Why a settler colonial Jewish State is Inevitably a Racist State
A few years ago ex-President Jimmy Carter was
pilloried for suggesting that Israel was pursuing a policy of Apartheid in the
Occupied Territories.[i]
Today even ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak says that without a peace
agreement Israel will become an apartheid state.[ii]
Yet this should not blind us to the differences between Zionism in Israel and
Apartheid in South Africa in terms of political economy. Whereas Apartheid
sought to exploit the labour power of Black South Africans, Zionism seeks to
exclude it altogether.
The other major difference is that, until recently, Israel did not engage – at least openly – in ‘petty Apartheid’. There were no signs saying ‘Jews Only’. Institutional and state discrimination remained hidden beneath the surface although it was just as real. Even today in the West Bank there are no 'Jews only' signs on the road. It's just that the Army doesn't need a sign to enforce what is Military Law.
The other major difference is that, until recently, Israel did not engage – at least openly – in ‘petty Apartheid’. There were no signs saying ‘Jews Only’. Institutional and state discrimination remained hidden beneath the surface although it was just as real. Even today in the West Bank there are no 'Jews only' signs on the road. It's just that the Army doesn't need a sign to enforce what is Military Law.
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| Flags of the Apartheid States |
Racial segregation ‘separate development’
was integral to the political and legal doctrine of South African Apartheid.[iii]
There is however more than one way of skinning a cat. In Israel, the same
principles that Apartheid South Africa stood for have been achieved, without
the need to declare them openly.
In a survey of 400 teenagers, 35% of Jewish youth had never spoken to an Arab teenager and 27% of Arab youth had never spoken to a Jewish teenager.[iv] Israeli Jews and Palestinians are educated separately, live separately and socialise separately. The instruments of power in Israel are in the hands of the Jewish majority not the Palestinian minority.
In a survey of 400 teenagers, 35% of Jewish youth had never spoken to an Arab teenager and 27% of Arab youth had never spoken to a Jewish teenager.[iv] Israeli Jews and Palestinians are educated separately, live separately and socialise separately. The instruments of power in Israel are in the hands of the Jewish majority not the Palestinian minority.
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| The reaction of the JNF in 2005 to the decision in Kadaan that you could not refuse to sell land to Arabs |
The roots of Israeli Apartheid go back to
before the British Mandate. The JNF bought land and then expelled the peasants
who were farming it. The policies of the Zionist colonisers were Jewish Labour,
Land and Produce. First the Zionists expelled the Arabs from the economy and
then from the country altogether. It was this which caused the riots of 1929.
As the Hope-Simpson Report reported:
‘the result of the purchase
of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been
extra-territorialised. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any
advantage either now or at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope
to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of
the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land.
… It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and
good will on the part of the Zionists…’
‘That this replacement of
Arab labour by Jewish labour is a definite policy of the Zionist Organisation
is also evident from the following quotation, taken from A Guide to Jewish
Palestine, published by the Head Office of the Keren-Kayemeth Leisrael –The
Jewish National Fund – and the Keren-Hayesod, in Jerusalem in the 1930s…
The Arab population already
regards the transfer of lands to Zionist hands with dismay and alarm. These
cannot be dismissed as baseless in light of the Zionist policy described
above….
The policy of the Jewish
Labour Federation is successful in impeding the employment of Arabs in Jewish
colonies and in Jewish enterprises of every kind.’ [v]
The Jewish Labour Federation was Histadrut,
founded in 1920 as the General Federation of Hebrew Labour. It was a Jewish
only ‘trade union’.
In South Africa the Group Areas Act 1950
forbade Black people from living in the same town as Whites. In Israel the same
objective was achieved through indirect means. Land in towns such as Kiryat
Shmona was owned by the JNF and could not therefore be rented by non-Jews.
Legislation was not needed to prevent Arabs from renting flats in Safed. An
edict by its Chief Rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, that Jews were forbidden to rent
apartments to Arabs, was sufficient.[vi]
In 2000 Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in the
case of Ka'adan that it was illegal to refuse to sell state lands, including
those owned by the JNF, to non-Jews. The Court hadn’t wanted to reach this
ruling, however it was left with no choice.[vii] In 2005 Attorney General Mazuz decided that the 93% of state land
which is controlled by the Israel Lands Administration, including that owned by
the JNF, could be sold to non-Jews.[viii] This undermined the whole basis on which the Zionist movement had
colonized Palestine.[ix]
In 2011 the government responded to the
concerns of those who believed that selling ‘Jewish’ land to non-Jews undermined
the very basis of Zionism by introducing the Reception Committees Law. This
allowed small communities, under 500, (now increased to 700) to determine whether or not someone
‘fitted in’ to their community based on a set of social criteria. Instead of
direct discrimination there would be what we know as indirect discrimination.
