Is Israel An Apartheid State?

One can argue either way, quite reasonably. Ignatieff has chosen the National Post, that model of balance on Israeli issues, as his forum to declare it isn't and one can criticise Israel but not in any biting or effective way, not even as much as the Israeli Left does. One can argue whether Israel is an apartheid state or not, but to tell those, Jewish & non-Jewish, who feel very strongly that the Government of Israel is engaged in evil racist behaviour that they shouldn't say so - well, it's just silly. It's asking people who feel they see a house on fire to quietly whisper their warnings. Just as those who feel the Tibetans are oppressed by the Chinese and use colourful rhetoric and all manner of tactics they imagine effective to support Tibetans, to little criticism from anyone in the West, so those who feel similarly about Palestinians & the the Israeli Government should be held to the same standard. It is also typical of Ignatieff that he would claim "Israel Apartheid Week...exploit academic freedom". Either freedom of speech exists, legitimately curtailed, in my view, by hate speech laws, and academic freedom, the ne plus ultra of freedom of expression, also exists, or they don't. If those who complain about Israel Apartheid Week can find avenues to pursue those involved for hate speech, that is legitimate. I haven't heard of any such case as yet, as nothing has apparently reached the standard of hate speech. Inciting hatred against (a) person(s) on the basis of some fundamental element of their identity is wrong, and wrong enough in my view, to merit legal limits, such as hate speech laws (which I don't believe exist in most democracies). But if people are critical of Chinese or Israeli or American or Canadian human rights abuses and use colourful language but can't be prosecuted for hate speech, then they are playing within the rules in Canada. As a result, one can no more claim Israel Apartheid Week exploits academic freedom then ANY controversial speech "exploits" academic freedom. And should that be one's view, then we really are at the thin end of the wedge. It's a position that effectively questions the whole basis of free speech & academic freedom in Canada. A very silly, dangerous position, I would say, especially for one who was once associated with academe & claims to be deeply concerned about human rights, despite supporting pre-emptive wars and hooding & sleep deprivation as legitimate "coercive interrogation" techniques. But as always, the problem with Ignatieff is that the (self-?)image and the reality are completely different and rather than being the fearless public thinker he considers himself, he is rather one who, in Salutin's wonderful turn of phrase, "speaks power to truth".

As to the question of apartheid, it's not a word to be used lightly. My own views on Israel & apartheid accord with those of a special Guardian report from a couple of years ago, which basically said that while in practice it is in many ways an apartheid society, in principle it is not, and this is a crucial difference, since in South Africa apartheid was not just a physical reality but also the openly-acknowledged political, legal & philosophical underpinning of the regime. So I wouldn't say Israel is an apartheid state but rather a developing/regressing (take your pick) democracy that demonstrates many of the characteristics of an apartheid state without as yet being one (given the composition of the new government, that may however soon change). In the meantime, as either position can be convincingly argued, "it is in fact", "it's not because it's not doctrine and it aspires to better", it seems legitimate for people to use terms like "Israel Apartheid Week" as well as "Israel Apartheid Week is Slander on an Idealistic Democratic State in Particularly Difficult Circumstances" (perhaps a shorter slogan could be found in the second case:). All should feel free to discuss and argue the issue, particularly on university campuses, which should be our very bastions of intellectual inquiry & free speech.

I recommend the two-part Guardian report.

Part I, "Worlds apart - Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa. Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid."

Part II, "Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria: During the second world war the future South African prime minister John Vorster was interned as a Nazi sympathiser. Three decades later he was being feted in Jerusalem. In the second part of his remarkable special report, Chris McGreal investigates the clandestine alliance between Israel and the apartheid regime, cemented with the ultimate gift of friendship - A-bomb technology"