Thanks for this perspective

I was not aware that Apartheid South Africa had Black African Judges, entrepreneurs, doctors, academics, models, army officers, business people, women academics. Or is Bassam Dally living in a parallel universe in which everyone else is always to blame, where Palestinians dont send a hail of bombs from land that was returned to them for productive use, don't send suicide bombers, dont teach their children to hate and kill Jews. All blame, no responsibility, preciousl little creativity except in ... ummm... tunnelling ... holding grudges... There we have it, folks.... the Palestinian tragedy.

Let's stick to fact. Israel is not Apartheid. This term refers to a policy of racial segregation practised in South Africa. Non-whites were prohibited from running businesses in without permits; They had separate beaches, buses, schools, drinking fountains, restrooms and received inferior education, medical care and other services; They could not vote or become citizens. Jews are the majority in Israel but the non-Jewish minority (Arab, Christians, Bedouin, Druze, Baha'i) enjoy citizenship with voting rights. It is illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race. Arabs have served in senior government positions and an Arab currently serves on the Supreme Court. Israeli Arabs have their own political parties and are also members of the major Israeli political parties.


The status of Palestinians in the territories is different as many refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist; by contrast, non-whites never sought the destruction of South Africa, only of apartheid. Restrictions there were racially motivated but Israel's limts in the territories such as checkpoints and the security fence were forced by Palestinian terrorism.


Palestinians work in Israel, receive similar pay to the Jews and are allowed to attend schools and universities. 98% in the territories are governed by the rules of the Palestinian Authority, which amazingly does not permit its own residents with freedoms of speech, religion, assembly or other rights taken for granted by Westerners.

I laugh when a Muslim whines about how Muslims are being treated by Jews, when he is a member of a religion which who's own founding prophet was a genocidal ethnic cleanser of Jews, and Muslims have been ethnically cleansing Jews (and everyone else) from lands conquered by force by Islam for centuries.

Where are all the Jews in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, or Algeria, Bassem?

The Jews have just as much right to make life unpleasant for their enemies who live among them in their own country, as Muslims have been doing to everyone who is not a Muslim, in the lands conquered by Islam.

Your little speech about apartheid may impress the ignorant who are too dumb to figure out that the Arabs are hardly innocent little victims who are oppressed by nasty Israel, but it won't work with me. You Arabs had plenty of opportunity to come to terms with Israel since it's inception and you have always resorted to demanding its total extermination. Well, the Jews aren't marching meekly into gas chambers anymore, Bassam. They are armed and they have a Masada complex. Leave them alone and try and reform your stupid religion which is holding back the social and economic development of the whole Muslim world.

It is incredible that such a tiny nation as Israel, which does not posses any natural resources at all, can show up the entire Muslim world as to how incompetent you all are.

We don't want your "refugees" either. Reform your religion and grow up.

If everything remains as is, and the Palestinians can exercise some patience, rather than how many rockets they can fire on non combatant civilians? They will outnumber Jews as the majority of voters in around a decade?
And given that is so, decide what Israel does next.
That said, if peace is the real goal, how does including a terrorist organisation Hamas aid that?
Perhaps a little reasoned self interest, would allow Israeli Arabs to prevent other Palestinians, from expunging Israel from the face of the earth.
And or, as the new ruling elite, obliging Israel's military, from acting almost as if, they were the new SS troopers in the Middle East.
One always catches many more flies with a teaspoon full of honey, that a whole barrel full of vinegar!
Perhaps a truth and reconciliation commission is the way forward.
I mean, it almost alone, allowed a previously apartheid South Africa, to bury generational conflict, and just get on improving the lot of the most disadvantaged!
Rhrosty.

Mr Dally, teach your children this : http://www.qurantoday.com/fatihah.htm. Have everyone repeat it five times a day : http://markdurie.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/greatest-recitation-of-surat-al-fatiha.html. Then write your 'Peace not apartheid' article. Then Mr Dally, do not be surprised if you are not taken seriously.

