Liars, damned liars and Israel bashers

Let me stress here that I do not regard Andrew Sibley as an 'Israel-basher'. I just think he has been misled by the Israel bashers. This piece is intended to disabuse people like Andrew Sibley of the notion that Israel is an apartheid state. In fairness, it should be said that Andrew states in his response to my review of Zion’s New Name (see Christian Zionism’s New Name)that the term is 'unhelpful'.

In my review I stated that Andrew ‘categorises Israel as … an apartheid state'. In response (see his Comment), he says, ‘Apartheid? I have said that use of such language is unhelpful do [sic] your claim is factually wrong here.’

What Andrew actually says on page 11 of the book is:

Even someone of the stature of Jimmy Carter has suggested that the Zionist policies of the State of Israel are in effect a form of apartheid because they seek exclude Palestinians from the land.

His footote reads: ‘Carter, J, [sic] Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. New York, Simon and Schuster, 2006, reported in Sizer, S., Zion’s Christian Soldiers? IVP, 2007, p,15 [sic (page 16)]. Perhaps Andrew can help me here but I find no statement to the effect that the apartheid analogy is ‘unhelpful’. Why does Andrew list Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace not Apartheid in his Selected Bibliography, yet not quote directly from it in on page 11? Even then, he fails to cite the correct page of Sizer's book. This suggests to me that Andrew had not read Carter’s book, even though he included it in his bibliography. It indicates sloppy research.

So, until Andrew points me to the page where he says the apartheid analogy is ‘unhelpful’, let’s look at the charge. It is an accusation raised with monotonous regularity against Israel. Uri Davis, Jimmy Carter. and Ben White have all written about it and in an Open Letter to Bono, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) accuses Israel of practicing the ‘most pernicious form of colonialism and apartheid.'

Apartheid in South Africa was an official policy of discrimination against blacks enforced through police violence, based on minority control over a majority population who were not permitted to vote. Because Israel is a majority-rule democracy with equal rights for all citizens including Arabs who may and do vote freely, its critics have to radically redefine the term ‘apartheid’ in order to make it stick. Even Uri Davis recognises this:

A classic apartheid construction when it refers to the essential attributes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is essentially a conflict between a settler-colonial state and an indigenous population dispossessed by the colonial project.

But the situation in Israel is significantly different when compared to South Africa in one or more important senses. First, visitors to South Africa would have been hit in the face by apartheid immediately: benches for whites, benches for non-whites; toilets for whites, toilets for non-whites; parks for whites, parks for non-whites; transport for whites and transport for non-whites.

However, the first impression of Israel to a lay-visitor would possibly be the impression of a standard liberal Western democracy: there are no buses for Jews, buses for non-Jews; parks for Jews and parks for non-Jews; beaches for Jews and beaches for non-Jews. The core apartheid is veiled, and the Jewish National Fund plays an important part in the construction of this veil. (My emphasis)
Consider the following contrasts between Apartheid South Africa and Israel.

Under the Apartheid regime in South Africa, whites were the minority; blacks were the majority. In Israel, Jews are the majority, Arabs the minority.

In Apartheid South Africa, there were laws that discriminated against black citizens; in Israel there are no laws that discriminate against Arab citizens or separate them from Jews.

South Africa had a job reservation policy for white people but Israel has adopted pro-Arab affirmative action measures in some sectors. Israeli schools, universities and hospitals make no distinction between Jews and Arabs.

Black South Africans could not vote until 1994; in Israel Arab citizens of Israel can vote, and also serve in the Knesset.

An Arab citizen who brings a case before an Israeli court will have that case decided on the basis of merit, not ethnicity. This was never the case for blacks under apartheid.

In response to increasing inequality between the Jewish and Arab populations, the Israeli government established a committee to consider, among other issues, policies of affirmative action for housing Arab citizens.

Jerusalem provides free professional advice to assist Arab residents with the house permit process and structural regulations, advice which is not available to Jewish residents on the same terms.

Consider the following quotes from people who actually know something about apartheid.

Former South African President F W deKlerk, who played a key role with Nelson Mandela in ending apartheid, describe the comparisons between Apartheid South Afridca and Israel as are ‘odious’, ‘dangerous’ and ‘not a direct parallel’.
In 2003, South Africa's minister for home affairs Chief Mangosuthu Butjelezi said, 'The Israeli regime is not apartheid. It is a unique case of democracy'.

