Ramzy Baroud: B’Tselem’s historic declaration, “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid”

Ramzy Baroud writes about B’Tselem’s historic declaration, “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid”.

Let’s be clear on what this actually means. Israel’s leading human rights organization was not arguing that Israel was turning into an apartheid state or that it was acting contrary to the spirit of democracy or that Israel is an undemocratic apartheid regime only within the geographic confines of the occupied Palestinian territories. None of this. According to B’tselem, which has for decades diligently documented numerous facets of Israeli government practices in the realm of politics, military, land-ownership, water distribution, health, education, and much more, Israel is, now, wholly an apartheid, undemocratic regime.

Emphasis Mine

This Israeli organisation will be seen as anti-semite or self-hating Jews by the Israeli government. The Israeli government hides behind Jewish identity to protect itself from criticism.

This automatic protection of the Israeli state from criticism extends to various public intellectuals—they all infer that any criticism or exposure of crimes is motivated by racial hatred, or, at least, malice. Their identity is tied to the existence of the Israeli state. Any attack upon that state is a personal insult.

As a Gentile, I am charged with preventing the recurrence of the horrors of the Holocaust and other genocides. The Israeli state is not immune from the emergence of genocide within itself. And the policies of the Israeli state is morphing into outright genocide against the Palestinians. Saying so does not excuse the Holocaust. Rather saying so is viligence against the recurrence of the Holocaust.