Racism is simply another form of stupidity. In South Africa many people died fighting apartheid & here they're trying to introduce it.
Then you have the racists who simply cannot other people alone with their constant bleating of racism. How can we ever have peace when the racists don't let up ? The racists need to ask themselves if their feigning victim is really worth it. But then again, anything to amuse a sick mind. Ain't that right do-gooders ?

The term apartheid does not refer only to the policy of racial segregation practised in South Africa. In international law, the crime of apartheid includes “similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa”, Note the word “similar” not “identical”.

Israeli apartheid differs from the apartheid once practiced in South Africa just as democracy in Australia is not identical to American democracy. However when one continues reading the International convention on the Crime of Apartheid, and in particular, Article 2, the relevance to Israel becomes very clear.

I have just returned from a visit to Israel and the difference in the living conditions of Jewish Israelis and the Palestinian citizens of Israel could not have been more stark.

I visited the village of Al Arakib in the Negev, which has been demolished countless times in an attempt to force the traditional owners off their land (see the SBS programme “Israel’s Mabo” http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601031/n/Israel-s-Mabo .

We saw the contrast between an unrecognised village inhabited by Palestinian citizens of Israel, forbidden to access the electricity grid or town water, with their roads unpaved and without a school for their children. Across the road, and only a few hundred metres away was a modern village built for Jewish citizens of the same country. As he poured water from a jerry-can to make tea for us guests, our host remarked: “Welcome to 21st century Israel.

Professor Dally's article is measured and constructive. Not so the tone of the negative comments posted. If anything destroys the state of Israel, it will be the extremism of her leaders and supporters who want not peace but an impossible final solution to the Palestinian presence on Palestinian land. dafydd

In 2009, The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) released a study confirming Israel policies conform to those of apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The practices exhibit the three 'pillars' of apartheid. The first being laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential status and benefits to Jews over non-Jews. The second is the policy fragment the Palestinian territory ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews enjoy freedom of movement. The third is Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedoms.

In reality, two people live on the land and only one government controls the lives of everyone that lives on it, and that is the Israeli government.

Regrettably, comments supporting Israel often resort religious and biblical narratives, instead of addressing Israel's confronting realities and professor Dally's balanced perspective.

Abbas,

<<The practices exhibit the three 'pillars' of apartheid. The first being laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential status and benefits to Jews over non-Jews. The second is the policy fragment the Palestinian territory ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews enjoy freedom of movement. The third is Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedoms.>>

Maybe. And if you removed the word "Jews" and inserted in its place "Muslims". You would accurately describe most majority Muslim societies west of Pakistan.

Funny you didn't pick-up on that,ay?

International law defines the crime of apartheid as crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."

It specifies several acts of apartheid including "murder of members of a racial group", "infringement of their freedom or dignity", "subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" and "denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work... the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence".

This is an exact description of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians living under occupation. Instead of abusing Professor Dally for his commentary, Israel's apologists should consider its substance.

Thanks for the article Mr Dally. You've indicated quite clearly that Israel is an apartheid state already, and I agree that it will take a long time to bring justice to the Palestinians, (in particular the refugees whom Zionist thugs terrorised out of their homes in the mid 1940's, and their descendants.) Also agree that BDS seems the best long term strategy to pursue.

Regarding the lack of support from leaders of the major Australian political parties: I suspect much of that is due to their trying to please or not upset powerful US politicians. WikiLeaks showed how Julia Gillard, while PM, and others of her ilk, (including leading bureaucrats) have been falling over backwards trying to appear as pro-US / pro-Zionist as possible. I'm certain that Australians as a whole are not so biased despite our shared dominance of anglo-celtic culture, judging by comments I hear and see from acquaintances and on general political comment websites.

Onya, SPQR.