Ostensibly Arabs would be rejected, not because they were non-Jews but because
they didn’t fit in with existing Jewish communities. It is a distinction
without a difference. This is how racism in Israel has traditionally operated.
Instead of following the example of Apartheid South Africa and introducing
legislation that forbade Arabs from leasing or buying ‘Jewish’ land, , Israel
left it to the good sense of Jewish communities to reject Arabs who wanted to access
Jewish land and to the regulations of para-state groups like the JNF.[x]
In the United States, the Supreme Court in Plessy
v. Ferguson in 1896, ruled that racially separate facilities did not violate
the Constitution.[xi] Segregation, the Court said, was not discrimination. In practice
separation has always meant inequality, otherwise why have it? It was not until
Brown v Board of Education 1954 that the ruling in Plessy was overturned. In
Israel separation is not decreed in law but comes about as the consequence of
administrative practices, regulations, land, social and employment policies
that are guided by Zionism, which is a state ideology. A Jewish state cannot be other than a racist
state because of the settler colonialist context in which it was established.
Being Jewish in Israel is as important as being White was in South Africa.
In the 2006 Democracy Institute Survey, 62% of
Israelis wanted the government to encourage local Arabs to leave the country [xii]
and 75% of Jews didn’t approve of sharing apartments with Arabs. Over half of
Israeli Jews believed that the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is
equal to national treason, according to a survey by the Geocartography
Institute. 55% said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment
sites”.’[xiii]
In 2014 the Democracy Institute found that
62.9% Jews disagreed with the statement that ‘Jewish citizens of Israel should
have greater rights than non-Jewish citizens.’ But when it came to more
concrete questions, such as whether it was acceptable for Israel to allocate
more funding to Jewish localities than to Arab ones, then 47.2% agreed compared
to 47.5%; who disagreed.
In the 2016 Pew Opinion Survey a plurality
(48%) of Israeli Jews wanted Israeli Palestinians to be expelled from the
country. 79% believed that Jews are entitled to preferential treatment.[xiv]
An official policy of apartheid and racial segregation would be problematic because of Israel’s political dependence on
the West. It would also create difficulties for diaspora Jews. How could one
support apartheid in Israel and oppose anti-Semitism in one’s own country? The
problem for Zionism is how to achieve an apartheid society without being seen
to do so.
Zionism has therefore deployed a number of
different strategies to achieve a Jewish supremacist society. One method was
the use of para-state organisations such as the JNF to implement
discrimination, another was the use of indirect discrimination – using an
ostensibly neutral policy that in practice is discriminatory. For example in order to get a job in many
areas you have to have served in the army! In Israel Arabs, with the exception
of the Druze, do not serve in the Army.[xv]
In Israel all families with more than four
children received a special grant. The problem was how to restrict this to
Jews. The innocuously titled Discharged Soldier’s (Reinstatement in Employment)
(Amendment No. 4) Law 1970 achieved this purpose by restricting such benefits
to those who had served in the army or whose relatives had served. Uri Avneri,
a member of the Knesset, in a speech opposing the law stated that:
‘The intention is to
encourage births among one part of the population of Israel and to effect the
opposite among the other part, to pay grants to the hungry children of one part
of the population and withhold them from the hungry children of another part,
the distinction… being an ethnic one…’
However the Haredi section of Israeli society
also didn’t serve in the Army. The solution to this ‘problem’ was to pay a
grant equivalent to the benefit directly to the Ministry of Religion which then
disbursed it to Orthodox Jews.
Virtually every section of Israeli society –
from manufacturing and trade, education (except universities), teaching, the
civil service – is segregated. Arab areas of society, be it education or local
government are underfunded compared to their Jewish counterparts. For the year
2013/14, per-student funding in high schools was 35 percent to 68 percent
higher for Jews than for Arabs.[xvi] Fewer Arabs
per head of population go to university.
However when it comes to poverty then Arabs are
the winners! As the Jerusalem Post noted, the Annual Poverty Report ‘relayed a
startling gap between different population groups in Israel. The incidence of
poverty among Arab families in 2012 was a staggering 53.4% compared to 14.1%
among Jewish families. 36.6% of poor families in Israel today are Arabs.
[xvii]
Because of the Occupation Israel is becoming an
openly apartheid society. In the West Bank there are two systems of law – one
for Jewish settlers and another for Palestinians. Even in pre-1967 Israel, the
calls for an openly apartheid society are increasing. At the ‘peace talks’
Tsipi Livni MK, a “moderate” Zionist, tried to include the areas where Israel’s
Arabs live in the areas that would be exchanged for the settlement blocs of the
West Bank.[xviii] There has been a whole raft of legislation,
such as the 2011 Nakba Law, specifically targeted at Israel’s Arabs. The
Zionist Right wish to go from the implicit to the explicit, from hidden to
overt discrimination.
