According to a publicity poster, Mensch will be a “guest speaker” on a day aimed especially at students.

The attendance of a Member of Parliament at such an event is troubling, given StandWithUs’ track record of promoting extreme positions and working with disturbing allies.

The UK chair of StandWithUs disputes the international legal consensus that Settlements in the Occupied West Bank are illegal.

A 2009 investigation into StandWithUs’ donors accused the group of having “a web of funders who support organisations that have been accused of anti-Muslim propaganda and encouraging a militant Israeli and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East”.

The group’s activists have also been accused of intimidating Palestine solidarity activists in the past.

A StandWithUs event of the same name happening in the US this month features Itamar Marcus, an Israeli settler who features in Islamophobic film ‘Obsession’.

Here in the UK, StandWithUs is working with religious fundamentalists, sending their national coordinator to speak at a conference promoted by those who believe that God will “curse those who curse Israel”.

Israel’s defenders are free to choose the allies they want – but should an MP be giving them support?

Without unpacking this formulation’s assumptions, there is something missing here – the fact that the Israeli government itself is deliberately ‘politicising art’ in order to distract from the occupation.

In May this year, leading Israeli chef Michael Katz told Australian media:

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is trying to improve Israel’s image to the world. The government decided, through culture, to start improving Israel’s image. They started sending artists, singers, painters, filmmakers and then the idea came of sending chefs.

The use of culture is just one element in a long-standing propaganda effort by Israel and its supporters to ‘rebrand’ a state increasingly associated with human rights abuses.

In 2008, for example, London was identified as one of the cities to be targeted for initiatives like “organizing film festivals, or food and wine festivals featuring Israel-made products”.

Just two months after Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2009 provoked international outrage, Israel’s Foreign Ministry received new funds to “improve Israel’s image through cultural and information diplomacy”.

Their then-deputy director general for cultural affairs said:

We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theatre companies, exhibits. This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.

This then is a transparent effort to “‘rebrand’ Israel as a fount of ‘creative energy’”, a desire by the Israeli government to – in the words of a Jewish Telegraph Agency article – “tell the Western world, ‘Hey, we’re just like you.’”

It turns out that Israel and its advocates have no grounds for criticising the ‘politicisation’ of art.

In response, there has been pushback, in the name of combating ‘hate speech’ and antisemitism, led by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS).

One of the main tools UJS has been using is a draft “working definition” of antisemitism produced in 2005 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, now the FRA). This has been adopted by the NUS and pushed on a number of individual campuses.

Back in 2005, European Jews for a Just Peace described the working definition as “highly politicised”, not surprising when you consider the final draft was shaped by “representatives of the American Jewish Committee and European Jewish Congress”, two highly pro-Israel lobby groups.

Now the definition is looking increasingly discredited. On Monday, the Universities and College Union (UCU) voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion that criticises how the working definition “is being used to silence debate about Israel and Palestine on campus”.

But the “working definition” of antisemitism used by UJS is not only being used to attack Palestine solidarity on campus, it is not fit for purpose as a way to define and fight antisemitism.

FRA / EUMC now say “initial feedback” on the working definition highlighted “several issues that impacted on [its] effectiveness”. Even the Community Security Trust (CST) doesn’t seem to think much of it: it is not cited once in either “Definitions of Antisemitic Incidents” or the “Antisemitic Discourse Report for 2009“.

Context
Under the guise of combating ‘hate speech’, there has been a broader push to introduce “guidelines” for external speakers. Soon after the UJS lobby day of Parliament in February, MP Glenda Jackson revealed some students “argued that everyone speaking on campus should have their speech vetted”.

18 months ago, UJS Campaigns Director Carly McKenzie attended a conference organised by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on ‘combating antisemitism’, participating in a working group aimed at fighting the “evil” of Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS). Participants discussed campus advocacy, and putting in place “legislative prohibitions vs. BDS”.

