Once again, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) has descended onto university campuses. This annual campaign aims to point out so-called apartheid in Israel, injustices, and other such crimes committed by Israel, the Jewish state. There is no getting around this last fact - Israel IS a Jewish state (though this does not necessarily mean that it is a religious state). That is what it was created for; a national homeland for the Jews. Although what Israel is for the Jews isn't the topic of Israeli Apartheid Week, and issues in Israeli society notwithstanding, I find serious flaws in the arguments of IAW.
At my home campus York University, IAW is, shall we say, a rather heated issue. A number of years ago a demonstration during IAW at York bubbled over into a huge conflict between the IAW supporters and other students, many Jewish, in Vari Hall. To the best of my knowledge, the York administration has constructed a help desk right smack in the middle of Vari Hall (though of course the administration denies any such help desk as a deterrent for rallies and demonstrations). But that is not the topic of this blog post, though it will be interesting to see if any mass demonstrations or rallies occur this year.
The aim of IAW is "to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement" (from the IAW website). How interesting that they consider Israel an apartheid system. If this was indeed true, then I would like the IAW supporters to explain how the following situation that I have personally witnessed could have happened:
I was sitting in Aroma in Mamilla Mall, in Jerusalem. I ordered some food, and went to sit down. When I sat down, I realized what a beautiful day it was - I looked around. The patio was packed; it was one of the first really nice days in a while. I saw many different people sitting on the patio - religious Jews, secular Jews, Christians, Muslims wearing hijabs...and I couldn't help but wonder what an IAW supporter would think of this. People were sitting at whichever tables they pleased - there were no signs stating that certain tables were only for certain people. The same can be said for the public buses that run through Jerusalem. There are no places reserved for any particular group of people to sit in a particular spot. Yet another thing I have noticed: I am on a campus with Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians...We all take the same classes, with the same professors, in the same buildings. I am not sure what IAW defines as apartheid, but to the best of my knowledge, these situations would have been radically different in apartheid states that I am familiar with (such as South Africa 20 years ago).
There are issues in Israel - it is run by humans, and just as humans are not perfect, Israel isn't either. The issue, in my opinion, lies in Palestinian territories which are, technically speaking, still part of sovereign Israel, though they have some sort of functioning representatives. Come September, there are to be independent elections in the West Bank. With regards to Gaza, although Israel has no presence on the ground there, and though Hamas holds power in the region, Gaza is still technically part of sovereign Israel. For IAW to proclaim Israel an apartheid state is an insult to those who lived through apartheid in South Africa, for though Israel has issues, apartheid is certainly not one of them.
