Talk:Apartheid/Archive 1

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While Israelis point out that these are allegations by Palestinians, in fact these are allegations by Amnesty International, a group that is not "Palestinians". Similary, to the claim about police brutality, Amnesty International often criticises police forces for police brutality. They are quite aware of what police brutality is. They did not make that charge here. They used the term torture, they did not say that this torture resembled "police brutality". Further this section provides several charges of apartheid like behaviour by Israel, of which torture is one component.

Karl, could you get more POV with an electrified POV machine? You are clearly inserting inline advocacy into an article. Rewrite it or ditch it. Note that there are several errors in your statement above:

"allegations made by Amnesty International"--an asinine objection; AI is repeating allegations made by Palestinians.
"AI also criticizes police brutality"--then move it to an article on police brutality, not apartheid.
"torture"--your quote falls miles short of demonstrating "torture", so please get better proof or get real. Cops in the US shove people against walls all the time; that's not exactly the same as cutting off body parts, as is practiced in Iraq for example.
"They used the term torture"--sure, and Palestinians used the term "genocide", asinine and inapplicable as it seems. Your entire sentence is blatant POV advocacy. Fix it before trying to restore it, or I will cut it again.

You already made AI's point with your quote; don't turn this article into a "Crossfire" episode. --User:LenBudney

The contentious paragraph:

However, discrimination in favour of Jews and against other ethnic groups is enshrined permanently in Israeli law. For example the Declaration of Independence defines Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and no political party that seeks to re-define it as the state of all its citizens is permitted to put up candidates for elections [Basic Law: The Knesset (Amendment No. 9)]. There are also laws preventing non-Jews from buying land in Israel, and 80% of the land still owned by Arabs after the War of Independence has since been appropriated by the state without compensation. In August 2001, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment (LAW) published a paper in which they laid out in detail their case that Israel is guilty of apartheid (see external link, below). In 2002, LAW filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army claiming that Israel's construction of a wall along the Green Line constitutes a crime of apartheid under the UN convention.

Discussion of individual sentences within the paragraph:

"However, discrimination in favour of Jews and against other ethnic groups is enshrined permanently in Israeli law."

The claim of apartheid raised against Israel is about discriminating Palestinian Arabs (who are subject to Israeli military law), rather than Israeli Arabs. --Uri

No it's not, as you would find if you bothered to read the paper. But even if it was, that is no reason to delete the sentence which is a simple truth, backed up by the references to Israeli laws. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Quote from the LAW paper (my emphasis):

In this paper, LAW does not challenge the right of Jewish Israeli citizens to remain within Israel. LAW does not deny the fact of racist persecution of Jewish people in the world or the fact of the Holocaust with the genocide of Jews during the Second World War. LAW does not challenge Jewish peoples' rights of self-determination, however, LAW condemns as racism:

- The measures used to ensure the ongoing racial domination of Jewish Israelis over non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in particular the Palestinians.

Hello! They are not subjects of Israeli law! --Uri

Hello to you too, Uri. Nice to hear from you again. What are you on about, by the way? Non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel most surely are subjects of Israeli law. And the existence of the nominally independent Palestinian areas is remarkably reminiscent of South Africa's Bantustan policy, which was an integral part of the Apartheid system. I think you have just scored an own goal! GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

- The methods used to ensure this racial dominance by maintaining the State of Israel exclusively for one racial group (namely, for the Jewish people), including the aims of maintaining a Jewish majority at all costs. Since the conception and establishment of the State of Israel, the country has been structured as being an exclusively 'Jewish State' to the exclusion and subjugation of its non-Jewish inhabitants, in particular its indigenous Palestinians'.

Immigration policy has never been considered, anywhere in the world, an area where equality must be mainted between all people. In particular, Germany has a program of repatriating ethnic Germans, which does not work for the Turks. I've not heard accusations against German racism so far. --Uri

Whether you agree with it or not is not the issue. The contentious paragraph simply refers to the existence of these allegations. However, as it happens, I can demonstrate that everything you said in your remark was false. Please read the White Australia policy article for an example that disproves your first assertion. Your information on Germany is out-of-date. Their immigration policy has now been made more equitable in response to criticism from the Council of Europe, although the latest report of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance still has severe criticisms of Germany as regards the treatment of white and non-white immigrants. See this: ECRI report CRI-2001-36 (Second report on Germany). A quote:

These individuals [the so-called "guest workers"], even those who are the second or third generation born in Germany, remain migrants or foreigners in German statistics, public discourse and life. The concept and usage of the term "foreigner" seems sometimes to encompass an even larger group of the population, also including those minorities who have lived for many generations in Germany. This conception has been represented in legislation in the area of nationality, where until the recent changes, children of migrants born in Germany were not granted automatic nationality in contrast to those individuals outside the country of German descent who according to the jus soli principle have an automatic right to nationality.

GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

- All the measures used to exclude and subjugate Palestinians so they are treated as an inferior and an unequal racial group within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Again, Palestinians in Palestine under military law, Israeli Arabs in Israel under civilian law. Hopefully, in several years Palestinians under Palestinian law, Israeli Arabs under Israeli civilian law. Where's the problem? --Uri

See my earlier comment about Bantustans. GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

- LAW condemns the continued practices of dispossession of Palestinians of their lands, property and homes and all measures to 'cleanse' Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestinians and Israel's continued refusal to allow for the rights of return of the dispossessed Palestinian refugees and internally displaced - and instead to make way for more Jewish immigrant 'settlers' within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (including East Jerusalem).

Right of return is a political question. Of course, it does involve the human rights of the refugees. But it also involves the possibility of Israel's discussion. --Uri

Right of return sure is a political question. It is also closely tied up with the allegations of apartheid, because to many people, Israel's policy on the "right of return" is clearly racist. Israel gives the right of "return" and automatic citizenship to anybody in the world who can demonstrate they have Jewish ancestry, even if no member of their family has set foot in the Middle East for a thousand years; but simultaneously they deny the right of return to people who cannot demonstrate Jewish ancestry but who spent their childhood in one of the 531 Palestinian villages that stood on land now occupied by Israel, and whose ancestors lived and worked in that same village for many generations. I'm not sure what "race" means, if anything, but to discriminate so blatantly on the grounds of a person's ancestry, to me that is clearly racist. GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

"For example the Declaration of Independence defines Israel as the state of the Jewish people and no political party that seeks to re-define it as the state of all its citizens is permitted to put up candidates for elections [Basic Law: The Knesset (Amendment No. 9)]."

The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex (Declaration of Independence, Paragraph 13)

Israeli laws, like the laws of any other country are looked up by paragraphs, not by ammendments. Israel's Basic Law: THe Knesset, paragraph 7a defines the following causes as making a candidatwe unfit for election:

1 negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people;

2 negation of the democratic character of the State;

3 incitement to racism.

Ironically, the only person ever rejected because of 7a was Meir Kahane, and it was basing on 7a(3) --Uri

So what does "the state of the Jewish people" mean, then? If all Israeli citizens are equal, why the need for that phrase, and the need to protect it with a swingeing law denying political representation to those who may wish to change it? GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

This has been discussed at length between me an SJK several months ago, at Talk:Zionism (it's in the archive now). --Uri

Thank you. I'll try to find that discussion. GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

Sure, there are words in there about equality, but they mean nothing, because they are flatly contradicted by the Declaration's opening statement "WE ... HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE". Imagine if my country adopted a written constitution that declared that henceforward the UK would be "a Christian Anglo-Saxon state ... open for Christian Anglo-Saxon immigration". Any following words about racial and religious equality would be pure hypocrisy. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

No, it's more like your country having 3 superimposed crosses on your flag and declaring the Anglican church the only true church during some proceedings. --Uri

Hey, Uri, for future reference, I have a big nose and I wear glasses, so you can call me big-nose or four-eyes next time you are short of ideas how to score points against me. As it happens, yes, I would like to see the disestablishment of the Church of England. In fact I would like to see its abolition, along with all other religious organisations. And, unlike you, I have the democratic right to stand for election on that platform. [The crosses on the flag thing is desperate! I thought it was vampires who had a fear of crosses, not Zionists!] GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT).

In the copy of the Basic Law: The Knesset to which I provided a link, the words you quote are under the heading Amendment No. 9, which it says was "passed by the Knesset on the 13th Av, 5745 (31st July, 1985).", not under paragraph 7a. Follow the link and scroll about 4/5 of the way down and you will see it. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Ah, found what you meant. Funny Amendment number 9 was exactly what introduced paragraph 7a. If you had bothered to see the text, you would know that. See Israel Basic Law: The Knesset. 46 paragraphs but no ammendments. --Uri

Whether this anti-democratic provision has ever been used or not is irrelevant. It is there. In fact, it is not surprising it has never been used because only Israeli citizens can stand for election, and Israeli citizens are all Zionists, by definition.

The first two sentences of the paragraph state simple facts, the truth of which can be checked by anybody who follows the links I provided to the official Israeli Government web-site. Both sentences should be reinstated as they are without qualification. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

"There are also laws preventing non-Jews from buying land in Israel, and 80% of the land still owned by Arabs after the War of Independence has since been appropriated by the state without compensation."

After or before? The absence of compensation with 1948 refugees is a separate political issue. The only major cases of displacement known to me after 1948 are the case of Ikrit and Biram. --Uri

After or before, what difference does it make? People were removed from their land because they were not Jewish; their land was appropriated by the state of Israel; the displaced people received no compensation. This is highly relevant to the allegations that Israel is an apartheid state. It is not a "separate political issue", whatever that is supposed to mean. --GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

There was a civil war in 1947-1948; it created refugees, whose property was abandoned by definition. The resolution of their problem is a political issue - postwar settlement. One could relevantly discuss whether policies constitute apartheid only in the peace time following. --Uri

South African apartheid also began with a war, when the Dutch and English invaded and colonised the country, just as the Zionists have invaded and colonised Palestine. However, they were honest enough to call It "colonisation" rather than spinning it as a "war of independence". GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

How about this phraseology:

There are laws preventing non-Jews from buying land in Israel. 80% of land owned by Arabs in 1948 has since been appropriated by the state of Israel, without compensation.