UJS also helped organise a propaganda tour of Israeli students prepared by “Foreign Ministry professionals”, and have fostered links with right-wing Israel lobby group StandWithUs (though strangely refused to confirm the nature of the relationship).

Conflation
This deliberate and dangerous conflation of pro-Israel propaganda and fighting antisemitism stems from UJS’ core aims and identity. It is an “Executive Union” in the World Union of Jewish Students, one of whose aims is “to promote Zionism”.

The ‘About us’ on the UJS website only mentions Israel in passing, but they weren’t always so shy. Just a few years ago, one of UJS’ “Values/Guiding Principles” was: “To promote commitment to and the support of the State of Israel.”

Yet despite these efforts, the movement for Palestinian equal rights is inspiring and engaging students across the country who, despite Orwellian cries of ‘hate speech’, understand that theirs is a profoundly anti-racist struggle.

What if the junior coalition partner in the British government had campaigned for the election by challenging the national loyalty of ethnic minorities?

Imagine if, by law, 40 percent of UK towns screened potential residents to see if they fit the community’s ‘social and cultural character’. And what if an MP behind this law said: “every Christian town needs at least one Muslim. What would happen if my refrigerator stopped working on a Sunday?”

Wouldn’t there be an outcry if the head of a town council in England urged more white people to move to the area, so that the black population won’t “rear their heads” – to no particular great commotion.

And what about the Minister for Housing and Local Government declared it “a national duty to prevent the spread” of Asian Britons.

Such scenarios are the reality of life in Israel. So why is it that groups in the UK that work with issues facing Israel, Jews in Britain, and racism in general are so quiet?

There’s the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a body that “welcomes inclusive notions of citizenship, identity and belonging” [PDF], and has signed a Europe-wide petition calling for a “zero tolerance policy” towards anti-Roma violence “including intimidation and hate speech”.

There is ‘Engage’, the self-declared “left-wing campaign” against the boycott of Israel. They also state that their “view of the world is one that opposes all racism equally”, and thus the website features material beyond the boycott and antisemitism, e.g. posts about the EDL, minority groups in Europe, an attack on a mosque in Stoke, etc.

How have these groups responded to the vicious hate speech directed against Israel’s Palestinian citizens? With almost complete silence. No ‘progressive’ uproar from the likes of Labour Friends of Israel, no flurry of press releases or even blog posts.

As legislation is passed in the Knesset that, according to Israeli professor and fascism expert Zeev Sternhell, “makes ethnic inequality a legal norm [and] has no parallel in democratic countries”, Israel advocacy groups in the UK only shrug.

A recent report looked specifically at London, saying “liberal and progressive left” voices are the ones “most effective” in shielding Israel. Reut urged Israel’s defenders to “substantively engage liberal and progressive circles” by “responding to their concerns and building personal relationships”.

Now it has been reported that Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is set to “re-invent itself” in order to “develop the ‘progressive case’ for Israel”.

The article by The JC’s political editor Martin Bright noted LFI’s “fire-righting role” against “growing anti-Zionist sentiment” in the British left and the “re-branded” LFI’s new slogan – “Working Towards a Two-State Solution”.

Other voices have encouraged a similar tack. Writing on Telegraph.co.uk in December, Julian Kossoff cited Reut and the need for “smart thinking” to persuade “liberal opinion”.

Strategically, this means a rejection of the “‘Israel right or wrong’ approach”, and instead being willing “to concede…that Israeli Arabs’ civil rights and Palestinian human rights are in need of intensive care”.

The JC’s Martin Bright also wrote in January how “it will be all the more necessary to develop the progressive case for Israel in the year ahead”.

Fresh from appearing at the Herzliya Conference, Lorna Fitzsimons, chief executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), wrote in The Jerusalem Post that BICOM is “launching the progressive case for Israel and driving the campaign for the Left to support it as a Jewish state”. The “re-branding” of LFI will be heralded byan event in the House of Commons next month with Progress.