Already, the negativity and assumptions of several commenters in the comments section have begun to overflow, betraying the true sentiments of their expression: an organised anti-Palestinian and anti-truth thrust, based on learnt behaviour and a blind belief in Zionist propaganda.
One commenter assumes the author is just another Moslem complaining about the treatment of other Moslems: yet Bassam Dally is not a Moslem — not that that has anything to do with the truth of what he has written. Nor are all Palestinians Moslems (again, irrelevant to the argument).
Others decry the Palestinians’ method of fighting back: the Palestinians have every right to fight back against the Israeli occupation and repression of their human rights and the theft of their land and livelihood, just as the besieged Jewish freedom fighters of the Warsaw ghetto uprising had every right to fight back against the Nazis who wanted to destroy them. Self defence is the inalienable right of every repressed people in the world.
Finally, the charge that Israel is creating an apartheid state is more true now than ever before. In Nablus, a Palestinian city that is being overtaken by Jewish “settlers”, roads have been built a mere metre or so apart that are separated by a low fence or line markings, but which are designated for separate use: Palestinians are not permitted on roads that are designated for Jews only. Is that not apartheid? Former US President Jimmy Carter said that Israel has already established an apartheid regime. European diplomats have said as much, and so did Secretary of State John Kerry two or so weeks ago. If Israel persists in its occupation and bit by bit annexation of Palestinian land, the only way it can survive as a “Jewish state” will be to have apartheid: one law for the Palestinians and one for Jewish Israelis. Apartheid is not simply a black versus white issue. Apartheid is the differential treatment of two peoples, rendering one people as unequal and condemning them to an eternal subjugation.

Yeah, Butinsky. So where are all the Jews in the Arab lands? You know, and I know, that they have been ethnically cleansed. I don't see anything wrong with the Jews doing to the Arabs, what the Arabs have doing to the Jews for 1600 years.

Prussia has always been called "the heart of Germany." It is now part of Poland because the Soviets annexed it after WW 2 and kept some of it themselves, and gave the rest to Poland. Why aren't the Germans demanding the return of "German" land? Because the Germans want peace.

Why don't the Arabs grow up and leave the Israelis alone? Because they want war. They need an enemy to redirect the hatred of their own peoples so that they will ignore the miserable condition that their stupid Islamic culture has bequeathed them. The last thing the Arab leaders want is peace with Israel.

Ah, Lego. So typical, where do I begin? "Where are all the Israelis in Arab lands?" They have gone to Israel, after having answered the call of the "Jewish homeland" to "return". As for any who were expelled, they were victims of Israel's own policies. Israel killed and exiled Palestinians: why would the Arab nations not send away their Jewish citizens in retribution? After all, the Jews were considered citizens of their new, exclusively Jewish State, to which they had been called (and are still being called). They want to have their cake and eat it too. Jews in the Arab and other Muslim or majority Muslim nations were treated well. No mass murders, no ethnic cleansing. They had been safe in these nations when Europe was persecuting them during successive waves of anti-Semitism. When the German Nazis and their Vichy French collaborators tried to get the king of Morocco to hand over the many Jews who had lived there since the 15th century, after having been exiled by the Catholic monarchs of Spain, he said: "There are no Jews here, only Moroccan citizens". Not a single Jew was handed over to the Nazis. To this day, the Jewish cemeteries of Morocco are lovingly and devoutly tended by Moroccan Muslims – Arabs – who lived in peace and friendship with the Jews for centuries. It is Israel that does not want peace: it wants expansion and "living space". Israel will have peace when it negotiates its borders, stops land theft and house demolitions, stops settlement expansion and negotiates in good faith.
Spare us your "victim" mentality, your historical revisionism and your denial of facts.

By the way, Lego. I recommend that you study some history to see how the Jews over the centuries were most successful in Arab and other Muslim nations but without the pogroms they had suffered at the hands of European nations and imperial regimes. Read about how they were good at trade and even government service in the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century on, in the Maghreb in North Africa since the 1480s and in Iraq and Iran until the modern days. Most importantly, they were left unhindered and were mostly encouraged in these lands, and were not persecuted. Their talents and abilities were recognised and valued, and their religion was protected. As for your statements and exhortations that the Jews can do to their enemies in Israel what the Arabs did to them in their lands, well, that says a lot about who you are and what you believe in. It shows you do not want peace for anyone else. Pity.