Again, these are simple facts (do you deny they are true?). --GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Source? --Uri

OK, I'm looking for a source you won't dismiss as propaganda. Meanwhile, do you know of any such law? You live there, don't you? GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

Plain facts are neutral. I can see no reason why this sentence should not be reinstated. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

"In August 2001, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment (LAW) published a paper in which they laid out in detail their case that Israel is guilty of apartheid (see external link, below)."

Have you bothered looking at their web site? Look up the head lines: "Ahmad Sa'adat must be released immediately", "LAW delays demolition home family Thabet Thabet", "LAW files petition against construction of Israel's apartheid wall". Does it lack something? Yes, it probably does: how about the dozens of cases of extrajudicial execution by Palestinian Authority's own men of Palestinians? The page is a Palestinian propaganda effort, and you had swallowed the bait! Talking about Ahmad Sa'adat (chief of the PFLP) but not talking about killing Palestinian civilians is the definition of hipocrisy. --Uri

Here we go. LAW don't pretend to be neutral. They explicitly advocate a particular viewpoint. As you say yourself, that is evident from their site. However, this section of the article, headed Alleged apartheid in Israel, is about that viewpoint. LAW is a leading organisation putting it forward, and their advocacy is clearly signposted as such. The sentence carefully follows Ed Poor's formula for presenting a controversial viewpoint, X says Y about Z. Not wanting to hear "Y" is not a valid reason for deleting the whole sentence. There is nothing wrong with the sentence, and it should be reinstated. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

There's a deeper issue: should we link to propaganda sites? I don't think so. I don't at least --Uri

Uri, what is propaganda and what isn't is always a matter of opinion. Personally, I distrust Israeli sites at least as much as you distrust Palestinian ones. (A glance at the articles on the front page of www.israelnewsagency.com/ shows just how neutral a source of information that is!) But I don't think there is any problem linking to anywhere, provided it is clear what kind of site it is. (I think "advocacy" might be a more NPoV word than "propaganda", for what we are discussing.) GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

"In 2002, LAW filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army claiming that Israel's construction of a wall along the Green Line constitutes a crime of apartheid under the UN convention."

Attorney General of Israeli Army does not deal with political issues. Perhaps you meant Mr. Rubenstein, Israel's Attorney General? --Uri

Again, if you had bothered to read the press release, all would have become clear. The orders were issued by the military, not by politicians. The petition is not political, it is legal. Quote (my emphasis, again):

On Monday, August 19, 2002, LAW's lawyer Aazem Bishara filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army, demanding an interim injunction against three Israeli military orders which allow actual land and property confiscation for the purpose of constructing Israel's apartheid wall.

The petition was filed on behalf of 34 Palestinian families from various villages located along the 'Green Line', the demarcation line between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, including Deir al- Ghusoun, Shweika, Tel, Farasin, Baqa Sharkia and Kafin. The wall will be either build on their land, separates them from their land, prevents access to their land, or benefit from their land.

The petition demands that the Attorney General annuls the three military orders, 17/2002/T, 20/2002/T, 22/2002/T, which were issued by Israel's military commander of the Westbank, Moshe Kaplinski, which state that the Israeli army will 'cease' (confiscate) these lands until December 31, 2005.

The petition demands an interim injunction to prevent the start of the construction until a decision concerning the matter has been made. In the case, the demands are rejected, the petition argued that Israel's apartheid wall would be built on the June 4, 1967 demarcation line and not on occupied Palestinian land, or on the expense of Palestinians who own deeds proving ownership of the land since the Jordanian administration and the British Mandate.

GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Yes, but the Israeli Army Attorney General is not the authority to decide on such issues, as the undermining question is political. Such issues go to the Israeli Supreme Court. --Uri

To sum up: I think that the paragraph was intentionally fallacious, biased, and it used an untrustworthy source. I removed it for these reasons; I'll keep the link temporarily untill a more neutral source is found (Amnesty, UN or something of the sort). --Uri

To sum up: The paragraph presents arguments in favour of the proposition that Israel is guilty of apartheid, but it does so in a neutral style, and it provides sources so that readers can judge for themselves whether they choose to trust the sources. The fact that you distrust them is not proof that they are untrustworthy. GrahamN 13:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

To sum up: the argument skews parts of the truth into an improbable style of mess, that can't even differentiate between Arab Palestinians and Israeli Palestinians. It comes from a propaganda site so we can't be even sure in the facts. --Uri

All the facts in the paragraph are true and backed up with sources, apart from the land-ownership laws and land-confiscation statistics. (I'm working on those). You have not demonstrated that any statement in the paragraph is false. Since, further, nobody has provided any supporting evidence that any predominantly Arab nation has been formally accused of apartheid in the legal sense, I see no reason to mention such a thing in the article. I propose to reinstate the paragraph in its original form, leaving out the stuff about land confiscation until I can find solid proof. Apart from the fact that you don't like what it says, and that you have nothing but contempt for anybody who thinks differently from you, can you provide a valid reason why I shouldn't do that? GrahamN 11:49 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

I find all these accusations against Israel to be both fallacious and anti-Semitic. The previous government of South Africa sponsored Apartheid because it held that blacks were literally inferior to whites, and that the natural place of the "white man" was to rule over the "black man". That is why they were condemned. But anyone who claims that most Israelis have such a view of non-Israelis, like Arabs, is simply a damned liar who is lashing out at Israel. --RK

Maybe you should take a look at this: Israeli school textbooks present Jews as industrious and brave and present Arabs as unenlightened and inferior.