Progress is chaired by Stephen Twigg, former chairman of LFI, and one of its vice-chairs, Rachel Reeves MP, has previously been on a LFI delegation to Israel. It’s not all one-way traffic however; LFI’s recently-appointed director, Jennifer Gerber, previously worked at Progress where, according to The JC, “she edited its magazine” and wrote articles “on Israel and antisemitism”.

Like all the huff and puff about ‘delegitimization’, this “progressive case” for Israel is unlikely to fare well as long as the Israeli state controls the lives of millions of Palestinians in an apartheid-system of control and discrimination. I’m not sure who they’re trying to kid.

With renewed focus on the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they have opted for a familiar refrain: it’s all about self-defence.

Thus the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (BICOM) claim that “the source of Israel’s policies on limiting access and trade to the Gaza Strip” is “the security threat” posed by Hamas. The Zionist Federation has described the blockade as “a mechanism that is used successfully by Israel to stop weapons being imported into Gaza”, while The Board of Deputies of British Jews has also sought to justify the blockade as being about security.

Except it’s not – and it’s illegal.

On Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross marked three years since Israel began its current blockade regime with a clear condemnation of the policy. In the words of the ICRC:

The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.

In 2008, a group of NGOs – Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, Christian Aid, CAFOD, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire – said the same in a report:

Israel’s policy affects the civilian population of Gaza indiscriminately and constitutes a collective punishment against ordinary men, women and children. The measures taken are illegal under international humanitarian law.

This is the unpleasant reality that the talk about weapons-smuggling seeks to obfuscate.

In 2006, before the capture of Gilad Shalit and Hamas’ defeat of Fatah forces in 2007 but after the Palestinian parliamentary elections, an adviser to PM Ehud Olmert explained that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”.

Just last week, it was revealed that an Israeli government document describes the blockade as “economic warfare”.

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s annual report [PDF] for 2009 clarified that

According to Israeli officials, the objective of the siege is to bring down the Hamas government and lead to the release of Gilad Shalit. The siege thus constitutes collective punishment of the civilian population, and as such it is unlawful.

In fact, even BICOM hints at the truth that the blockade is not about ‘security’.

Asking whether the current policy working, a large part of BICOM’s answer debates whether the siege has succeeded in “weakening Hamas”.

Disturbingly, these awful truths are uncomfortable for Israel’s propagandists not because of their actual impact on the ground, but because they make ‘rebranding’ that bit more difficult.

The Shin Bet security service will thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law.
- Letter sent by Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, on behalf of Shin Bet, 2007

On Thursday, prominent political activist Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was indicted with serious charges of espionage and ‘aiding an enemy’.

As General Director of NGO-network Ittijah, Makhoul’s arrest and detention is attracting international attention as concern mounts about the increasing crackdown on dissent in Israel.

A second man, natural medicine expert and political activist Omar Said, was also indicted, and both men face a lengthy legal process.

As Ittijah described, the arrests and interrogations of Said and Makhoul “were conducted in gross violation of their fundamental rights to due process”.

Once the gag order was lifted this week, more details emerged:

His hands were cuffed to the back of the chair in a way that stretched his arms and shoulders sharply backward. His legs were folded backwards flanking the chair, with his knees turned toward the floor.

When, after hours of being bound in this stress position while under intense interrogation, Makhoul complained of being in excruciating pain, the GSS interrogators proceeded to cuff his legs to the chair. They also threatened that he would be permanently crippled from the interrogation.

While Israel’s security services have issued denials, there is a track record here. The kinds of techniques used against detainees by the GSS were documented in a joint B’Tselem/Hamoked report in 2007. The annual report for 2009 published[PDF] by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) mentions how “interrogations carried out by the General Security Services are always exempt from the requirement of video documentation”.

A December 2009 report by The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) described how “investigations of complaints of torture against General Security Service (GSS) interrogators” are prevented and that “the system enjoys the acquiescence and encouragement of the law enforcement system for torture that occurs in GSS interrogations”.

