant and unsubstantiated lie but also an insult to black South Africans who suffered so horrifically under a genuinely apartheid regime.

I grew up in the only apartheid regime the world has known in South Africa. I waited for my (whites only) school bus to my (whites only) school on a bench that said “Bus stop. Whites only” in English and Afrikaans. After school I went to the beach and daily passed by this sign:

It was a brutally oppressive regime where State sanctioned racism was enshrined in the law. The color of one’s skin was the sole factor as to whether one did or did not have rights. The contrast between Apartheid South Africa and the State of Israel is total. As Jeremy Leibler, President of the Zionist Federation of Australia wrote,

This is an appalling [accusation] that should be rejected by everyone who seeks Israeli – Palestinian peace. It makes a mockery of both objectivity and the victims of apartheid South Africa, who suffered under an evil regime that bears absolutely no resemblance to the Israeli – Palestinian conflict.

If one wants to find Apartheid in the Middle East, one doesn’t need to search far.  Most of the regimes in Israel’s neighborhood practice gender apartheid. The United Nations (no big friend of Israel) Human Development Report of 2002 (page 22) states that:

Women in Arab league countries suffer from unequal citizenship and legal entitlements. Often evident in voting rights and legal codes and from inequality of opportunity evident in employment status, wages, and gender-based occupational segregation. Their political and economic participation remains the lowest in the world.

In most of the Arab world and Iran adultery is a crime for both sexes, though women receive harsher punishment. Adultery is a capital offense, with execution by stoning. This is sexual Apartheid.

It is important to acknowledge that with all of Israel’s incredible successes in many fields since its creation, there are issues that Israel is grappling with as it continues to stride into the 21st century. One of the most pressing of these concerns is how to harmoniously co-exist with a minority population. Approximately 21%, one out of five, of Israel’s population consists of Israeli Arabs.

The vast majority of Israeli Arabs are Muslim. However, about 8% are Druze, about 5% are Bedouin, and about 10% are Christian. Israeli Arabs have full democratic rights, parliamentary representation, state education and judiciary recourse.  Despite their full democratic rights, the resources given to Israeli Arabs are less than those given to the Jews. Israel’s Declaration of Independence enshrines equality for all her citizens by categorically stating:

The State of Israel… will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race, or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions…

Nowhere is equality seen more than in the IDF. The head of the IDF’s Arabic Spokesperson unit is Lt. Colonel W.  She is an Israeli Muslim Arab woman! During my current service as a combat medic, I see first-hand how it is totally irrelevant what one’s skin color is, or what ones religious, political or socio -economic background is. What is important is that everyone is there to serve our country and to give and not to take.

I have friends in my unit who are Ethiopian, Indian, Asheknazi, Sephardi, Arab, Christian,  religious, secular, left wing, right wing …and no-one cares. To paraphrase the words of Martin Luther King Junior, soldiers are respected by the strength of their character not the color of their skin, or any other factor.

In conclusion, whilst Israel continues to struggle and wrestle with its relationship to its minority population, it is imperative to remember that relative to any of the neighboring countries in the region the situation is incomparably better, although there is certainly much room for improvement.

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Dr. Tuvia Book is a combat medic serving in the IDF’s PALMAR medical extraction unit, an internationally acclaimed speaker, tour guide and the author of four books including his latest, “Heroes of PALMAR, How One IDF Unit Revolutionized Combat Medicine in Gaza.”