.. a survey [was] taken of a group of 4th to 6th grade Jewish students at a school in Haifa. The pupils were asked five questions about their attitude toward Arabs, how they recognize them and how they relate to them ... Seventy five percent of the children described the Arab as a murderer, one who kidnaps children, a criminal and a terrorist. Eighty percent said they saw the Arab as someone dirty with a terrifying face. Ninety percent of the students stated they believe that Palestinians have no rights whatsoever to the land in Israel or Palestine. --GrahamN 17:16 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

The legal difficulties that Arabs in Israel face exist because the vast majority of the Arab world seeks to exterminate the State of Israel, and many Arabs in Israel itself agree with this goal. Since the first day of its inception, Israel has legally and actually been in a constant state of active war, and suffering from non-stop terrorism. As Israelis have no intention of committing suicide, there are a number of legal barriers that have had to be erected against Arabs. But to twist this into charges of flat-out racism by most Israelis is a lie and an anti-Semitic slander. --RK

"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel? Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours? When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle" (Israeli Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan, quoted in The New York Times, 14 April 1983). GrahamN 17:16 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

These out-of-context distortions have no place in a civilized discussion. Once you stoop to this level, you might as well just drop the pretenses and flat-out accuse Jews of murdering Arabs to use their blood in pastry (as mainstream Arab newspapers and collges actually say). RK

A source, please for your "Arab-blood-pastry-stories-in-mainstream-Arab-papers" assertion. Your accusation seems to me to be offensively racist. Do you think of Arabs as roaches, too? --GrahamN 17:16 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

As I hope readers are well aware, the 'fact that Arabs believe that jews murder babies, and use their blood to make pastry, is well-documented. In fact, the United States government recently rebuked Saudi Arabia for its virulent anti-Semitic claims (in government newspapers) on just this issue. The fact that GrahamN is lying about a mainstream Arab belief published in newspapers only proves that he isn't interested in discussing this topic; he merely wants to cover up facts that he considered emabarassing.

For those who want more details on this specific issues, the anti-Semitic article published by the Saudi government daily Al-Riyadh, which Arab columnist Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faysal University in Al-Dammam, wrote on "The Jewish Holiday of Purim." (Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), March 10, 2002)

Just because you think the allegations are lies, doesn't mean they should have no place in this article. --GrahamN 14:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

But it does allow me to present my POV on them. --Uri

What? --GrahamN 17:16 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

The contentious paragraph is about the allegations, and it clearly states who is doing the alleging. I am a fervent atheist. I feel very strongly that all religions are lies. But I don't propose to expunge all references to religion from this encyclopaedia. Provided that statements, even ones I believe to be patently false, are properly attributed, there is no reason why they shouldn't stand. What you propose is censorship based on your own prejudices. --GrahamN 14:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

What RK is proposing is censorship based on good taste. --Uri

Good taste? Fuck off. I don't intend to be lectured on taste by a murderous Zionist bigot. It's the height of good taste to shoot un-armed children, is it? Or to use fighter jets to drop bombs on residential areas? Or to pose over the body of the unarmed Palestinian shopkeeper you have just murdered, so your friends can take photographs for you to send home to your parents? They must have been so proud of their wonderful, brave son. --GrahamN 17:16 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

This includes not linking to biased articles, unless they provide either specific facts, or are carefully worded. --Uri

The LAW web-site does both those things. Have you actually looked at it? --GrahamN

The paragraph is entirely neutral. If you disagree with it, please enter another neutrally phrased paragraph concerning Israeli rebuttals of the allegations. GrahamN 14:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Hah! Got me laughin'. --Uri

GramhanN respondes to my criticisms by writing "Fuck off. I don't intend to be lectured on taste by a murderous Zionist bigot'".

Thank you, GrahamN, for proving to Wikipedia readers that you are, indeed, an anti-Semitic troll. I could not have provided better proof myself. Its too bad that in the name of free speech, some Wikipedia moderators allow people such as you to vandalize articles with admittedly anti-Semitic agendas. They need to learn that "free speech" has nothing to do with scholarship. RK

Please calm down, everybody. Let us work together to make the article neutral. We cannot present the "truth" -- we can only say what the various sources maintain. I would like to see whatever was deleted, restored with proper attribution, as in:

According to LAW, Israel is guilty of apartheid, and its leaders should be put on trial in the World Court for "crimes against humanity".

