I lived in Israel for nineteen years. I lost a good friend during the Second Intifada to a suicide bomber who chose to turn a music pub on the Tel Aviv seafront into a scene from a disaster movie. During this time I also tutored a boy of a close family friend – I helped him pass his exams – only to see him murdered by Hamas terrorists. Israel tried to make peace with the Palestinians over and over again and the result was always the same – exploding buses, cafes and malls. The threat has not gone away – and all those people who want to slaughter Jews are held back only by Israel’s security apparatus.
Which is why it is so offensive to see people who hate the Jewish state turn Israel’s need to defend its citizens – into something nasty. There is nothing dirty about Israel protecting Israelis from genocidal hate. But the anti-Israel propaganda machine is a billion-dollar industry – and haters have taken to disgracefully calling Israel’s defensive strategies – ‘apartheid’. Just this week we have seen an explosion of these claims from ‘progressive’ US politicians.
So I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone just what Israel’s non-existent apartheid is actually about:
Israel and Gaza.
Israel withdrew fully from Gaza in 2005 and dismantled the Israeli settlements there. Everyone – including the Palestinian leadership described it as a ‘historic’ move. Today these people – Hamas – control Gaza. They were put in power by the Palestinians – who voted the Islamic terror group into office. Hamas then did what all Islamic terror groups do – they slaughtered the opposition and turned the Gaza strip into a terror enclave. Hamas – and Islamic Jihad – are constantly trying to kill Israelis any way they can.
Nablus and Jenin
Areas under PA control these days are not much better. The PA was always unwilling to make peace with Israel and the Fatah leadership nurtured terror as a means of pressuring Israel. They have long since lost control and today the streets of cities such as Nablus and Jenin are run by terror groups. The PA won’t hold elections because they know the Islamic terrorists will win.
Israeli streets
Israel does not want to restrict anyone’s freedom – but even when its back is turned for a second – devastation strikes. Just some examples of the terror attacks from 2022/2023:
The security fence
The security fence (what they call the ‘Apartheid wall’) was not always there – and these horrific images are from a time when Palestinian terrorists could enter Israel more freely:
Lebanon and Iran
And let us not forget some of the players in Israel’s neighbourhood. Hezbollah and Iran – openly calling for genocidal war and supplying Palestinian terrorists with weapons and money:
Enemies of the state
And outside of the conflict zone there is an army of people spreading hate and lies about Israel. Tweets that demonise Israeli quickly go viral. This week Noor Wazwaz, an American Palestinian ‘journalist’, published a thread on Twitter about her ‘awful’ treatment at the hands of Israel’s airline security. It was a tweet that received over a million views. Wazwaz is out to demonise Israel any way that she can. What she forgot to tell everyone is that her timeline is toxic and she has posted things like this – calling for a third intifada or violent uprising (h/t).
What country in the world would not consider her a security risk if those threats were aimed at their own citizens? So yes, she had a hard time flying with El Al.
These propagandists just do not live in the real world, and they throw everything they can at Israel because they want it wiped off the map. Sadly, too many people are taken in by it. This leads to a stream of blatant lies being circulated in the media. Just this week the Guardian posted an article on a report from Human Rights Watch that suggested women in Israel are treated like women in Saudi Arabia.
Utter – total – poppycock. This is fake news of the antisemitic kind being openly spread by mainstream media.
‘Tear down those walls’
It is important to understand that when people call for an end to Israel’s ‘Apartheid’ – they are actually just saying that Israel should tear down the walls that protect it. This is not an innocent error. These same people are calling for an end to companies such as Elbit that help Israel provide security to its citizens..
They do not just want Israel to tear down the walls – they want the Jews defenceless.
The Apartheid smear is a deliberate attempt to weaken Israel so as to make it easier for its enemies to wipe it off the map. Israel doesn’t have to be perfect – any more than the US, UK or France have to be perfect. But it is the Jewish home – and because it is a ‘Jewish’ home – it has a lot of enemies that seek to destroy it.
Enough with the lies
For decades Israel’s enemies have been building a case propped up by a mountain of lies. The laws they say are ‘racist’ in Israel are mostly those of the type every state has. The Israeli flag (with the Star of David) is no more racist than the Union Jack (with the cross). Having a Jewish holiday as an official state holiday is no different from what the west does at Christimas time. I even wrote a report showing that this claim is nothing but an empty smear.
Israel is a nation of refugees. Israel was created as a space in which Jews could control their own destiny and live away from the relentless persecutions that they suffered in the Christian and Islamic worlds. They have a lot of enemies – and they are greatly outnumbered by them – but now they can at least defend themselves. They sit in a neighbourhood overrun with Islamic extremists and despots. Despite it all Israel has remained a bastion of democracy in the region. The walls are there only to stop those that seek to kill them.
Israel is no more ‘racist’ than a refuge for women is ‘sexist’.
There is no Apartheid in Israel. There is a country defending itself from radical Islamic forces. This is what any nation – any people – would do – if they found themselves in the same situation.
Enough with the lies.
{Reposted from the author’s site}