Fred Taub, the President of Boycott Watch says, ‘[t]he assertion ... that Israel is practicing apartheid is not only false, but may be considered libelous.’
Malcolm Hedding, a South African minister who worked against South African apartheid, says:

Calling Israel an 'apartheid state' is absolute nonsense. You might have structures that look like apartheid, but they're not. The barrier fence has nothing to do with apartheid and everything to do with Israel's self-defense. There was no such barrier until the second intifada, when people were being murdered on the highways. And the country does not dehumanize its minority in the sense of apartheid. The issues are totally different.

Benny Morris, who is often critical of Israel writes:

"Israel is not an apartheid state — rather the opposite, it is easily the most democratic and politically egalitarian state in the Middle East, in which Arabs Israelis enjoy far more freedom, better social services, etc. than in all the Arab states surrounding it. Indeed, Arab representatives in the Knesset, who continuously call for dismantling the Jewish state, support the Hezbollah, etc., enjoy more freedom than many Western democracies give their internal Oppositions. (The U.S. would prosecute and jail Congressmen calling for the overthrow of the U.S. Govt. or the demise of the U.S.) The best comparison would be the treatment of Japanese Americans by the US Govt ... and the British Govt. [incarceration] of German émigrés in Britain WWII ... Israel's Arabs by and large identify with Israel's enemies, the Palestinians. But Israel hasn't jailed or curtailed their freedoms en masse (since 1966 [when Israel lifted its state of martial law]).

I am indebted to the following sites for the information in this blog: Wikipedia, Camera and Zionism on the Web.

Is Israel expansionist?

Andrew Sibley has graciously responded to my review of his book Zion's New Name (see Comment on 'Replacement Theology's New Name') and raises a number of issues that deserve a response. Over the next few days I will deal with Andrew's points. Today, I examine his charge, set out in his book, that Israel is an expansionist state. Andrew Sibley is not the first to level this accusation at Israel. This is his comment on my review:

Is Israel expansionist? In making this claim I am simply looking at how the State of Israel has expanded its borders since 1948 with Palestinian areas reducing in size as Jewish settlements are established and expanded. That I think is factually correct.

In response to Andrew, let’s examine the background to the founding of Israel in 1948. The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate had in mind that what is now Israel and Jordan should be a 'Jewish National Home'. In 1920, the San Remo Conference assigned to Britain a mandate to establish a 'Jewish national home' in what is now Israel, Jordan and the Golan Heights.

Article 6 of the Preamble to the Mandate specified that Britain was 'to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine and encourage close settlement of the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes'.

The Mandate made no mention of Arab national or political rights in the land. It stated only that civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion, must be safeguarded. Arab riots in Palestine resulted in Winston Churchill issuing a White Paper in 1922, which handed almost 80% of the land promised to the Jews to the Hashemi family. What should have been the Jewish homeland east of the Jordan, by a stroke of the pen became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The UN Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947 (General Assembly Resolution 181 (II)) attempted to diminish still further the Jewish homeland by proposing a partition of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The Jews agreed to the proposal but the Arabs rejected it and immediately proceeded to attack Jewish settlements.

When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, the fledgling state was immediately attacked by the surrounding Arab countries with the express intention of driving the Jews into the sea. The Palestinians had rejected the opportunity to have their own homeland and opted instead to destroy the newly-founded Jewish state. It was the Arabs who were expansionist, not the Jews.

Israel 'expanded' its borders in June 1967, by fighting a defensive war against Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, armed by Russia and assisted by Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Egyptian President Nasser declared that his objective was the 'destruction of Israel', and other Arab leaders expressed similar sentiments. Israel pleaded with Jordan not to enter the conflict but Jordan ignored Israel’s pleas and entered the conflict along with Syria and Iraq. The war ended with Israel’s victory; the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria (AKA 'the West Bank'), and the Old City of Jerusalem came under Israeli control.