Such a sentence, by itself and unbalanced, is acceptable because it attributes the apartheid charge to the accuser. --Ed Poor

Ed, if you look up, you will see a copy of the complete paragraph that was deleted. It does attributte the accusations to the accuser in a style that was inspired by the advice ypou originally offered me on this page some time ago. GrahamN 14:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Here's another suggestion: split of the accusations of apartheid into a separate article called apartheid in the Middle East or something. This will leave apartheid as a general discussion with one clear example (i.e., South Africa). --Ed Poor

I don't agree with that. The paragraph was under the sub-heading "Alleged apartheid in Israel". I don't see any reason to start a new article. GrahamN 14:38 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

I rewrote the first part of the paragraph and added it to Zionism; it seemed to fit better there than here. Would you like to take a look at it? --Ed Poor

Ed, I find the Zionism article daunting. It is highly partial, and it makes me angry to read it, so any contributions I make are unlikely to be in NPoV. I think your modified version of the sentence fits well there, however. Thank you. It is also relevant to this article, though. GrahamN 15:02 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Apartheid in Arab nations

'Paragraph moved from main article:

Some advocates seek to apply the UN convention on Apartheid to Arab nations, saying that their treatment of Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims violates it. Some Arab Muslim nations, notably Saudi Arabia, discriminates against non-Christians, and holds that it is legal to execute Saudi Arabian citizens if they convert to Christianity. Non-Muslims in many Arab nations have fewer civil rights that blacks did in pre-Mandela South Africa.

RK, I think threr may be something in this, although I've never heard it put quite like that. Personally I'm no fan of most Arab governments. I reproduce below Ed Poor's advice to me when I first introduced the allegations of apartheid in Israel to the article:

If there is large enough group of people (e.g., Arabs in general or a specific Arab group or leader) who thinks Israel is guilty of apartheid, please mention this in the article. Suppose, for example that Mustapha Muhammed (to pick a name out of thin air) believes that Israel discriminates against Palestinians by not letting them form labor unions. Simply add that to the article. I would say something like:

The UN definition of "apartheid" includes preventing an ethnic group from forming a labor union. Mustapha Muhammad, deputy commissioner of labor for the Palestinian Authority says that Israel is preventing Arabs in the West Bank from forming labor unions. They abolished the Hamas Haberdashers and Rug-Weavers local 319 in Jenin this summer.

Okay?

If you were to do some research, as I have done on Israel, and you were to cite particular organisations who allege that Arab states are guilty of apartheid then this would be a very welcome and useful addition to this article. GrahamN 14:53 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Actually, I have to agree with Graham on this one (although I am a bit embarassed at my choice of "names" in the cited hypothetical examples). Moreover, I think the problem is trying to pin the charge of "apartheid" on the countries in question. I ask you both, wouldn't it be better to agree on what the various countries actually have done? After that, we can more easily add the comments from Israelis and Arab nationalists... --Ed Poor

Re: Arab governments... This is the best I could find: Argument that lebanon is an apartheid state and argument that taliban is gender apartheid. I could not find any other arguments. Where does that come from, RK? Who has accused Arab governments of apartheid? (Not saying they haven't, just I've never seen it.) DanKeshet

The text I restored to the article is necessarily bland. Please regard it as an incomplete framework: it needs fleshing out. Well, I got to move on. Try not to kill each other overnight, okay? --Ed Poor

Enchanter, Hi. I notice you have moved the UN definition of apartheid down to after the example of South Africa. I just found this, under Wikipedia:Define and describe:

One of Wikipedia's rules to consider: Whenever a topic is amenable to definition, the article should begin with a conceptually sound definition and then proceed with a description.

Since a great many distinguished people from many nations put a great deal of thought into the United Nations definition of apartheid, and agreed it at a meeting of the General Assembly, I would have thought that the definition was conceptually sound, and deserved its place at the head of the article. What was your reason for moving it? GrahamN 15:22 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Graham - I moved it because 1) the paragraph doesn't actually give the definition of the term, it just talks about it and 2) the UN definition was mainly relevant for the bit at the end talking about other groups to try to apply the definition to other conflicts. So I thought it was better structured with the paragraph moved later and the stuff about South Africa given top billing. I don't feel strongly about it, feel free to move it back if you prefer! Enchanter 15:32 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

(1) I hadn't put in the full text of the UN definition because I was worried about copyright infringement. However, after a short discussion at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights, I'm pretty sure there is no problem, so I've pasted it in. I'm having trouble with the layout, though. If anybody thinks they can make it look neater, please do so. (2) A good point, but it seems odd to have a definition half way though an article, and on balance I prefer it at the top, so since you don't feel strongly I've moved it back up. GrahamN 19:24 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

I am having trouble understanding the UN definition of apartheid, in particular what seems to be a key phrase limiting its scope: racial group of persons. Are Jews and Arabs different races? Are Jews and Germans (or Aryans) different races? (I thought being Jewish was more a matter of religious heritage than race heredity.) --Ed Poor

First of all, being a Jew is not a racial group. Any human being can be (or become) a Jew, as opposed to the the racial theory, in which a person's belonging to a certain race is not up to change. In my recollection, the Israeli law does not mention the concept of race anyhow (except for the above-mentioned paragraph out of Declaration of Independence that reads "The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex".

