Apartheid

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recognizes these people as Palestinians. Because of its ‘Law of Return’, however, Israel has a
potential majority of Jews, which it is now trying frantically to mobilize through immigration
and naturalization. I shall argue that the ‘Law of Return’ is an ethnicist law, an apartheid law,
as long as it remains exclusively for the benefit of Jews. And so it does. Palestinians chased
out of Palestine, including what is today the state of Israel, have through a United Nations
resolution been given the right to return, and the right to compensation for their losses by the
state of Israel, which, however, refuses to act upon it. Israeli law thus contradicts international
law and favors ethnic cleansing, in particular of Palestinians, and in favor of Jews.
Around two thirds of all Jews worldwide today are not Israeli citizens, but all Jews
who live in Israel must have Israeli passports. A Jew who lives in Israel or in the Occupied
Territories cannot leave the country unless s/he has an Israeli passport, whether s/he likes it or
not. Of course the passport is issued in less than an hour and s/he may give up his/her passport
if s/he wishes to leave the country for good. The ethnicist point of all this is that Jews are not
allowed to be foreign residents of Israel.
Israel could slip from apartheid into domestic oppression, from minority to majority
rule soon, because it is presently engaged in something tantamount to ethnic cleansing as well
as energetic efforts to lure and entice, and as we saw to some extent even to force Jews and
other non-Arabs, or at least non-Palestinian Arabs (the two latter groups as an alternative
ethnic underclass to replace the troublesome natives), to immigrate to Israel and, especially, to
the illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and to become Israeli citizens
there, whilst Israeli authorities, paramilitary and civilian groups collectively, indiscriminately,
illegally, and brutally pressure Palestinians to leave. Many Jews abroad (and many non-Jews
too) are supporting this practice, for instance with massive financial or military aid, but the
Palestinian resistance is also formidable and it is also receiving aid, though only very little
compared to what the Jews are receiving.
But it is not only support and money that counts, and with regard to the
majority/minority question they do not count at all. The Palestinians clearly still warrant being
labelled the ‘majority’ in terms of the conflict between them and the Israeli Jews. Since the
establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Israeli Jews have in fact never been a majority in
relation to the Palestinians. The ‘Law of Return’ is illegitimate from the perspective of
international law and from the perspective of secular morality as well as within any religious
ethic other than the Jewish one, and the latter only if it is interpreted in a Zionist, i.e.
ethnocentric and/or ethnicist manner. The state of Israel’s ‘Law of Return’, therefore, is part
and parcel of a crime against humanity. Likewise, the discriminatory use of the institution of
citizenship coupled with military occupation and its denial of citizenship and citizens’ rights
(and even basic human rights) to the vast majority of indigenous Palestinians by the Jewish
state are from this perspective also part of a crime against humanity, but additionally they
amount to some very convenient window-dressing, intended to create false impressions,
especially the one that Jews are already a majority and Palestinians a minority, and that Israel
is a democratic state, while attempting by means of ethnic cleansing and ethnicist
repopulation to turn these lies into reality on the ground. Once the Palestinians have been
transformed into a safe minority, democracy shall flourish. At any time since 1967, however,
democracy could have been introduced as a franchise for the Palestinians presently under
military occupation, but apparently the Israeli elites and their powerful allies do not wish to
make this reality, at least not until at least a couple of million of them have left, been expelled
or killed, and then replaced by Jews and/or other non-Palestinians from abroad, if the current
decision-makers, above all the Israeli and US elites, get their way. Then, the Palestinians
could never win nor possibly even swing an election.
Alternatively, a more South African-like ‘Bantustan’ solution is being pursued by
Israelis, and by the Americans in particular. This, as we will see, became particularly clear in
the Oslo Accords, as well as in the 2000 Camp David negotiations, and in the current
implementation of the ‘Road Map’ for ‘peace’. Since the vast majority of Palestinians refuse