When Egypt made peace with Israel, Israel handed back the Sinai peninsula. When Jordan made peace with Israel, Israel relinquished control of territories claimed by Jordan. Israel returned to parts of the West Bank in 2001 only in response to Arab terror. Syria has never made peace with Israel, therefore Israel retains the Golan Heights.

In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met Yasser Arafat at the Camp David summit. At that summit Barak offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip. He agreed to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. Barak also agreed that Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new Palestinian state and that the Palestinians would maintain control over their holy places and have 'religious sovereignty' over Israel's most holy site, the Temple Mount.

Barak's proposal addressed the refugee issue, guaranteeing them the right of return to the Palestinian state and reparations from a $30 billion international fund. He also agreed to give the Palestinians access to water desalinated in its territory.

Israel offered generous concessions but Arafat rejected them and walked away from the table. Instead of putting forward a counter proposal, he rewarded Israel's generosity with the second Intafada.

Four years ago, Israel pulled all its people out of Gaza and Hamas expressed its gratitude by launching a lethal rain of missiles on southern Israel.

How, in the light of these facts, can anyone accuse Israel of being an expansionist power?

I am old enough to remember that within days of the end of the Six Day War, Israel made overtures to its enemies regarding a negotiated settlement and withdrawal from the captured territories, overtures that were firmly rejected by the Arab nations at the Khartoum Conference of August/September 1967. The Arab slogan coined at that conference was: 'No peace with Israel. No negotiations with Israel. No recognition of Israel'. This is still the position of Syria and various Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Expansionist? Israel is fighting just to retain the little territory it already possesses!

Replacement Theology's New Name

Andrew Sibley’s latest book Zion's New Name is a true curate’s egg: excellent in parts.

First, the good bits. Sibley is anxious to repudiate a theology that claims the church has replaced Israel and which denies the hope of any future blessing for national Israel. He also reminds us that God loves both Jews and Palestinians, that both Jews and Palestinians are in need of the gospel and that ‘Christians should support the work of evangelism to the Jews’ (p.125). He exposes the errors of some extreme Christian Zionists, notably John Hagee who, in his most recent book, argues that ‘Jesus only intended to be the saviour of the world, and refused to be the Jewish Messiah’ (p.115).

Sibley’s most helpful material is found in chapter 4, ‘Israel in the Old Testament Prophets’, in which he analyzes the promises of the reunification of Israel and Judah found in prophets such as Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah. He draws a distinction between ‘Israel’ and ‘Judah’, the former being the northern tribes, sometimes referred to in the prophets as ‘Ephraim’. He demonstrates that the northern tribes of Israel, which were conquered and exiled by the Assyrians in the seventh century BC, were not ‘lost’, as is commonly supposed, but remained scattered in the lands to the east of Israel’s homeland. The prophesied reunification of the house of Israel with the house of Judah was to take place under a new David and under a new covenant and therefore the apostles, aware of these promises, concentrated their evangelistic efforts on the scattered Jews and Israelites.

Having said that, the book is marred by numerous errors of spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation. But those errors are merely irritating compared to Sibley’s factual inaccuracies. Even though he claims he is not opposed to the state of Israel, Sibley appears to be ignorant about some facts about the modern state of Israel. He categorises Israel as ‘expansionist’ (even though the Israeli government forcibly ejected its own people from Gaza over years ago), nationalistic (what nation is not ‘nationalistic’ to some degree?) and an apartheid state (even though Israeli Arabs enjoy the same democratic rights as Israeli Jews). He imagines that there are ‘very severe laws against the evangelism of Jews in Israel’ (p. 15) when, in fact, there are no anti-evangelism laws, severe or otherwise. And in spite of the fact that the numbers of Messianic Jews in Israel is now estimated to be 15,000 and growing, Sibley believes ‘the State of Israel … shows no outward sign of repentance and conversion to Christ’ (p.14).

Last but not least, the book is confusing. Although Sibley’s avowed intent is to reject ‘Replacement Theology’ – the view that the church has ‘superseded or replaced Judaism’ – his main argument is that ‘most prophecies relating to Israel were fulfilled in and through Christ and in his church' and that ‘the church is spiritually, ethnically and legally Israel'. What is this if not Replacement Theology?

Zion’s New Name would have been a far better book if Sibley had concentrated his efforts on developing chapter 4. He has some good things to say but read it with care.