On a more personal note, I find this regretful that the term "racism" is used specifically against Israel because it conveys a very negative image. But accusing Israel of racism is so much easier than accusing it in, say, behaving in a juvenile fashion, that no hater with enough self-esteem would avoid jumping on the bandwagon. --Uri

Anybody can become a Jew by converting to Judaism. Fine. But according to Israel's Law of Return (1950), anybody with Jewish ancestry is also a Jew, by "ethnic affiliation". So there is racial dimension to Jewishness as well as a religious one. How else could there be such a thing as a secular Jew? The series of amendments to the Law of Return, refining the definitions of who is a Jew and who isn't, are to my mind reminiscent of the absurdities of the South African Population Registration Act (1950). 1950 was clearly a vintage year for apartheid laws around the world. GrahamN 20:57 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

There is an ethnical dimension to being a Jew, exactly like there's an ethnical dimension to being a German or a British.

This has a crucial bearing on the applicability of the UN definition. If Jews are a distinct "race", then the establishment of ghettos by the Nazis was apartheid. If they were the same race as their Nazi oppressors, then what the Nazis did (while just as ethically wrong) was not technically apartheid. (Oh, we might call it religious apartheid, but the UN definition seems designed to exclude this meaning.) --Ed Poor

The point here is: the Blacks in South Africa and Jews in Nazi Germany were declared a separate, inferior, race in legislation. Israel, on the other hand, has never declared its Arab citizens as distinct or inferior. The fact that Israel has developed a very negative relationship with Palestinian Arabs (whose plight has roots deep in the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and can only be twisted into being "racism" by the way of folly) in my opinion, should not anyhow negate the fact that Israel has a fairly decent relationship with most Israeli Arabs or Druze or Bedouins, who are the same people. --Uri

The fact that you say Israel has a fairly decent relationship with most Israeli Arabs suggests to me that you don't consider Israeli Arabs to be "proper" Israelis, because they aren't Jews - they aren't the same ethnic classification as you. No doubt even at the height of the Apartheid era in RSA, South Africa had a fairly decent relationship with most "Natives". GrahamN 20:57 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

Hmmm, are you accusing me of racism? Because if you do, it applies to you equally. Let me remind you that the topic of the discussion was whether Israel (as a state) has a particular problem with Israeli Arabs. Note that nowhere I spoke about "proper" Israelis. Yes, Israeli public is divided and there are very complex systems of de-facto and de-jure relationships between them as well as the governmental structures. There's a certain relationship between these structures and the Israeli-Arab sector (exactly as there is an almost equally complex one with the religious sector). And yes, the relationship is fairly good because the Arabs have full citizen rights, and they enjoy them too.

If Jews and Arabs are the same race (i.e., Semitic people), then no matter what a government Jewish or Arabic does to segregate or discriminate it again would not technically be apartheid by the UN definition. Help me out here: what is the applicability of the UN definitions of "apartheid", "genocide" and "crimes against humanity"? --Ed Poor

Well, the "innocent till proven guilty" principle could be used (but then it's next to useless in international questions such as this one). We could use the strict, formal definitions (but then we would also have to treat equally accusations against all parties - even those that for some reasons are not universally considered guilty - e.g. the Lithuanians restricting the Lithuanian Russians in the last decade could probably be classified as ethnic cleansing). We could base upon the U.N.'s (ICC's) decisions (but they fluctuate and often produce curious artifacts, such as the U.S. being the sole nations declared to be guilty of terrorism). We could link to propaganda sites of both sides (such as LAW), if available (I find this opportunity only slightly better than the rest). Or we could have to specialists in international law, one for each side, cooperating to write an article. But I should probably dream on. --Uri

In what way do these definitions apply (or not) to the Middle East? --Ed Poor

I wonder if you consider this to be relevant to this question? Article I of The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965) contains this passage (my emphasis):

In this Convention, the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

It seems clear to me that the Law of Return and the various other Israeli laws that give preferential treatment to Jewish people over others constitute racial discrimination under this definition. And it seems logical to me to deduce that for the purposes of the Convention on Apartheid, no distinction should be made between "racial groups" and "national or ethnic" groups. (What distinction could that possibly be, anyway? "Race" is surely a discredited notion?). The Palestinian people and the Jewish people therefore constitute different "national or ethnic" groups, which according to the above definition are no different from "racial groups"? Or do you think I am stretching a point? GrahamN 20:57 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

I think you are stretching a point. To what "other Israeli laws" do you specifically refer? Most modern views do not considere immigration policy as something capable of being or not being racist. I don't hear people classifying modern-day Germany, or Morocco or the United States of the 1920s (in the field of immigration policies) as racist. What do you base upon? --Uri

I don't know if you're stretching the point. Was the UN's apartheid definition crafted in such a way that Arabs and Jews are different "races"? If so, let's attribute this to a source and put it into this article (or Israel and apartheid) -- whichever applies. --Ed Poor

I believe that the question of defining "race" insofar as the question of Apartheid is concerned is a red-herring. South Africa used the language of "race" to justify certain practices. Their use of the word "race" was not by any stretch of the imagination scientific. I think the real question is, do we define apartheid narrowly or broadly? Since apartheid is an Afrikaaner word, one can define it narrowly and simply say, it is unique to S. Africa.

