The Reality of Israeli Apartheid Must Be Recognized

An op-ed by Jason Horowitz headlined “Stop Calling Israel Apartheid” appeared in the Times of Israel blog section today. This is my response.

While discussing the recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report concluding that Israeli policy constitutes the crime of apartheid, Jason Horowitz never articulates a strong personal position on whether he agrees with this assessment. The closest he comes to a judgement on this controversial term is in his last paragraph, which could be interpreted as a denial that apartheid exists in the West Bank. However, the time period he references was before two major reports were released. Furthermore, Horowitz and the friend he mentions (both of whom visited the West Bank and expressed skepticism at the “apartheid” label) likely didn’t possess the tools to accurately assess the situation, while organizations like the United Nations (U.N.) and HRW likely did.

Therefore, due to these small details, we can surmise that Horowitz is not necessarily denying the claims of apartheid made by more recent reports (such as the HRW report he references). Given this context, let’s assume that with the new HRW report and the previous report by Richard Falk Virginia Tilley of the U.N., the evidence for Israeli apartheid is now overwhelming (I believe it is). His issue seems to be with the term itself being a distraction and further sowing divisions between the “two sides” of this issue.

“More and more energy is spent on the meaning of the term itself and less on the actual facts on the ground.”

The problem with the above framing is that when we begin to talk about the “actual facts on the ground,” we will inevitably realize we are describing apartheid. Even if Horowitz presented a compelling case that the term itself is a “distraction,” that wouldn’t prevent the term from eventually coming up in discourse, since it is, after all, accurate.

Furthermore, apartheid is a serious crime against humanity and it has a very specific definition under international law. Imagine if someone made a similar argument regarding the use of the term “genocide.” If the conditions fit the definition of the term, yet someone suggested we repudiate the term in one specific case because it is distracting, that person would likely be seen as attempting to whitewash the crimes of the perpetrators.

Another troubling notion appearing in the piece is “Israel’s legitimacy,” which Horowitz appears to espouse in the fourth paragraph. In order to assume the Israeli state has inherent legitimacy, one must believe, at least to some extent, that the practice of settler-colonialism has legitimacy (the other option would be believing Israel is not a settler-colonial state, a position borne out of ignorance and misinformation).

The assumption of Israel’s “legitimacy” necessarily includes espousing some kind of moral justification for the 1948 “Nakba,” in which Zionist militias massacred indigenous Palestinians and displaced at least 700,000 from their land. Because of this initial and continued displacement, Palestianians now make up one of the world’s largest refugee populations — an estimated 6 million as of the end of 2017. We cannot talk about the inception of Israel or its purported “legitimacy” without recognizing these horrors.

What begins to emerge as a major issue with his argument is the inevitable risk of whitewashing Israel’s extensive crimes.

“We should be talking about the failure of Palestinian, Israeli, American, and Arab leadership for not doing more to create a better reality for people who at one point or another were under their control.”

This might seem like a reasonable statement at first. No government is without its flaws. However, the whole “failure of Palestinian leadership” notion is really a right-wing talking point I’ve noticed over the years. Phyllis Bennis once wrote a short book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and she included a discussion of some of the often sensationalized regional “peace talks.” In the West, since the vast majority of the reporting we receive about the conflict is presented from a pro-Israel perspective, the details of these talks are largely obscured.

Israel’s “concessions” in the these talks never included the right of return for Palestinian refugees or an end to the occupation (both of which are mandated under international law). So, when Palestinian leaders refused Israel’s offers, it was portrayed in the West as a failure of Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s “reasonable” proposals. This, of course, is oversimplified and inaccurate, given the realities of continued military occupation and colonialism.

“This is not about dismissing what is happening to Palestinians every day.”

As I alluded to with the comparison to the term “genocide,” this refusal to accept the term “apartheid” could easily be interpreted as a dismissal of profound and continuous Palestinian suffering.

What stands out in this piece is the use of the terms “other side” and “both sides.” This is not an issue where there are two equally valid sides, as anyone who has studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict knows. It is an issue where one side is the colonizer and one side is the colonized; where one side is the occupier and one side is the occupied; where one side is the perpetrator and one side is the victim.

While Horowitz’s piece is certainly thoughtful, well-written, and seemingly moderate, I don’t find the overall argument compelling and it veers too closely to apologia for Israel’s crimes against humanity. I find myself speculating that Horowitz’s espousal of the notion of Israel’s “legitimacy” has resulted in his discomfort with the term “apartheid” as it relates to Israeli policy.

It has now been shown empirically that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It’s time we all recognize this and let this recognition guide our efforts to end this grave injustice.