In less than a week Israel was put on the list of a global terror report and was also described as being on the verge of becoming an apartheid state. If that wasn't bad enough, this message of Israeli wrongdoing was sent by the US, Israel's ubiquitous ally. For the first time, the US State Department's annual Country Report on Terrorism included a reference to Jewish extremists and their continued attacks on Palestinian residents, property and places of worship in the West Bank. Israeli police challenged the report, saying the incidents could not be likened to militant attacks. But there are price tag attacks, the property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups, who are retaliating for activity they view as being anti-settlement. These attacks go largely unprosecuted and over the year, the phenomenon has spread into Israel from the occupied West Bank. Extremist Israelis believe they have the right to do what they want, which in effect is to destroy Palestinian civil life with as much damage, as much sheer wanton destruction, killing, humiliation and vandalism as possible, and the right to get away with it because the state is in collusion over this absolute rejection of Palestinians and Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry's warning that Israel is on the verge of becoming an apartheid state raised a firestorm of criticism from Israel and its supporters although in truth the only inaccuracy is that Kerry phrased his apartheid description in the future tense when in fact it has been a part of Israel's history. The plight of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza, is worse than that of blacks during the apartheid regime. In South Africa the white minority wanted to keep the blacks and exploit them, but in Israel the government is working hard to get rid of the Palestinians and force them to leave Israel and the occupied territories. As a result, the Palestinians suffer greater hardships. The most thorough comparison of the apartheid system of racial segregation with Israeli practices can be made of the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians are ruled by Israel and kept stateless and without rights. While South Africa created Bantustans as a way of denaturalizing blacks, Gaza and the West Bank function as Bantustans, as South African blacks have no trouble recognizing. The Palestinians living in these occupied territories have no citizenship in any real state. They are stateless. While South Africa instituted a “pass” system to control the movement of blacks, Israel operates a “permit” system to control the movement of Palestinians. In apartheid South Africa, 80 percent of the land was set aside for white settlers. In 1948 Palestinians lost 78 percent of Palestine to Israel. Kerry is not alone in his Israeli apartheid comments. The apartheid analogy is common in Israel itself. Former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert and current Justice Minister Tzipi Livni have all at one time or another alluded to or spelt out Israel's apartheid association. Desmond Tutu, one of the strongest moral voices of our time, clearly compared the treatment of Palestinians to the apartheid state in South Africa. No state on earth could have done what Israel has done without the approbation and support that the US has given it. And yet Kerry did not hesitate to provide Congress a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to Israel which meets the criteria set forth in the legislation. Nor did he waver when equating Israel with apartheid. He called a spade a spade.