For the sake of drawing comparisons outside of S. Africa, one must develop a more general definition. I myself would define it as an ideology that claims to valorize difference (whether cultural, ethnic, racial, or whatever), but that uses this ideology to legitimize practices through which one group exploits and opresses another.

I think some such general definition is important because Apartheid bears similarities to practices in other countries.

But one can make all sorts of comparisons, with different results. Apartheid may be similar to the placing of Jews in Ghettos under Nazi rule. To compare S. African Apartheid with Naziism would be to emphasize certain similarities between S. Africa and Nazi Germany, and racism would be one of those similarities. But there are differences, important differences, between the Nazis and the former SA regime. You can also compare Apartheid to the US policy towards Native Americans in the post Civil War era. Certainly, US attitudes were racist, but was that all that was going on? I think the real similarity between the US and SA was a policy towards indigenous people. Even there, there was a real difference between apartheid (which was mostly about the control of labor) and US Native American reservations (which was mostly about the control of land). Or you can compare apartheid to Jim Crow -- here, the policy was not directed towards indigenous people but to another group of non-Native Americans -- but different (collectively) from White settlers in that the bulk of them were brought over forcibly as slaves. Here, American apartheid functioned (like Slavery or SA Apartheid) to control labor.

My point is that making comparisons is valuable not because we claim an identity, but because we highlight similar forces and also important locally variable differences.

As is the case with the US and Native Americans, what Israeli policies have had in common with apartheid is that they are policies directed towards controling indigenous people. Whether these forms of control are legitimized by, or expressed in terms of, "race" is in my opinion secondary (both to SA and Israel).

I think the article would be much more useful if it

1) analyzed the South African institution of Apartheid as a strategy used by a minority group to control indigenous people through some notion of cultural/ethnic/racial difference.

2) placed this analysis in the context of much more general global processes in the 19th century, involving on the one hand the creation of new settler-states (including every country in the Americas), and the rise of nationalist and racial ideologies at the same time.

3) compared and contrasted "apartheid" in S.A. to similar (but of course also different) policies in other countries in the 19th and 20th centuries, to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of settler-states, but also of the range of variation among them. Slrubenstein

This sounds like a terrific idea, but it is beyond my field of expertise, personally. It will require an academic historian's input. Maybe we could add stubby bits to the article, providing the structure you recommend, and requesting such input? GrahamN 20:57 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

I am glad you find this constructive! Alas, I am not an expert either -- I have done a little research, and when I have more time perhaps I can add some stuff. But my sense is that there are already a fair number of "facts" available and it is more a matter of organizing them and framing them in a more useful way... Slrubenstein

On reflection, your proposal would form the skeleton of an excellent article on Settler states, but "Apartheid" is a specific historical and legal subject on its own. GrahamN 12:25 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

Fair enough -- but then any section on "Apartheid in Israel" would belong in that article, not here (of course, an article specifically on Israeli policy towards Arab-owned or occupied land wouldn't be a bad idea either), Slrubenstein

I don't see why you say "'Apartheid in Israel' would belong in that article". This is an article on Apartheid, so it belongs here, in my opinion. GrahamN 13:35 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

Then I do not understand your penultimate comment. Either we treat Apartheid specifically, or generally. If you want to treat it generally, and include Israel (as well as American Indian Reservations and the Jim Crow South) -- fine. But then you need the more general framework of settler states in the Apartheid article. If you want to treat Apartheid specifically, then you would have an article on South Africa, period. Apartheid is an Afrikaner word; it reflects a S. African ideology used to justify specific practices encoded in the 1911 Mines and Work act, the 1913 Natives Land Act, the pass laws, and the rise of the Nationalist Party in 1948. Israel had nothing to do with these S. African policies. Also, I doubt that the S. African government had any direct influence over Israeli law. Israeli policies have their own history, and their own legal and ideological basis (some of which, by the way, comes from Ottoman law -- quite removed from S. Africa!)

I am NOT denying some similarities. I just think that any article that wants to compare two (or more) different countries under the same framework must do do so by developing the comparative framework adequately. This was the thrust of my earlier suggestion. I would have no objection to developing an "Apartheid" article along such broad lines. But you suggested that such a framework would be better developed in a different article. Okay, fine by me too -- but that then would be the appropriate article for comparing and contrasting specific case-studies, including the US, S. Africa, Israel, Canada, Australia, and at least a few Latin American countries as well (e.g. the Hacienda system). Slrubenstein

It is not a question of comparing South Africa with Israel for academic interest. The word "apartheid" has a definition in international law. Israel stands accused of it, so those accusations are relevant to the concept of "apartheid", and therefore relevant to this article. That seems unarguable to me. Where is the flaw in my reasoning? GrahamN 14:02 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

I guess my biggest objection is that the article needs to distinguish more clearly between, and provide the context, for "Apartheid" as it developed in one country, and "apartheid" as it took on meaning in the international community.