The targeting of leaders in Palestinian society in Israel should not come as a surprise.

In 2007, the Shin Bet made it clear – like in the quotation above – that it believes it to be “within its charter” to go after “individuals deemed as ‘conducting subversive activity against the Jewish identity of the state,’ even if their actions are not in violation of the law”.

Meanwhile, a ‘citizenship loyalty’ bill has recently passed its first reading in the Knesset, which “calls on Israel to revoke citizenship or permanent status from any person convicted of terrorist activity or of espionage on behalf of a terrorist organization”.

In January 2009, Ameer Makhoul was briefly detained and interrogated by the Shin Bet, as Palestinians in Israel protested the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

In a press release at the time, Ittijah described how one officer leading the questions said that “next time he will be pleased to see Makhoul imprisoned, that Makhoul’s file is ready”, and that Makhoul “will have to say goodbye to his family since he will leave them for a long time”.
——
Facebook campaign page here, and further details and legal documents here.

The incredible claim being made was that police had specifically given the members of one faith group, Muslims, special permission to throw shoes as some kind of “concession”.

A little bit of digging however soon showed the article had some major problems.

First, the focus of The Sunday Times’ piece is one particular prosecution of an individual for violent disorder, following the protest that took place outside the Israeli embassy in January 2009:

Judge Denniss agreed that the act of shoe-throwing should not be considered in a charge of violent disorder against the student because it was “a symbolic” political gesture.
…
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service admitted this weekend that the police advice to the Downing Street protesters was a factor in the case at Isleworth crown court, west London.

But after I contacted the Crown Prosecution Service myself, I was sent this statement by CPS London Borough Crown Prosecutor Jeetinder Sarmotta:

There is no CPS policy that people who throw shoes, rather than other objects, during demonstrations will not be prosecuted. The CPS makes charging decisions based on the totality of the available evidence.

Mr Salim pleaded guilty to violent disorder by throwing a stick but not by throwing a shoe. We were aware that there was a question over whether or not the police had given demonstrators permission to throw shoes by way of a political statement, but the CPS accepted Mr Salim’s guilty plea on the basis that we could not be certain on viewing the CCTV footage whether the item thrown was a shoe or not.

By accepting the guilty plea we considered that the court would be able to impose a sentence that would reflect the criminality of Mr Salim during the demonstration.

The Times article also omits the issue of the CCTV footage. The CPS prosecutor refers to the shoe-throwing purely in the context of the act being “a political statement”. Nothing about ‘Muslims’ or ‘Islamic sensitivities’.

Chris Holt, the defendant’s solicitor, told me of the wider context for the prosecutions of the Gaza protesters, particularly the fact that “a large number of demonstrators, with no criminal history and even after timely guilty pleas, have received custodial penalties of up to eighteen months”. (Newsnight report).

Targeting Muslims
But there is no mention in The Sunday Times article of these numerous custodial sentences handed down to other protesters. This is a point taken up by ‘The Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign’, in a statement published on their website.

The group says that “rather than ‘bow[ing] to Islamic sensitivities’, the Metropolitan police have done precisely the opposite: targeting for arrest almost exclusively Muslim protesters from amongst the very diverse group who protested outside the Israeli Embassy last year”.

However, returning to the most startling aspect of The Sunday Times’ story, how did the newspaper come to claim that “Scotland Yard” has accepted “Muslims” can throw shoes as a form of protest? There is no doubting the emphasis of the piece. The headline talked of ‘Islamic protestors’, while the article was clear that the “concession” (a term used twice) was to “Muslims” and “Muslim demonstrators”.

Complaint
Musab Younis, a member of the Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign, says that “the article was not only misleading” but also “dishonest”: the article “states the demonstrations in London against Israel’s attack on Gaza were composed of ‘Muslim demonstrators’, when they were in fact made up of an extraordinarily diverse range of people”.

