It is Ignorant, Bias, Hateful and Inaccurate to Call Israel an Apartheid State

Apartheid is “a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race” in South Africa. (see here) Today there is a growing movement to brand Israel as an apartheid state and the leadership of our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is part of it.  

On the ELCA’s official website there are numerous articles and a great deal of information which labels the state of Israel as an apartheid state.   Here is what Exposing the ELCA found:

• The ELCA promotes the “Palestine Kairos Document” and on the ELCA's website which highlights this document it states, “In this spirit the document requests the international community to stand by the Palestinian people who have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades.”  And later, “stand against injustice and apartheid.” (see here)

• The ELCA publicizes the book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. (see here)

• The ELCA website published this statement under the heading "What We Believe," "With urgency we warn that Christian Zionism and its alliances are justifying colonization, apartheid and empire-building." (see here)
  

• The ELCA’s Peace Not Walls section of its website posted this statement, “The action clearly highlights the injustice and dispossession that Palestinians face under Israeli occupation and apartheid.” (see here)
  

• You can read this statement on the ELCA’s website, “The tragedy is that everyone suffers in this environment. The Palestinian people face daily indignities, injustices and experience oppression familiar to the Jim Crow South of the United States and apartheid of South Africa.”  (see here)

• The ELCA’s anti-Israeli section of its website posted this statement in one of its articles, “You do not leave an occupied people at the mercy of those who occupy them and who act unilaterally in violation of international law by continuing to demolish homes, annex land, build settlements, erect apartheid walls and revoke IDs.” (see here)
  

• Again, the ELCA website published this statement, “I think we are heading with full power to a fully developed apartheid system.”  (see here)

• Lutheran Woman Today published this, “Jimmy Carter has been criticized for using the word apartheid (literally, apart-hood) to describe the situation of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, but the system under which they live has a similar effect if not intent . . .” (read here)
  

• A video produced by the ELCA, which is a propaganda-laced piece against Israel, has a clip that focuses in on the words, “This is Apartheid.” (see here)
  

Is Israel an apartheid state?  Many say "no."

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the president of International Fellowship of Christians and Jews says “In apartheid-era South Africa, black citizens were totally disenfranchised and relegated to the status of second-class citizens. In Israel, on the other hand, both Jewish and Arab citizens have equal protection under the law, enjoy freedom of religion and speech, and have full voting rights. Arab-Israeli members are present in Israel's 120-member parliament, the Knesset.” (read here)

Dennis Prager, a syndicated radio talk show host, author,  columnist and public speaker answers the Israel and apartheid question this way, “More and more of these days one hears this charge made . . . There is no truth to it.” (see video below)

Dr. Michael Oren, Ambassador of Israel writes, “In October 2011, Richard Goldstone, the South African Jurist who aided his country’s transition from its apartheid policies, published the following in the New York Times:
‘While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.’

As the Ambassador of Israel to the United States, I unequivocally refute the charge that Israel is guilty of pursuing a policy of apartheid and, in fact, regard that allegation as deeply offensive. Apartheid refers to a legal system that segregates all aspects of civil society and in which a minority rules over the majority. Israel in no way resembles that system, and any assertion to the contrary is an affront to the true victims of apartheid.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and one of only a handful of all countries in the world which has never known a moment of non-democratic rule. Israel is home to over 1.5 million Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, Druze, Baha’i, and Bedouin, all of whom receive full and equal rights under Israeli law.” (see here)

So why are people claiming that Israel is an apartheid state?  And why is the ELCA propagating this lie?

Dennis Prager replies, “Because by comparing the freest, most equitable country in the Middle East to the former South Africa, those who hate Israel, hope they can persuade uninformed people that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist just as apartheid South Africa didn’t deserve to exist.” (see here)

Rabbi Eckstein says, “Anyone who promotes the idea of Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ is either ignorant or motivated by bias against the Jewish state so intense that facts and truth no longer have any meaning to them.” (read here)

What do you think?  

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