But to answer your question specifically, well, one flaw is that "international law" (like it or not) does not carry much weight in the world. I am not objecting to citing the UN Resolution, however (although one would have to include some more discussion of its weight as international law. How good a law is depends on how willing people are to comply with it, and enforce it, and punish violators -- and not all "international law" has the same weight. I just do not think quoting a UN resolution and calling it "law" is in and of itself meaningful, you need to add more discussion). But my real point is this: What was the context in which the UN chose to define "apartheid" so generally? Did they intend to apply it to Israel? Did they intend to apply it to the US? Laws are made in political contexts. I am not questioning whether the law is good or not, I am saying that an encyclopedia need sto explain more of this context.

It is my belief that the history of European colonialism, and the rise of settler-states, is the context that makes such a general notion of "apartheid" conceivable, useful, and perhaps even necessary. Without providing an analysis of this discussion, I think the article is very weak. Slrubenstein

The UN originally sought to apply the definition to South Africa. It was used as the basis for international sanctions against the regime there. However, it was also intended to stand permanently in the body of international law so that it could be used against any other state that might adopt similarly objectionable policies in the future. Otherwise it need not have been phrased in such general terms. I agree with the points that you make about the reality of the acceptance of the rule of international law, but I still think the allegations belong in this article. Maybe the article should be split back into two sections, a historical part about South Africa, and another part about apartheid in international law. I admit to deliberately trying to remove this distinction, but I can see now that this was an attempt to further my own PoV on the subject, and I shouldn't have done it. A discussion about the context of the introduction of the UN Convention would be good here, and I will try to draft something. But I think discussions of the wider context of the nature of colonialism, while being very interesting and useful, belong in a separate article: settler states, colonialism, or somewhere. GrahamN 14:38 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

Okay. But I think there is a bit more you (or others) can do to further NPOV. One thing is to be much more precise about the standing of the UN resolution in International Law, and of the various allegations/charges -- I mean, name the people who have filled charges before a specific court, provide the date, and the name of the court. Another thing is to provide similar information concerning charges outside of the Middle East. After all, this is an article on Apartheid, not the Middle East. The tail should not wag the dog. An article in the Israel/Palestine conflict should describe all the different dimensions of that conflict, including charges of Apartheid. Conversely, an article on Apartheid (conceived more generally than just SA) should not single out one example of the application of the UN resolution to one or two parties; it should catalogue all instances and provide as much information as possible. Were the charges dismissed? What is the standing before the court? Slrubenstein

I'm planning to move the whole Israel thing (with talk) to Israel and apartheid. This is without prejudice to the issue, which I doubt will ever be settled. Clearly there is a side _comparing_ Israel's treatment of Arab Palestinians to apartheid.

As I have explained, I am indifferent as to whether this stuff is in this article or in another, as long as it is treated appropriately. But I think you miss the point Ed when you say "which I doubt will ever be settled." GrahamN has pointed out that there is a UN resolution defining Apartheid in international law. The issue is not whether he or I or you believe that Israel practices Apartheid; the issue is what is the history of this peice of international law? What court or courts have jurisdiction over it? Which countries have been brought before such (a) court(s)? When and by whom? What was the outcome? These are matters of fact which can be settled with a little bit of research, and which should constitute the bulk of the article. Slrubenstein

Sounds like spawning a new article wouldn't hurt. Should I make apartheid in the Middle East, or just Israel and apartheid and Islam and apartheid? --Ed Poor

I would suggest something like apartheid in international law, and cover the history of the UN resolution, why it was made (i.e. in order to coordinate international sanctions and pressure on South Africa), and document attempts to apply it to other countries, in the way that certain Arab governments have sought to apply the resolution to Israel. That would at also have the benefit of focussing this article on South Africa. The South African system is overwhelmingly what people mean by Apartheid.

Where Apartheid is not made as a formal accusation by a government or similar, but is just used as an insult (such as any old Arab group saying Israel is guilty Apartheid, or such and such an Israeli saying the Syrians are guilty of Apartheid), I don't think its worth a mention. They call each other lots of things, and we don't want to have an article for each and every nasty insult they throw at each other! Enchanter 11:14 Sep 3, 2002 (PDT)

This is all nonsense. One person's "nasty insult" is another person's reasoned argument. "Apartheid" is an issue of international law, and this is an article about apartheid, so it belongs here. I shall restore the UN bit to this article, but under a heading "Apartheid in International Law", with a short preamble giving it some context. I will also add a brief, sourced, NPoV description of the accusations against Israel, and I will keep the report of the Israeli counter-argument. If anybody knows of any coherent, sourced accusations of apartheid against any other state, then please enter that too. GrahamN 13:19 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)