The demonstration on 3 January 2009, when organizers arranged beforehand with the police for a symbolic shoe-throwing outside Downing Street, was indeed coordinated by a variety of groups, including Stop the War, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and CND.

Younis added that with “no response” from the newspaper to their objections, “we have no choice but to file a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission in consultation with our solicitors”, while continuing to “urge The Sunday Times to amend the article”.

We probably haven’t heard the last of this story yet.

I have come to know this latter strategy quite well. Based on short extracts, or even a single sentence, from two out of the 100 plus articles I’ve published, I have been accused of ‘understanding anti-semitism’ and ‘defending’ Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial.

The first claim, that of ‘understanding’ anti-semitism, comes from a short piece I wrote in 2002. It was, in fact, my second published article, written when I was 18 years old. I am happy to admit that it is not very good, but, as others have noted, there is “nothing” there that “amounts to a defence or promotion of anti-Semitism”.

The article was trying to look at causes for contemporary anti-semitism. Funnily enough, whenever the smear-merchants cite this piece, they miss out one of the reasons I propose, namely the “history of anti-Semitism” in European culture “that has been, and probably still is, embedded in collective consciousness”. I note that “its roots can be traced, at least to some extent, to the shameful teachings of many in the Church”.

But decontextualisation is what it is all about, as this particular case demonstrates. If someone seriously wanted to know what I thought about anti-semitism, they could look at other examples from my published writing. Then they would find when I condemned seeing Jews in general as complicit with Israeli actions as “inexcusably hateful and stupid”, affirming that there is no “contradiction between opposing anti-Semitism and supporting equal rights for Palestinians”.

They might also read the ‘JustPeace60’ declaration, which I co-wrote and organised with my friend and film-maker Philip Rizk for the anniversary of Israel’s creation last year, and its recognition that “for many, this landmark powerfully symbolises the Jewish people’s ability to defy the power of hatred so destructively embodied in the Nazi Holocaust”.

If they took the time to actually read my book, they would find where I stress that “racism that targets Jews, like all forms of racism, must be condemned and resisted”, and that “to describe Israel in terms of apartheid is not to dehumanise Israelis”. Rather, “the struggle for a just peace in Palestine/Israel emerges from insisting on the humanity of both Palestinians and Israelis”. Most of the latter, I wrote, “have been born in the land that they have every right to call home”.

The second claim made against me is that I have defended Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. This is again based on one article, written in January 2006. The piece was critiquing the mainstream analysis of some recent remarks by Ahmadinejad, and the politicised context in which they were being framed. But I make no bones about it – Ahmadinejad is either a Holocaust denier himself, or cowardly encourages those who are (and probably both).

As Dana Goldstein observed earlier this year, Ahmadinejad wraps “his Holocaust-denial in a series of legitimate criticisms of present-day Israeli policy”, a disturbing “mixing of fiction and fact”. Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitism is morally despicable, intellectually vacuous, and of no benefit to the people he purports to be supporting (or rather, exploiting), the Palestinians. He is also, of course, ruthless in his approach to dissent, and has the blood of his own people on his hands (as I noted in both that 2006 article, and more recently, this interview with an Iranian journalist).

Israel’s apologists don’t actually want to have any meaningful discussions – just slanging matches and absurd accusations. They prefer often bizarre personal attacks, and most concerning of all, the cry of anti-semitism. In claiming that someone who wants equality for Palestinians is motivated by ‘Jew-hatred’, it devalues the term anti-semitism, and risks damaging the fight against its very real contemporary manifestations.

But then that doesn’t seem a problem for some people, if it’s all in the name of shielding Israel and its denial of basic Palestinian rights from serious scrutiny. I discovered this afresh in recent weeks, as my book was launched in the UK at two events in London.

