John Kerry: Israel Risks Becoming An Apartheid State

[Zanza]

The Israeli plan isn't to "rule over them"

At least one current government party openly states that unilateral annexation of the West Bank is its declared policy goal.

[Viking]

The Israeli plan isn't to "rule over them"

At least one current government party openly states that unilateral annexation of the West Bank is its declared policy goal.

Seriously? I thought we dealt with this. So what if one party wants that. If it's not government policy it's not government policy. So what if one party wants that? Seriously, this is israel, there are always crazy parties in government. Most leftist Israeli governments have had a party advocating for Halakha (the jewish version of Sharia) as well as a theocratic state. FFS. It's not an argument. The government speaks for israel. You are going out of you way to be obtuse here.

[Valmy]

The Israeli plan isn't to "rule over them"

At least one current government party openly states that unilateral annexation of the West Bank is its declared policy goal.

That is a big problem in Israeli politics.  Lots of small nutty parties that hold uncomfortable amounts of power.

[Valmy]

Seriously? I thought we dealt with this. So what if one party wants that. If it's not government policy it's not government policy. So what if one party wants that? Seriously, this is israel, there are always crazy parties in government. Most leftist Israeli governments have had a party advocating for Halakha (the jewish version of Sharia) as well as a theocratic state. FFS. It's not an argument. The government speaks for israel. You are going out of you way to be obtuse here.

Well it is a factor.  Anything Israel ends up doing they are going to have to deal with their own nutters.  Granted they did that well in 2005.

[Viking]

Seriously? I thought we dealt with this. So what if one party wants that. If it's not government policy it's not government policy. So what if one party wants that? Seriously, this is israel, there are always crazy parties in government. Most leftist Israeli governments have had a party advocating for Halakha (the jewish version of Sharia) as well as a theocratic state. FFS. It's not an argument. The government speaks for israel. You are going out of you way to be obtuse here.

Well it is a factor.  Anything Israel ends up doing they are going to have to deal with their own nutters.  Granted they did that well in 2005.

They just boosted the knesset threshold to 3.25%. So slightly fewer nutty parties. Also, slightly fewer arab parties.

[Sheilbh]

The problem you describe only happens if Israel imposes it on itself.

Exactly. Which is what settlements and the growing radicalisation of the right is doing.

The mind reading bit is not about the minority which has views different from official government policy (as Nick Clegg what that is like), but rather about arguing that the non-crazy cabinet members secretly hold the same crazy views as the crazy ones do.

It's not me who's saying that only about 5 Likudniks are fully behind a two-state solution, it was the Deputy Foreign Minister. He may be mind-reading, but I doubt it.

I'm glad we agree they're crazy. There are more crazy ones in this cabinet than in the last. The Likud list in 2013 was crazier than previously. It's no longer a party with space for Benny Begin or Dan Meridor. The extraordinary and worrying thing is that now Lieberman looks like a moderate.

Goldberg's article certainly doesn't argue that Israel is an apartheid state but rather that his conspiracy theory says it will be.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Israel is an apartheid state. I haven't. Goldberg doesn't. Kerry hasn't.

What's the conspiracy theory here?

Seriously? I thought we dealt with this. So what if one party wants that. If it's not government policy it's not government policy. So what if one party wants that?

This is a non-sequitur though.

It's like someone saying there's a risk that the UK could leave the EU: Euroscepticism is becoming more mainstream, there's a growing number of Tories who want out and the main parties are being challenged by an increasingly popular Ukip. And the response is it's not government policy, Cameron wants to stay in.

Edit: Incidentally Netanyahu is also now a moderate and looks relatively wounded. It certainly seems like Lieberman and other possible replacements are on manoeuvres.

[Viking]

The problem you describe only happens if Israel imposes it on itself.

Exactly. Which is what settlements and the growing radicalisation of the right is doing.

No, I was referring to israel voluntarily giving the vote to west bank arabs....Settlements and growing radicalization in israel is certainly not going to lead to palestinian suffrage in israeli elections.