Israel is a racist white European colony in an Arab country. Desmond Tutu says Israel is an Apartheid country, he must know what’s he’s talking about as he has spent all his life fighting apartheid!! Israel daily persecutes Palestinians in the occupied territories. It has created Bantustans encircled by the wall of shame. It pretends the Palestinians are terrorists when they are Freedom fighters fighting to free their country from occupation just as the freedom fighters during the Second World War fought Nazi occupation. In the occupied territories there are roads & facilities for Jewish terrorists settlers while Palestinians have to go through humiliating road blocks. Gaza is a huge ghetto similar to the ones under Nazi occupation. Israel kills innocent Palestinian women & children with impunity as during the bombing of Gaza which is akin to Guernica. Why does not Israel go back to pre-1967 borders which will produce instant peace & recognition by all Arab countries instead of occupying & terrorising the West Bank & starving Palestinians in Gaza to death?

It doesn't matter what you call it.

The fact is that the Palestinian people have slowly, systematically and violently, had their country stolen from them over the last century.

The fact is that the Palestinian people that have not fled, that are still trying to live in the remants of what was once their country, are being systematically and violently oppressed. They have been the target of ethnic cleansing, being carried out with the sole purpose of exterminating the remaining Palestinian people in order to complete the theft of their country by the ideologically driven Zionists.

The fact is that the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians exactly what the Nazis tried to do to many groups in Europe during WWII, including the Jewish peoples for whom Europe was their home.

I cant believe the fanatical Zionist frenzy that many people have been expressing in response to this article.

This is the problem.

Maybe if the Zionist regime stopped using tanks and jet bombers to mercilessly attack the remant refuges of Palestine people, maybe if the Zionist regime stopped the blockade of food and humanitarian supplies, maybe if the Zionist regime desisted in the continual expansion of territory under it's occupation, then the Palestinians would not be inclined to fight back with the only means available to them.

If the Zionists are truly interested in finding a peacful solution to this festering issue, then why do they not abide by the many UN resolutions that have been passed, and supported by the overwhelming majority of members tates.

Why is it that even now the USA has come out saying peace is not possible if the Zionists continue to steal even more land.

Peace will only be possible when the Zionists accept they have wronged the Palestinian people, are truly contrite for their criminal actions, are sincerely prepared to take steps to repair the damage they have wrought against the Palestinian people and the international community.

Hi Butinsky.

Your post infers that both the Arabs and the Israelis are behaving in exactly the same way towards the minorities they despise within their own borders. I agree. The Arabs have ethnically cleansed the Jews from within their God given territories, and forced them to flee to Israel (or somewhere else). And the Israelis are doing their best to ethnically cleanse the Arabs within what they regard as their own God given territory.

I don't buy your claim that Jews lived in Edenic peace with Arabs and Muslims prior to 1945. They may have been valued for their intelligence and productivity, but Muslims have never been noted for their tolerance of minorities. Under Sharia Law, they may have had some protection and they may not have been openly persecuted as they were in Europe, provided that they accepted second class citizenship status and paid the Jizya tax. Hitler himself received a delegation of Muslim mufti's prior to WW2 who praised his efforts to eradicate the Jews.

And "what I believe in" Butinsky, is that everybody is racist. Racism is fundamentally intergroup hostility between competing groups, and you are never gong to prevent that. The reason why people like yourself now despise the Jews is because the Jews, as the most racially persecuted people on the planet, should be totally against racism and the most ardent supporters of Saving the world Through Destroying Racism. You are utterly aghast that the Jews are just like everybody else and that they can put their own self interest above your cherished ideology.

You expected so much more from the Jews. Their rejection of your childish ideology has caused you to switch sides from the Jewish racists to the Arab/Muslim racists. It says a lot about yourself, if you have this child like faith that we can end all war by having everybody just hold hands and sing "Kumbaya.

Dear Cleretlepep

Your premise that white people should not live in "Arab" lands is a racist premise. And Hitler would strongly disagree with you on your premise that Jews are "white" anyway.