"Israel and the Apartheid Slander" by Richard Goldstone

[regular]

Nope.

There are Jewish Zionists, Druze Zionists, Christian Zionists, Hindu Zionists and even Muslim Zionists.

Yes! that is true we even have Muslim Zionists.....hired by the elite ruling Zionists against the Muslims interests.....

 

[VCheng]

So when Goldstone authors what he later considered a flawed report condemning Israel he is lauded by Pakistanis, but when he castigates those who slander Israel Hush! is the word.

The old "pick-and-choose-as-it-suits" strategy is alive and well for ALL to use I suppose.

Clearly getting Pakistanis to display moral courage is a tough task. If I lived in Pakistan do you think I would act the same way? Or is it just a Muslim thing?

Hold on buddy, there is no need to generalize. Pakistanis have moral courage aplenty.

Getting back on topic, it is important to realize that a majority of Pakistanis see the Israeli-Palestinian issue through Arab-issued spectacles. Change the spectacles and reality will filter through quite easily.

 

[PteX]

the war of 73 was just an ''extention'' of the 67 war......the war got ideological backing from the (then known) U.A.R. (Egypt, Syria primarily)

it was neither PALESTINIANS nor your country which started that war. I never said the opposite.




i'm afraid i'm going to have to ask for proof or documentation of that...even IF it were true, were they directly active in hostile engagements against the israelis

i await patiently your reply

It shouldn`t be much of a surprise considering these Arab nations provided assistance in any and every way possible, vise versa as well.

Mohamar Gaddafi of Libya, and King Feisal of Saudi Arabia agreed to provide oil supplies to support the mission. These Arab nations joined an Arab imposed oil embargo which staggered many nations, including the United States. Though originally unplanned, Iraqi and Jordanian forces later joined the Syrians in Golan operations against Israel. Other Arab nations that contributed small contingents of forces to the Arab forces included Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, as well as a commando unit comprised by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: Arab Policies, Strategies, and Campaigns

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i know, i know....but tell me about Palestinian role in the wars

 

[Solomon2]

Yes! that is true we even have Muslim Zionists.....hired by the elite ruling Zionists against the Muslims interests.....

They are accused of being hirelings by many other Muslims. Apparently this has something to do with the fact that Israel-supporters' Koran-based arguments are irrefutable. link

 

[PteX]

i know, i know....but tell me about Palestinian role in the wars

Sending commando units from the PLO doesn`t count as a direct hostile engagement?

 

[lem34]

What I think is funny about this thread is that the mainstream media are so supportive of zionism that the report wasnt covered by as many newspaper and journals as one would noramlly expect. However by attacking the report on this forum it has lead to another forum member to actually find it and post iy here for us so that Zionism and Israel can be exposed. Well done solo man you have helped publisize israeli abuses. Was that your intention?

http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/139673-israel-guilty-apartheid.html

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Sending commando units from the PLO doesn`t count as a direct hostile engagement?

it was a terrorist attack on civilian athletes; however, it does not constitute an act of war by the Palestinian nation against the israelis


you already know this

 

[PteX]

it was a terrorist attack on civilian athletes; however, it does not constitute an act of war by the Palestinian nation against the israelis


you already know this

The Munich massacre occurred in 72', i was not including terrorist attacks in my post, they sent a trained commando unit to help the Arab forces attack Israel.

 

[Solomon2]

Nope sorry there...I am a South African born Pakistani living in South Africa. I mistakenly made both my flags Pakistani but I have alerted the relevant authorities to correct that error. So believe me when I tell you that for me to tell you that Israel is an apartheid state is to talk from experience.

Is Israel an Apartheid State?
Written by Samantha Badgen
Published Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Proposed nationality law intensifies the question

A sure-fire way to start an argument in Israel is to bring up the “A” word, and to raise the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state. Apartheid refers, of course, to the system of racial segregation in South Africa, which curtailed the rights of the majority black inhabitants in favor of the minority white inhabitants.

