{"id":354,"date":"2006-12-26T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2006\/12\/jeff-halper-untwisting-the-tru.html"},"modified":"2006-12-26T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-26T12:00:00","slug":"jeff-halper-untwisting-the-tru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2006\/12\/jeff-halper-untwisting-the-tru.html","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Halper: Untwisting ‘the Truth’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Jeff Halper continues his dialogue with <\/em>Virtual Talmud<\/a> <\/em>bloggers on the controversy surrounding Jimmy Carter’s book, <\/em>Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, this time responding to Rabbi Joshua Waxman’s post titled, <\/em>“Twisting the Truth.”<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Twisting “the truth”? Since when are polemics (repeating Dershowitz\u2019s<\/a> weird choice of the word “screed” to characterize Carter\u2019s book) and wrong statements “the truth”?<\/p>\n

Wrong: “The comparison with South Africa is absurd.”<\/p>\n

South Africa constructed a system of structured inequality on a racial basis and the permanent institutionalization of the dominance of one people over another. Israel has done the exact same thing. Does it really matter if separation and domination are on the basis of race or on national, ethnic, and religious lines? It is the system <\/em>we are talking about, regardless of the ideology that fuels it.<\/p>\n

Wrong: Arabs citizens of Israel \u201clive where they want and enjoy equal protection of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do we still have to argue that point? 93% of the land of Israel is off-limits to non-Jews: 72% is Jewish National Fund<\/a> land and the other 21% is \u201cstate land\u201dof various kinds, all \u201cowned\u201d by the Jewish people (like Rabbi Waxman in far-off Fort Washington, PA), not by the citizens of the country. The Arab citizens of Israel, 20% of the population, are confined to 3.5% of the land. Equal protection? An entire Bedouin village was demolished last week in the Negev, and another 40,000(!) homes of [Palestinian] citizens of Israel, residents for 60 years of \u201cunrecognized villages,\u201d are slated for demolition. Arab citizens of Israel cannot even bring spouses from the Occupied Territories or Arab countries to live with them in violation of their fundamental human rights. That\u2019s not apartheid?! Oh, yeah, they are free to vote, but any government decision that lacks a \u201cJewish majority\u201d is considered illegitimate.<\/p>\n


Wrong: “Jordan and Syria refused to make peace in exchange for the West Bank and Golan Heights respectively, and so for the past 40 years these territories have remained under Israel\u2019s control.”<\/p>\n

Israel never <\/em>tried to exchange the Occupied Territories, including the Golan Heights, for peace. The great mistake of the learned rabbis on this site (and, unfortunately, pretty much everywhere) is to cast Israel\u2019s occupation as defensive and connected to security. The occupation became a proactive claim to the Territories two weeks after the end of the war with the emergence of the Allon Plan, which scuttled peace both the Jordan and <\/em>the Palestinians. To argue that Israel moved a half-million settlers into the Occupied Territories for security reasons \u2013 while still supposedly negotiating with the Palestinians over land \u2013 is, indeed, absurd. There is no evidence whatsoever, either diplomatic or \u201con the ground,\u201dthat Israel ever <\/em>considered relinquishing control of the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Wrong: “Hafrada<\/em>, the Hebrew term that Halper tries to argue means “apartheid,” in fact refers to the policy of separating the territories from Israel proper for security reasons, and not a separation of or discrimination between Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens as he implies.”<\/p>\n

Hafrada<\/em> does mean the separation of populations. Listen to Olmert if you don\u2019t believe me. Referring to the Separation Barrier he said: \u201cWe must create a clear boundary as soon as possible, one which will reflect the demographic reality on the ground.\u201d It\u2019s true that apartheid meant structured inequality of groups within the same state, but that\u2019s why South Africa tried to get out of that bind (and remain \u201cdemocratic\u201d) by creating Bantustans. Israel is doing the same from a different direction. It is expanding to include all the territory to the Jordan River, then it wants to create the Palestinian Bantustan (Sharon\u2019s plan of \u201ccantonization;\u201d Olmert\u2019s \u201cconvergence\u201d).<\/p>\n

Warning: It is Israel <\/em>that is setting the stage for a one-state solution by foreclosing a two-state one. If they don\u2019t want apartheid \u2013 and don\u2019t to become apologists for apartheid \u2013 they better rag on Olmert, AIPAC and their own rabbinical associations to end the occupation totally <\/em>and today<\/em>. But I guess liberals can\u2019t be \u201cextremists\u201d – they can\u2019t change the system. They just try to make it a little more \u201chumanitarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Halper<\/a> is the coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions<\/a> (ICAHD), based in Jerusalem.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Halper continues his dialogue with Virtual Talmud bloggers on the controversy surrounding Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, this time responding to Rabbi Joshua Waxman’s post titled, “Twisting the Truth.” Twisting “the truth”? 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