At the first meeting, held in the Houses of Parliament, one man repeatedly shouted during my presentation, deliberately disrupting proceedings. I later discovered this man was Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice chair of the UK’s Zionist Federation. He had form apparently. The second event was organised last week by the charity War on Want, who themselves support Palestinians on the ground. They banned Hoffman from the event, having heard of his disruptive behaviour in other previous meetings.

Ludicrously (though almost predictably), this was immediately spun as an ‘anti-semitic’ ban, a feeble charge some have even repeated. The meeting was attended by Jews who came to support Israel, and Jews who campaign for Palestinian rights. For some, however, the event itself was deemed anti-semitic.

When it comes to protecting Israel, self-proclaimed champions of human rights and opponents of ‘hate speech’ are happy to let all kinds of vicious rhetoric pass. On the American Jewish Committee’s ‘Z-Word’ blog, you can read comments (which all have to be moderated) like:

And I wonder whether White sees himself as the reincarnation of Goebbels?
White deliberately incites hatred against Jews.
Ben White is now the most disgusting example of the fresh faced antisemitism seen creeping up in Europe again.

Closer to home, Harry’s Place posted guest pieces by the likes of the Jonathan Hoffman, attracting similarly hateful comments. At theend of one post is this contribution from ‘666’ – “It’s time we took a lead from Group 43. Fight fire with fire”. The 43 Group was set up after World War II to physically disrupt and attack British fascists; as one veteran put it, “we made a lot of people A&E cases”.

Thankfully, most people are not convinced by exaggerated smears and vindictive bullying – in fact, as people commented to me after the Houses of Parliament event, those who come to shout their defence of Israel are their own worst enemy.

Sadly, it is to be expected from some – but what’s a shame is the position of apparent liberals on both sides of the Atlantic – Progressive Except for Palestine. As the penny drops for more and more people, it seems the backlash is set to worsen.

Nevertheless, to consciously use the ‘apartheid’ framework in critiquing Israeli policies past and present, with the presumed analogy with South African history, is still considered by some to be inappropriate or even completely unacceptable.

I was aware of this when thinking about what to call my new book, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, and one of the reasons why I felt comfortable opting for the title I did, is that apartheid is a defined crime in international law, independent of any comparison with the old regime in South Africa.

In 1973, the UN’s General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, and in so doing, defined the “crime of apartheid” as acts “committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them”. Some specific examples of what these ‘acts’ could look like included:

Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country… [including] the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence…

Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups…the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group…”

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), adopted in 1998, also specified the “crime of apartheid” as “inhumane acts…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”.

Plenty of observers, academics, human rights workers, and legal experts have drawn the conclusion that based on the aforementioned definition, Israel is indeed practicing apartheid. This was the conclusion of a recent report on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) by the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC), a study which found “that the State of Israel exercises control in the OPT with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid”.

While it is crucial then to understand that apartheid is a defined crime in international law, there is still something to be said about the comparison between South Africa and Israel. As the HSRC report pointed out, any such analysis “is there to illuminate, rather than define, the meaning of apartheid”, and there are both differences and similarities between apartheid in South Africa and Israel.

The common element of both legal systems is the intention to consolidate and enforce dispossession, securing the best land control over natural resources for one group at the expense of another. There is also the strategy of permitting native ‘autonomy’ in order to mask continued denial of national rights – the South African Bantustans, and West Bank cantons. As the late Israeli journalist Tanya Reinhart pointed out, some of the Bantustans “even had elections, Parliaments, and quasi-governmental institutions” and were allowed “symbols of sovereignty” like “a flag, postage stamps, passports and strong police force”.

There are also important differences, particularly with respects to the legal infrastructure involved in establishing and maintaining apartheid. In South Africa, blacks were a clear majority – though the Palestinians were too, until most of them were expelled. Israel also does not practice what Dr. Uri Davis has called ‘petty apartheid’, namely the obvious separation of races in public places e.g. separate toilets.