When it comes to Israel, Arab citizens of Israel have equal rights, at least on paper. They can vote and Arab representatives serve in the Knesset. At the same time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s efforts to pass a law designating Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people” has sparked increased questioning of Israel as an apartheid state.

"If it's true, it's a very serious charge," Benjamin Pogrund, a South African journalist, said. "Apartheid... was just about one of the most evil discriminatory practices inflicted within the last century... So if it's true, it's a very serious charge and Israel would rightly stand to be condemned and face the wrath of the world."

Pogrund's recently published book, "Drawing Fire," deals with the issue. While he was still living in South Africa, Pogrund spent 26 years reporting on apartheid, and now he applied that knowledge to an investigation into the claims that Israel is an apartheid state.

"What apartheid actually meant, and what it really came down to, was that with one law after the other discrimination and segregation were driven into every nook and cranny of that country," Pogrund said. "It was as total as that, there was a totem pole of privilege. Whites at the top, then mixed race and Asians, then the majority of the population, who were black, at the bottom and under severe control. That was apartheid."

It is the absence of a total, institutionalized system of racism in Israel, Pogrund says that proves Israel is not an apartheid state. There are no segregated cinemas, no segregated parks or ambulances. Most crucial, he says, is that Arab citizens of Israel have the right to vote.

Critics argue that while racism may not be truly institutionalized, there are a series of discriminatory practices against Arab citizens of Israel.

"Across all different measures substantial gaps can be found [between Jews and Arabs]," Talya Steiner, a researcher in Israel Democracy Institute's Democratic Principles Project, told The Media Line. "Participation in the workforce... is drastically lower than among Jews. There are also high income disparities [between Arab and Jewish citizens] in the same work and with the same educational background."

Steiner said the main issue affecting Arab citizens' ability to move up in the workforce is the education system. Historically, Arab schools have been under-budgeted and the level of education is significantly lower than in Jewish schools.

There are also geographic disparities that contribute to an unequal system. Minorities tend to live in the periphery of the cities, where access to job opportunities is much less developed.

"Discrimination does exist, there is historical discrimination in terms of budgeting and planning, the investment of development of infrastructure is much less developed in rural areas," she said. "Public transportation is much less developed in rural areas, there is less development in the Arab sector, and there is a systemic discrimination in the system."

In the workforce itself, if Arab citizens manage to rise above the issues within the system, they face individual discrimination, which rises and falls along with the tensions in the country. After a series of recent attacks in Jerusalem, there were calls on businesses to fire their Arab workers.

When it comes to the West Bank, the situation is even more complicated. While Israel has not annexed the West Bank, the 350,000 Israelis who live there are under Israeli civil law, while the 2.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank are under Israeli military law.

"I know Israelis don't like when the word 'apartheid' is used, but if they don't like it then maybe they should give us a different word to use for having two different sets of rules for people living in the same piece of land," Xavier Abu Eid, spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told The Media Line. "There is clearly one set of rules for Jews and one for non-Jews."

Some roads in the West Bank including most of Highway 443, an alternative to the often-crowded Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, are off-limits to Palestinians.

"If democracy is defined as the right of people to vote, then Israel controls four million Palestinians in the occupied state, and we don't have the right to vote," Abu Eid said. "What we have is the reality of an apartheid state in the occupied state of Palestine."

Pogrund agrees that there is an occupation in the West Bank. Soldiers with guns controlling what the government calls "disputed territories" can't be anything other than oppression, he says. But he argues that most of the measures put in place were conceived as security measures.

What Palestinians call the "apartheid wall" was conceived as one such measure. The concrete barrier which runs in and around the West Bank was started in 2002 during the second intifada, as a way to try to keep would-be terrorists from entering the city and carrying out attacks.

The problem comes when things conceived as security measures don't stay that way, such as the barrier, which Palestinians say is now being used as a way to grab land. The barrier effectively annexes eight percent of the West Bank to Israel. Israeli officials argue that the barrier could be removed by government decision.