Friday, July 30, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
This year it has become fashionable to accuse Israel of the crime of apartheid. First B'Tselem, and then Human Right Watch, have opened the floodgates to give the Israel haters something to point at as they use Israel as the first, last and only example of apartheid in the world.
As we and others have documented extensively, the charge is baseless - unless you completely redefine the word to apply to pretty much any nation that has some level of racism or has a preference for citizenship to people who were originally from that country, which is literally every nation on the planet.
I wondered whether J-Street agreed with Human Rights Watch that Israel was guilty of apartheid, or if it defended Israel from the defamatory and false charge. After all, J-Street keeps telling everyone that it is pro-Israel - even though one would be hard pressed to find a single example where J-Street actually publicly defended Israel against obsessed haters like Richard Falk, Roger Waters, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar or Mark Lamont Hill.
Not surprisingly, J-Street defended Human Rights Watch's calling Israel guilty of apartheid.
We are deeply dismayed by the vitriolic response of some Jewish communal and pro-Israel organizations to the new report by Human Rights Watch titled “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” While J Street does not use the term “apartheid” to describe the current situation in the occupied territories, we believe this new report raises critical concerns that should deeply trouble both supporters of Israel and those who care about Palestinian rights.
J-Street tries to walk the line by saying that it doesn't use that specific term, it did not defend Israel against the charge - it instead defended Human Rights Watch against its critics.
And note what J-Street didn't say. It didn't say "J-Street doesn't agree with applying the term 'apartheid," it said it doesn't use the term itself. J-Street does not disagree!
Which means that J-Street effectively agrees with Human Rights Watch. It just knows it will lose support from credulous Zionist funders who still think it is a liberal Zionist organization that is merely against settlements, instead of an organization that is dedicated to slandering Israel nearly as much as Jewish Voice for Peace does, so it doesn't want to explicitly agree for fear of losing its "pro-Israel" facade.
It's refusal to defend Israel against the charge is itself all you need to know about J-Street. It is not pro-Israel in any sense of the word.
