Israel and its Arabs: Separate but equal
Almost 20 years ago, a new book by Jimmy Carter created what the New York Times called “a full-scale furor.” Critics of it accused Carter of being a liar, a racist and an antisemite. They couldn’t get away with those slurs today.
The book was titled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In it, Carter likened the efforts of Israelis to dominate Palestinians with legal mechanisms to South Africa’s efforts to dominate its Black citizens. Prior to the establishment of democracy in 1994, the
nation denied their rights to the more than 85% of South Africans who were not white.
In the book, Carter also asserted that debate in the U.S. about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians was being suppressed, that Israelis were violating the human rights of Palestinians and that the editorial pages of American newspapers rarely offered
anything other than a pro-Israel stance.
Suppressing debate
Carter’s third point is no longer true, but the other two are. There are relentless efforts to suppress an honest debate by extremist organizations like American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It spent more than $20 million in the recent primary elections
in Illinois alone attacking candidates who made even the mildest criticism of Israel. Their targets are mostly Democratic candidates who are minority women.
For AIPAC, supporting Israel means constantly giving its government a blank check regardless of what it does. AIPAC is not the only organization suppressing discussion of what that check buys. Our government does as well.
A year ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio bragged about revoking the visas of more than 300 international students because they were “lunatics” who had the nerve to engage in pro-Palestinian efforts. Now immigration judges who rule in favor of such students
are being systematically purged by the so-called Justice Department.
Today, anyone who wants to come to this country for an education must open their social media accounts for inspection by a consular officer. Expressing concern about the plight of Palestinians is grounds for rejection. Such time-consuming investigations mean
delays of many months, if not years, in even getting an interview for a visa.
That Israel denies basic rights to Palestinians became even more starkly clear last month when the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed a new capital punishment law. The only time Israel used the death penalty in a civil case was in 1962 when Adolph Eichmann,
a Nazi official who helped organize the Holocaust, was executed.
The new law
The new law requires anyone accused of “intentionally causing the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel” to be tried in a military court, and hanged within 90 days if a mere majority of the judges reach a guilty verdict.
No pardons are allowed and a lesser penalty of imprisonment for life is possible only under undefined extreme circumstances.
Palestinians, who are tried in military courts for offenses committed in the occupied West Bank, have a 99.7% conviction rate. When there was an investigation of violence by Israeli settlers there, who are tried in civilian courts, it ended without an indictment
94% of the time. And those settlers who were charged had a conviction rate of only 3%.
Muslims are not the only ones affected by settler violence. The Guardian has reported those who live in Taybeh, a small, West Bank town that is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, feel they are under siege and fighting for their existence.
Israeli human rights organizations, UN officials and European governments all strongly condemned the law, which will take effect later this month. The reaction of the State Department, however, was to state that “The United States respects Israel’s sovereign
right to determine its own laws and penalties for individuals convicted of terrorism.”
That is a stunningly weak response. In essence, a Palestinian who kills an Israeli will now almost certainly receive the death penalty while an Israeli who kills a Palestinian will continue to have little to fear.
Netanyahu’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated passage of the law on the floor of the Knesset with champagne and a noose-shaped lapel pin. He has a criminal record so long, including supporting a Jewish terrorist organization, that the
Israeli army refused to have him in their ranks.
A system of apartheid
The new death penalty law is not the only element in what Amnesty International describes as “Israel’s system of apartheid, which is maintained by scores of discriminatory laws against Palestinians.”
Silwan and other Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are being ethnically cleansed using housing regulations, land titles, violence, and financial support from American organizations to evict Palestinian families and throw them into the street.
Another indication of separate but unequal treatment is that while Arabs make up about a quarter of Israel’s population, they accounted for over 80% of the country’s homicides. And yet, the police, because of indifference or a lack of resources, managed to
solve only 15% of 240 such cases in 2024.
In 2018 another bill was approved called the nation state law. It defined Israel as the home of the Jewish people, but said nothing about equality for all citizens. That left Arab Israelis feeling even more like second-class citizens.
But that seems to be by design and the entire system based on the hope that if life is made miserable enough for Arabs, whether Israelis or Palestinians, they will all simply disappear.