Apartheid

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Jordan, in power in most of the Persian Gulf and North African states, including the wealthy
oil and gas producers, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. If
the USA were serious about its lip service to the promotion of democracy in Arab and Muslim
countries, it would not be keeping undemocratic Arabs and Muslims in power, even militarily,
in those very countries. More democracy in the Arab and Muslim worlds would no doubt lead
to more anti-Israeli stances in the region. Since the 1970s, however, all of these Arab states
have avoided criticizing Israeli human rights violations too harshly or intervening to protect
Palestinians against Israeli aggression, although most of the countries’ people would seem to
back such moves. Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated in 1981 on account of his
Israel-friendly policy. Muslim fundamentalists have since then waged a contained civil war,
with pauses, against the Cairo regime, not only due to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, but
partly so. Jordan appeared to be slipping into the same kind of situation in late 2002, although
that situation was eventually defused through annihilation of the militants.
It seems that only military, financial, and political aid for these undemocratic and
corrupt regimes, from both the USA and other western powers, are able to keep these
countries from intervening in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Egypt is the second largest
recipient of US military aid, second only to Israel. Jordan is third. In the year 2003, the USA
supplied Israel with $2.1 billion in military aid, Egypt with $1.3 billion, Jordan with $198
million. (Fourth on Washington’s list of most needy friends was the Colombian government
with $98 million. Interestingly, these four states are all notorious violators of human rights.)
That seems to have been just one of the enticements. Thus, some Arab elites, too, are to blame
for the overdue survival of apartheid in Israel (though certainly not for its creation and initial
implementation). 164
Of course it is also up to us, all of the human inhabitants of this planet, to resist and
discourage the crimes against humanity that constitute apartheid in Israel. It can be done
simply through demonstrations and other ways of showing displeasure and anger at those
most responsible for the crimes. It could also involve boycotts, sanctions, and lobbying. It
must also involve informing decision-makers of facts that are being hidden. Those
governments and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations not mentioned so far
in this chapter can surely do more, as well. In fact it is their duty to do so, especially if they
are among the 191 signatories of the Geneva Convention. And this is not only to support
Palestinians, or blind support to Palestinians. The latter are also provoked to commit crimes
against humanity, targeting Israeli civilians in lethal attacks, just as the Blacks in South Africa
did against Whites. In other words: it is not only in the interest of Palestinians that an
immediate end be put to Israeli apartheid. It is also in the interest of Israelis. Then, it is in the
interest of humanity. Last, but not least, it is in the interest of the natural environment and of
biodiversity.
Nobody can today be regarded as more responsible for Israeli apartheid than the Israeli
Jews, especially their elected political elites, and the military and economic elites. I will
attempt to provide ample evidence for this judgment in the following chapters. The
Palestinians, on the other hand, cannot be blamed collectively for it. Their resistance is not a
cause of the separation and segregation. It is a direct consequence of them. Any pseudoargument
to the contrary blames the victims and is therefore, in my opinion, morally and
historically corrupt. Of course, Palestinians should be prosecuted for any crimes, for any
164 Al-Khalidi: Jordan City Under Siege Seethes with Tension, 2002; Al-Khalidi: Jordanian Troops Battle Do-or-
Die Islamists, 2002; Blair: Sadat’s Gesture, 25 Years On, Evokes Bitterness, 2002; Drees: Journey Sadat Began
in Israel Is Far from Complete, 2002; N.N.: US Promises Israel $2.16 Bln. Military Aid in 2004, November 21,
2002. See Mokhiber & Weissman: We Had a Democracy Once, But You Crushed It, 2003 on the hollow ring of
current US lip service to democracy for Palestinian and other Muslims, with emphasis on the precedent US-led
coup in Iran in 1953, which toppled the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, and
installed the Shah, a monarch, and a continuous rule of terror over the land, a direct parallel to the
antidemocratic, US-led coups in Congo and Chile.