Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Israel: "Apartheid State" (under US protection)

What is not remarkable is that John Kerry uttered the A word (which is common-place in the left universe led by Jimmy Carter). What is remarkable is that he made the point at all, in the face of humungous support for Israel from the American public. The Gallup poll shows it all:


A quick (if shallow) analysis shows that prior to 9/11 the factions of Americans saying that they have sympathy with Israel and those who claiming sympathy for both Israel/Palestinians were roughly equal. Things changed drastically after 9/11 and now Palestinians are completely in the dog house.

This unconditional support for Israel also is reflective in terms of the massive amount of aid and diplomatic backing that Israel receives. Israel, Egypt, and Pakistan have always been amongst the top in-countries for US civilian/military aid, the case for Egypt is actually that it agrees to respect a formal peace pact with Israel- thus a quid pro quo for US funding.

If the US wall breaks down (it will not), it is possible that Israel will face a lonely fight to the finish against the combined forces of the Arab League and the Euro-American Left (which is leading the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions campaign). Kerry's words are an amber signal in that direction.
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If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a room of influential world leaders in a closed-door meeting Friday.


“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” Kerry told the group of senior officials and experts from the U.S., Western Europe, Russia, and Japan. “Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.”

According to the 1998 Rome Statute, the “crime of apartheid” is defined 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.” The term is most often used in reference to the system of racial segregation and oppression that governed South Africa from 1948 until 1994.

Former president Jimmy Carter came under fire in 2007 for titling his book on Middle East peace Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. “Apartheid is a word that is an accurate description of what has been going on in the West Bank, and it’s based on the desire or avarice of a minority of Israelis for Palestinian land,” Carter said.

Leading experts, including Richard Goldstone, a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court who led the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict of 2008 and 2009, have argued that comparisons between the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and “apartheid” are offensive and wrong.
 
Kerry has used dire warnings twice in the past to paint a picture of doom for Israel if the current peace process fails. Last November, Kerry warned of a third intifada of Palestinian violence and increased isolation of Israel if the peace process failed. In March, Democrats and Republican alike criticized Kerry for suggesting that if peace talks fail, it would bolster the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

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American support for Israel really is quite extensive. The U.S. has given Israel $118 billion in aid over the years (about $3 billion per year nowadays). Half of all American UN Security Council vetoes ended resolutions critical of Israel. .........

Link(1): http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/27/exclusive-kerry-warns-israel-could-become-an-apartheid-state.html
Link(2): http://www.vox.com/2014/4/29/5664444/kerry-compared-israel-apartheid-palestine
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regards

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