Police violence against Israeli Palestinians is
another area of inbuilt and systemic discrimination. When demonstrations took
place in Kafr Kanna in response to the killing of 22-year-old Khir Hamdan by the
Police, Netanyahu called for the withdrawal of citizenship from Israeli
Palestinians who he alleged had rioted. Those taking part in Jewish riots have
never been threatened with the loss of citizenship, because Israel is a Jewish
state.[xix] The Police killing was captured on video and
showed the Police had lied and deliberately murdered an Arab teenager. About this Netanyahu had nothing to say.
By way of contrast, when an Ethiopian soldier
was captured on camera being beaten up by the Police, there were riots.
Netanyahu’s reaction to this was to invite the soldier to his residence and hug
him whilst denouncing anti-Ethiopian racism.[xx]
[i] Jimmy
Carter: Israel's 'Apartheid' Policies Worse Than South Africa's, Ha’aretz
11.12.06.,
[ii] Netanyahu
policies may turn Israel into apartheid state – former Israeli PM, RT, 17.6.16.
[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
[iv] In the
survey of 400 Jewish and Israeli teens, 27% of Arab Israelis reported never
having spoken with a Jewish youth.
http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Survey-35-percent-of-Jewish-Israeli-teens-have-never-interacted-with-Arab-peers-404831
[v] Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and
Development, SIR JOHN HOPE SIMPSON,
October 1930 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hope-simpson-report.
[vi] Poll:
55% back rabbis' anti-Arab ruling,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3998010,00.html Dozens of top Israeli
rabbis sign ruling to forbid rental of homes to Arabs,
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/dozens-of-top-israeli-rabbis-sign-ruling-to-forbid-rental-of-homes-to-arabs-1.329312,
Ha’aretz 7.12.10.
[vii] Battling
against Israeli 'apartheid', BBC News, Lucy Ash, 23.12.04.,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4111915.stm
[viii] Ha’aretz,
27.1.05. AG Mazuz Rules JNF Land Can Now Be Sold to Arabs ,
http://www.haaretz.com/ag-mazuz-rules-jnf-land-can-now-be-sold-to-arabs-1.148348
[ix] For
hostile reactions see for example Is This Land Still Our Land? The
Expropriation of Zionism, Azureonline, No. 36, Spring 2009, Golovensky and
Gilboa, http://azure.org.il/article.php?id=492
[x] 'Laws
won't help get rid of Arabs’, YNet, 29.11.10., 'Laws won't help get rid of
Arabs, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3990861,00.html
[xi] It was
not finally overturned until Brown v. Board of Education 1954.
[xii] http://en.idi.org.il/tools-and-data/guttman-center-for-surveys/the-israeli-democracy-index/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3248693,00.html
[xiii] ‘Marriage
to an Arab is national treason’ 27.3.07, YNet.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3381978,00.html Roee Nahmias
[xv] The
definition of indirect discrimination is where a policy, criteria or practice
is imposed, which is ostensibly neutral, but which in practice a whole class of
people (for example women) find it more difficult to achieve.
[xvi] For Jews
and Arabs, Israel’s School System Remains Separate and Unequal, Ha’aretz 7 July
2016,
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.729404
[xvii] Annual report shows 1.7 million Israelis living
below poverty line, 17.12.13. http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Annual-report-shows-17-million-Israelis-living-below-poverty-line-335255
[xviii] Palestine
Papers, Permanent Revolution, Autumn 2011 see Clayton Swisher, Al Jazeera:
Introducing the Palestine Papers,
https://leaksource.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/al-jazeera-introducing-palestine-papers-live-updates/
[xix] Netanyahu:
Those who call to destroy Israel should have citizenship revoked, +972
Magazine, 8.11.14., http://972mag.com/bibi-those-who-call-to-destroy-israel-should-have-citizenship-revoked/98537/
Meet the Arab-Israelis living in fear of expulsion, Residents in the flashpoint
Israeli town of Kafr Kana fear mass expulsion if a controversial new law
designating the country a Jewish state is approved, The Telegraph, 1.12.14,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11263845/Meet-the-Arab-Israelis-living-in-fear-of-expulsion.html
[xx] Netanyahu
hugs black Jewish soldier who was assaulted by Israeli police officers sparking
riots by Ethiopian Jews,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3067010/Israeli-president-says-Ethiopian-protest-exposes-wound.html
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