Perhaps the main difference, however, is that whereas in South Africa, the white minority depended on the economic exploitation of the black population, Israel has always preferred to simply ‘disappear’ the Palestinians (their use by Israel as a cheap labour pool is more of a fallback position). In that sense, Israeli apartheid has been worse for the native ‘other’ than in the case of South Africa.

The South Africa comparison then is meant to shed light on a political system in Palestine/Israel based on structural racism and dominance, rather than being an attempt at simply forcing an easy template on a different situation.

Leaving aside the differences and similarities with South Africa, Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians since 1948 have met the definition of apartheid in international law – with important ramifications for the responsibilities of the international community and civil society.

None of these efforts may actually become law – the loyalty oath has already been voted down by the cabinet’s law committee. The Nakba bill though has now been tweaked, so that rather than straightforwardly outlawing any events, there will be economic sanctions for the local authorities and organisations involved.

The response in the Western media to the sight of of 47 MKs voting for prison sentences for anti-Zionists has often come in the form of a warning that Israel is in danger of turning into a racist state. Taking into account other authoritarian trends, this assessment sees Israel’s democracy as under threat by the far-right groupings within Netanyahu’s government.

But there is only an element of truth here, and far more that misleads. Israel is not in danger of becoming a racist state, because it already is one. That such a statement can still shock is testament to Israel’s propaganda efforts over the years in promulgating the ‘Middle East’s Only Democracy’ myth.

In Israel, its own Palestinian citizens are forbidden from buying certain land, or living in particular communities, while para-state bodies (like the Jewish Agency or Jewish National Fund) are constitutionally mandated to privilege Jews. Fundamentally, of course, creating and maintaining a Jewish state continues to require the denationalisation of the ethnically cleansed Palestinians who are forbidden from returning on account of their not being Jewish.

That is all without even considering the fact that for the last 42 years Israel has been subjecting millions of Palestinians to the military rule of an apartheid regime of ethnic separation and land confiscation. As Roane Carey noted in The Nation last week, “how can a state that imprisons 4 million Palestinians behind ghetto walls, bypass roads and a blockade, and treats another 1.5 million as second-class citizens, be democratic?”

There is, though, something new in these developments. Since 1948, Israel has been careful to mask the state’s intrinsic discrimination, and has seen no need to resort to the kind of blatant racism of separate public toilets – what Uri Davis has called ‘petty apartheid’.

There is now evidence of a turn towards openly racist legislation; see, for example, the Citizenship and Entry in Israel Law, applied since 2003, which bars family unification between Palestinians from the Occupied Territories and Palestinian citizens of Israel. There is also an increased intolerance towards dissent, and now, the legislative proposals of fanatical ruling parties.

Some have claimed that Netanyahu could do a ‘Nixon-to-China’ peace bid, securing the kind of deal a more dovish government could not. What seems more likely is that a hard right Knesset majority will bring out into the open the latent racism that’s always been there.

Netanyahu himself, with his demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state and the Palestinian refusal to do so, may also unwittingly draw attention to the problem with this formulation – a problem that goes to the core of the conflict more than talk of outposts, ‘natural growth’ and confidence-building measures ever could.

At the very least, given the surface commitment to even-handedness by the likes of the Quartet, surely ‘both sides’ should have their right to self defence affirmed?

But of course, to suggest that the Palestinians have a right to self defence is problematic, because it threatens to show up the approach of the international community to Palestine/Israel for what it is: a duplicitous farce.

Since Israel called a temporary halt to its large scale attacks on the Gaza Strip, and Hamas opted for an uneasy truce, two issues have dominated the international community’s energies: reconstruction aid for Gaza and preventing arms smuggling by Palestinians inside the Strip. For the Israelis, meanwhile, the continued detention of the soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas is sufficient for a punitive blockade of the Gaza Strip to continue.

It is not hard to spot the hypocrisy and inconsistency in Western nations rushing to condemn and help prevent Palestinian arms smuggling, while simultaneously helping to arm and supply Israel’s state-of-the-art military. But the emphasis on arms smuggling actually points to a far bigger hypocrisy: the total denial of the Palestinian right to self defence.

