APARTHEID ISRAEL: A STATE FOR JEWS ONLY

''“We have passed this law to prevent any inclination or attempt
to turn the State of Israel into a nation of all its citizens”''

Avi Dichter, Likud Member of Israel’s Knesset

Israel’s Zionist project reached its logical outcome with the law passed in the Knesset July 19th, 2018 which formally establishes an exclusive Jewish state in Israel. From its inception, the Zionist movement foresaw a Jewish state built on all of the land of historic Palestine, cleansed of its indigenous Palestinian Arab population. While the Palestinians of Israel (approximately 20% of Israel’s population) still remain in Israel pending their eventual “transfer,” they are now without status for all intent and purpose. What observers have been saying about Israel for years is now official: Israel is an apartheid state.

APARTHEID ISRAEL: A STATE FOR JEWS ONLY

Montreal, July 23rd, 2018

''“We have passed this law to prevent any inclination or attempt
to turn the State of Israel into a nation of all its citizens”''

Avi Dichter, Likud Member of Israel’s Knesset

Israel’s Zionist project reached its logical outcome with the law passed in the Knesset July 19th, 2018 which formally establishes an exclusive Jewish state in Israel. From its inception, the Zionist movement foresaw a Jewish state built on all of the land of historic Palestine, cleansed of its indigenous Palestinian Arab population. While the Palestinians of Israel (approximately 20% of Israel’s population) still remain in Israel pending their eventual “transfer,” they are now without status for all intent and purpose. What observers have been saying about Israel for years is now official: Israel is an apartheid state. This reflects the former U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry’s warning to Israel, that it would have to choose between being a democracy or a Jewish State. Israel has chosen the latter.

The law establishes that Jewish localities constitute a priority of national interest and further proclaims that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. The law designates Israel as the national state of the Jewish people and stipulates that Israel’s self-determination is reserved exclusively for Jews. The law also makes Hebrew Israel’s only official language, whereas Arabic had always enjoyed an equal status with Hebrew within Israel previous to this law. The law could very well mean that Israel will begin to create localities reserved exclusively for Jews. This is already done in those areas managed by Israel’s Jewish National Fund which does not sell land to non-Jews.

PAJU denounces Israel’s racist law and dismisses any notion of the Netanyahu apartheid regime’s claim as the national home of world Jewry. Recent surveys in the United States have clearly shown that Jews between the ages of 18 and 34 reject both Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and its claim to speak on their behalf. They have come around to making the distinction between Judaism and Zionism. The same distance is gradually being drawn among young Jews in Canada and elsewhere.

PAJU also denounces the sometimes overt, and at other times complicit support for Israel’s apartheid system on the part of numerous members of Canada’s political class and mainstream media.
“This law marks the end of Israel’s hasbara (propaganda) program whereby blame for Israel’s crimes are heaped on the victimized Palestinian population,” stated Bruce Katz, co-president of PAJU. “ There’s no place to hide anymore, no place for Israel’s racist regime to hide, no room for the Justin Trudeaus, Stephen Harpers and Andrew Scheers of Canada to hide, no room for the complicit mainstream media to hide. You are either opposed to apartheid or you support it, whether explicitly or implicitly.”

Chadi Marouf, PAJU co-president, declared: “No matter what Israel’s apartheid regime tries, no matter what segregationist laws it passes, Palestinians are on their own land. They have been there for centuries; they will remain on their land and will not disappear. All that has happened is that the mask which has partially covered Israel’s apartheid system has officially been removed. Israel will pay the political and economic cost for its institutionalized racism. It is entirely discredited as a political entity as are those politicians who continue to support Israel unconditionally. It makes them complicit racists. What is also made clear is the need for a change in Palestinian leadership. There can no longer be a collaborationist Palestinian political leadership whose objective is to ensure Israeli security in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. What is now necessary is the type of massive popular resistance organized by the Palestinian population in Gaza and now manifesting itself in the West Bank, this and the intensification of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.”

Bruce Katz added: “I call upon The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the B’nai Brith to issue public statements denouncing Israel’s racist law which discriminates and formally racializes Israel’s non-Jewish population. These two organizations must denounce that law or face accusations that they implicitly favour it. Given their unconditional support for the Netanyahu regime up to now and their penchant for demonizing critics of Israeli policy, they are now on the carpet and have to state categorically what they are about.”