Seth Frantzman: B’Tselem's Israel 'apartheid' accusation masks its own sinister agenda
The real story here is that this is all part of a broader agenda. The notion that Israel exists as one state, encompassing Gaza and the West Bank, is increasingly being used by anti-Israel activists in the West in an effort to promote it as a solution. Their goal is to force Israelis and Palestinians into a single country that both sides have already rejected.
Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn, author of City on a Hilltop, recently noted that “B'Tselem needs to be honest about the fact that its endgame here is a one-state solution between the river and the sea, and the erasure of the Jewish character of the State of Israel.”
When the Left-wing writer Peter Beinart argued last year in favour of a “one-state solution”, he didn’t seem to have consulted with Palestinians. In July 2020 Beinart, together with other prominent progressives, debated the “viability of a binational state of ‘Israel-Palestine’ as an alternate path forward.”
No Palestinians took part in this all-Jewish panel. In an irony of the “apartheid” discussion, there is often an apartheid on left-wing panels discussing the matter: Palestinians are systematically excluded from expressing their needs by the Israel-bashing radical left.
The evidence shows that Palestinians don’t want to vote in Israeli elections, no matter how many times activists claim that Israel excludes them from voting. They want to vote for their own representatives. Only two percent of Palestinians in East Jerusalem make their voices heard in Jerusalem municipal elections. And there is no evidence that people in Gaza want to governed by Israel and vote for members of the Knesset.
The fact is that despite B’Tselem’s claim, one government does not rule everything between the river and the sea and Israelis and Palestinians don’t want to live in one state. They may have trouble divorcing from each other – and Israel’s military rule in the West Bank may be imperfect – but Israelis and Palestinians will link arms to resist an attempt to impose a single state upon them.
In essence, the Left’s support for one state is a throwback to the colonial era of the British mandate, which ruled the entire area. The discussions about it are paternalistic, rarely including Hebrew-speaking Israelis or Arabic-speaking Palestinians. Almost no one from Gaza to Ramallah, from Haifa to Ashdod, actually wants to be forced to live together after years of working to be separate. Especially by Western liberals.
Hi @CNN, @Independent, @guardian! It's me again...
— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) January 14, 2021
Since you guys all had trouble separating fact from fiction in @btselem's propaganda, I, as an Israeli Arab myself, decided to help you out and show you the Israeli "apartheid" that exists here on the ground. https://t.co/375AV6Zg4V
B’Tselem and the Israel ‘Apartheid’ Myth
Previously, B’Tselem for the most part limited its criticism to Israeli policies that apply to Palestinians living beyond the pre-1967 borders (i.e. the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the eastern part of Jerusalem). Now, the organization appears to have ventured into new territory: claiming that Zionism — namely, the right of Jewish people to self-determination — has produced an apartheid regime, even within what is regarded as Israel proper:
Israel is not a democracy that has a temporary occupation attached to it; it is one regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and we must look at the full picture and see it for what it is: apartheid.
Yet, facts are stubborn things, and in Israel, unlike the past situation in South Africa, national law guarantees equal rights for all.
And while the situation in the West Bank is more complex, Israel has on multiple occasions offered the Palestinians generous peace deals to end the prevailing status quo. Indeed, every Israeli prime minister since Yitzhak Rabin over a quarter century ago has publicly accepted in principle the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, only to be rebuffed by Ramallah.
Whereas the ultimate fate of the West Bank is a matter of robust debate even amongst Israelis, what is certain is that the media has spread an outright falsehood by suggesting that Israel is an apartheid state. Arab-Israeli citizens have the same freedom of movement and speech as their Jewish counterparts; receive an education and health care; are able to vote; and can work in whatever professions they choose. They also serve throughout the government, in the Knesset, and on the Supreme Court.
But the news coverage of B’Tselem and its latest report paints a distorted picture. As a result, opponents of the Jewish state can more readily discharge a loaded word that is not only totally inaccurate, but also used as ammunition by those who want to see Israel eradicated.
And the media is seemingly all-too-eager to jump on the bandwagon.