That Palestinians are forbidden to defend themselves is obvious when one takes a look at Israel’s priorities (then faithfully repeated by the likes of the Quartet). For the Palestinians to hold prisoner a single Israeli soldier from an army that blockades and attacks the Gaza Strip is an outrage; but daily Israeli arrest raids are not even news, never mind the 11,000 Palestinian in Israeli jails.

Palestinian violent resistance is still ‘terrorism’ when directed against an occupying army that protects a network of colonial settlements. But it is important to remember that even when Palestinians launch attacks on Israeli civilians, this practice is not condemned as ‘disproportionate’ self defence – as when Israel hits Palestinian civilians – but as unjustifiable terror divorced from the ongoing Palestinian struggle for self-determination.

Palestinian violence then, is always terrorism. Additionally, it is often framed as irrational, rooted in cultural-religious factors, or even practiced simply for its own sake. Israeli violence is retaliatory, defensive, while Israeli military operations are subjected to in-depth analysis about the aims and tactics. Criticism of Israeli violence, when it does emerge, is focused on the question of ‘proportionality’ or whether or not the operation is strategically wise (not whether it is legal or moral).

It could be claimed that part of this imbalance is a result of the privileging of state violence over and above that of non-state actors: but that has not been the case in other situations around the world. Peter Beamount pointed out how “it has been seen as unremarkable to support the rights of groups to turn to violence in order to pursue ambitions of statehood, seceding from regimes that they complain suppress both their human rights and desire for self-determination”, citing Kosovo and Darfur.

Not, however, in the case of the Palestinians. The equation that dominates the approach of the international community to Palestine/Israel is ensuring Israel’s ‘security concerns’ while easing Palestinian frustration at the ‘restrictions’ of occupation. But what if the Palestinians’ ‘security concerns’ were afforded at least equal significance? What if the Palestinians were assumed to have an untouchable ‘right to self defence’?

If the Palestinians could defend themselves, who could question the legitimacy of attacks on an occupying army that since 1967 has enforced a cruel colonial regime in the Occupied Territories? Or who could question the legitimacy of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip striking back at those who enforce the siege? After all, it was the Israeli Foreign Minister at the time, Abba Eban, who said of the blockades targeting his country in 1967, that:

To blockade, after all, is to attempt strangulation — and sovereign states are entitled not to have their state strangled. The blockade is by definition an act of war, imposed and enforced through violence. Never in history have a blockade and peace existed side by side.

Sometimes, Palestinian violent resistance is bemoaned by those who wish that the Palestinians would embrace nonviolent resistance en masse. The question is asked, ‘Where is the Palestinian Gandhi/Martin Luther King?’

In fact, the Palestinians have indeed long been practitioners of civil disobedience, from the Revolt in 1936, to the First Intifada in the late 1980s, and right up to the present day. Palestinians are, in fact, of their tradition of nonviolent resistance.

Tellingly, Israel has responded to nonviolent resistance with dismissive repression – after all, it’s the resistance itself that’s the problem, not its violent/nonviolent nature. Israel had those who led nonviolence movements, besieged and assaulted entire villages to – in the words of famous ‘dove’ Yitzhak Rabin – “teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel”, and met nonviolent demonstrations with lethal force.

Contrary no doubt to what some will infer, this is not an argument for Palestinian violence. Rather, it is a case for abandoning the disingenuous moralising that characterises so much of the (often liberal) hand-wringing about the ‘cycle of violence’, while embracing an approach to Palestine/Israel that gives equal weight to both Palestinian and Israeli ‘rights’ to self defence.

Given that the Palestinians are stateless, occupied and struggling to realise self-determination and equal rights, legitimising their right to self defence would turn upside down the dominant approach to the conflict in the West, and open up the possibility of Israel being confronted in the serious manner that is long overdue.