Pep Montserrat for The National
Pep Montserrat for The National

Israel fears the ‘apartheid’ label as it reveals its gruesome tactics



In recent years, Israeli leaders and advocates have repeatedly warned of the threat posed by so-called “delegitimisation”. Yosef Kuperwasser, the current director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, has claimed it is the country’s most important challenge.

“Delegitimisation” is frequently used to variously describe Palestine solidarity activism, boycott and divestment campaigns, and opposition to Israel’s definition as a Jewish state. The term is intended to rally the faithful, and place the targeted critics beyond the pale. To describe Israeli policies in terms of apartheid is also considered a form of “delegitimisation”.

Apartheid, outlawed as a crime against humanity in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is when “inhumane acts” are “committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.

The term itself comes from the defeated South African system – but it can take place anywhere independent of comparisons. Some academics and activists have long described Israeli policies as a form of apartheid: Uri Davis, for example, was writing on the topic in the 1980s. More recently the term has been used by former US president Jimmy Carter, while Archbishop Desmond Tutu – in 2002 and again just this month – has criticised Israeli policies in terms of apartheid.

I was delighted to have Mr Tutu endorse my book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, just published as an updated second edition. In the foreword, South African jurist and former UN special rapporteur John Dugard put it in the following terms: “It is Israel’s own version of a system that has been universally condemned.”

Examples abound. There is the legislative framework of ethnocracy embodied in the Absentee Property Law, Law of Return, and Citizenship Law, crucial for maintaining an artificial Jewish majority achieved through violent displacement.

There are the admission committees filtering residents in hundreds of communities used, according to Human Rights Watch, “to exclude Arabs”.

Across the West Bank, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens live in a network of illegal settlements, while around them, Palestinian homes are demolished in a process EU officials have called the “forced transfer of the native population”.

This is a country whose housing minister in 2009 declared it a “national duty” to “prevent the spread” of Palestinian citizens, whose president, Shimon Peres, called Bedouin citizens a “demographic threat”, and whose former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, as mayor of Jerusalem, said was “a matter of concern when the non-Jewish population rises a lot faster than the Jewish population”.

I marked the publication of my book with a well-attended launch event last night at Amnesty International UK, chaired by David Hearst, former chief foreign leader writer for The Guardian.

In the weeks before the event, the Israeli embassy itself directly contacted Amnesty UK to ask them to cancel the launch, and also pressured Mr Hearst to withdraw his participation.

In targeting my book launch, Israeli diplomats in London resorted to crude smear tactics, the sort that are familiar fare for lobby groups, but rather more extraordinary coming from senior embassy officials. Thankfully, neither Amnesty UK nor Mr Hearst gave them the time of day, but the clumsy efforts by Israel’s official representatives to make certain topics “off limits” only drew attention to the issues my book is intended to address.

Of course, that pales in significance compared to the repression of Palestinian dissent by Israeli authorities, where tools like house arrest, travel bans, detention without trial and the use of deadly force are routinely used against both Palestinian citizens and those under military occupation.

But what is it about the apartheid analysis that Israel finds so threatening? Firstly, identifying Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians in such a way shifts the discussion from a “security” paradigm – where Israel feels far more comfortable in defending its conduct – to a paradigm of racial discrimination.

It means that the likes of home demolitions and unequal education budgets are seen not as regrettable excesses or errors, but rather as elements of a regime designed to protect Jewish privilege. The characteristics, in other words, of an ethnocracy, not a democracy.

This is what Israel finds so troubling about the increasingly frequent conclusions of leading human rights groups, legal experts and observers, who frame the situation on the ground in terms of institutionalised racism.

Human Rights Watch has spoken of “systematic discrimination merely because of [the Palestinians’] race, ethnicity, and national origin”, and Amnesty has spoken of “discrimination” in Israel “becoming increasingly formalised”.

The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in their 2012 concluding observations following Israel’s periodic review, condemned a host of policies on both sides of the Green Line, repeatedly urging Israeli authorities to prohibit and eradicate practices that breach the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid.

Secondly, the apartheid analysis throws a spanner in the works of the US-led peace process that the more savvy Israeli leaders – like Tzipi Livni – see as an opportunity to preserve a Jewish state in the majority of historic Palestine, in defiance of international law and the Palestinian right to self-determination.

What the apartheid framework does – that the peace process most definitely does not – is shed light on the entirety of the Palestinian people’s experiences under Zionist settler-colonialism: the expelled and denationalised refugees, the Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians with East Jerusalem residency, and Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

As I write in Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, and also in my other book Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy, Israeli policies towards the Palestinians have the same overarching goal in mind, whether in the hills of the West Bank or Galilee. Similar colonisation strategies have been pursued on both sides of the Green Line, for similar reasons.

Thanks to the steadfastness and political mobilisation by many Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, as well as the continued work of Palestinian refugee organisations, increasing numbers of people in the West are aware that the question of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and nor is it restricted to – or even primarily about – removing some settlements in the West Bank.

We can also thank Netanyahu for his insistence on putting Israel as a “Jewish state” on the agenda, a decision which, however the Israeli prime minister intended it, has helped foster unparalleled discussions about the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba and the discrimination faced by non-Jewish citizens in mainstream circles.

The Britain Israel Communications Centre (BICOM), a key UK-based Israel lobby group, recently published a booklet called The Apartheid Smear. The publication’s flaws aside, it is instructive that BICOM even published it at all (and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is apparently keen to distribute it globally). It reveals not an “Apartheid Smear” but an “Apartheid Fear” – a fear of the mainstreaming of what Palestinians have always known to be true: that for decades Israel has been guilty of systematic discrimination and institutionalised racism.

This reality will not be challenged by a disingenuous “peace process” but by a real process of justice and accountability – Apartheid Israel’s ultimate fear.

Ben White is a journalist and author. A new edition of his book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide is out now

On Twitter: @benabyad

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Coffee: black death or elixir of life?

It is among the greatest health debates of our time; splashed across newspapers with contradicting headlines - is coffee good for you or not?

Depending on what you read, it is either a cancer-causing, sleep-depriving, stomach ulcer-inducing black death or the secret to long life, cutting the chance of stroke, diabetes and cancer.

The latest research - a study of 8,412 people across the UK who each underwent an MRI heart scan - is intended to put to bed (caffeine allowing) conflicting reports of the pros and cons of consumption.

The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, contradicted previous findings that it stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, leading to warnings to cut down.

Numerous studies have recognised the benefits of coffee in cutting oral and esophageal cancer, the risk of a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver. 

The benefits are often linked to biologically active compounds including caffeine, flavonoids, lignans, and other polyphenols, which benefit the body. These and othetr coffee compounds regulate genes involved in DNA repair, have anti-inflammatory properties and are associated with lower risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to type-2 diabetes.

But as doctors warn, too much of anything is inadvisable. The British Heart Foundation found the heaviest coffee drinkers in the study were most likely to be men who smoked and drank alcohol regularly.

Excessive amounts of coffee also unsettle the stomach causing or contributing to stomach ulcers. It also stains the teeth over time, hampers absorption of minerals and vitamins like zinc and iron.

It also raises blood pressure, which is largely problematic for people with existing conditions.

So the heaviest drinkers of the black stuff - some in the study had up to 25 cups per day - may want to rein it in.

Rory Reynolds

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Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin

How to invest in gold

Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.

A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.

Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”

Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”

Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”

By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.

You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.

You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.

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RESULT

Manchester United 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Man United: Sanchez (24' ), Herrera (62')
Spurs: Alli (11')

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