The mind reading bit is not about the minority which has views different from official government policy (as Nick Clegg what that is like), but rather about arguing that the non-crazy cabinet members secretly hold the same crazy views as the crazy ones do.

It's not me who's saying that only about 5 Likudniks are fully behind a two-state solution, it was the Deputy Foreign Minister. He may be mind-reading, but I doubt it.

I'm glad we agree they're crazy. There are more crazy ones in this cabinet than in the last. The Likud list in 2013 was crazier than previously. It's no longer a party with space for Benny Begin or Dan Meridor. The extraordinary and worrying thing is that now Lieberman looks like a moderate.

He shouldn't be mind reading either. Anyways, being against it even if it would work and being against it because you don't think it will work are two different things.

Goldberg's article certainly doesn't argue that Israel is an apartheid state but rather that his conspiracy theory says it will be.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Israel is an apartheid state. I haven't. Goldberg doesn't. Kerry hasn't.

What's the conspiracy theory here?

The one that explains how. Or, more specifically the one that postulates that it will happen without explaining how.

Seriously? I thought we dealt with this. So what if one party wants that. If it's not government policy it's not government policy. So what if one party wants that?

This is a non-sequitur though.

It's like someone saying there's a risk that the UK could leave the EU: Euroscepticism is becoming more mainstream, there's a growing number of Tories who want out and the main parties are being challenged by an increasingly popular Ukip. And the response is it's not government policy, Cameron wants to stay in.

Edit: Incidentally Netanyahu is also now a moderate and looks relatively wounded. It certainly seems like Lieberman and other possible replacements are on manoeuvres.

And Cameron is PM. Once Nigel Farage or John Redwood or Ian Duncan Smith or Daniel Hannan becomes PM then the UK leaving might be policy. But it isn't.

Then again, if you want that to be your standard, the PA just started supporting genocide since it just made a unity government deal with hamas.

[Sheilbh]

No, I was referring to israel voluntarily giving the vote to west bank arabs....Settlements and growing radicalization in israel is certainly not going to lead to palestinian suffrage in israeli elections.

I thought you wanted to spell out a scenario of the choice between democracy and a Jewish state. There you go: pieds noirs in the West Bank, sympathisers in the Cabinet.

And Cameron is PM. Once Nigel Farage or John Redwood or Ian Duncan Smith or Daniel Hannan becomes PM then the UK leaving might be policy. But it isn't.

But who's saying it is policy? It's a risk.

Then again, if you want that to be your standard, the PA just started supporting genocide since it just made a unity government deal with hamas.

It feels like you're not actually reading my posts but what you think I'm saying. I don't see how this follows from anything I've said.

However obviously at the moment negotiations are impossible because of the unity deal.

[Malthus]

Did the apartheid government consider residents of Bophuthatswana to be South African citizens or citizens of another country?

In short, yes.

The idea behind aparthied, if I understand it correctly, was to isolate Black South Africans on artificial "bantustans" so as not to give them any civil rights in South Africa, while continuing to exploit them as the primary labour force in areas such as mining.

Under the homeland system, the government attempted to divide South Africa into a number of separate states, each of which was supposed to develop into a separate nation-state for a different ethnic group.[54]

Territorial separation was not a new institution. There were, for example, the "reserves" created under the British government in the nineteenth century. Under apartheid, 13 per cent of the land was reserved for black homelands, a relatively small amount compared to the total population, and generally in economically unproductive areas of the country. The Tomlinson Commission of 1954 justified apartheid and the homeland system, but stated that additional land ought to be given to the homelands, a recommendation that was not carried out.[citation needed]

When Verwoerd became Prime Minister in 1958, the policy of "separate development" came into being, with the homeland structure as one of its cornerstones. Verwoerd came to believe in the granting of independence to these homelands. The government justified its plans on the basis that "(the) government's policy is, therefore, not a policy of discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, but a policy of differentiation on the ground of nationhood, of different nations, granting to each self-determination within the borders of their homelands – hence this policy of separate development".[citation needed] Under the homelands system, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa, becoming citizens of the independent homelands who worked in South Africa as foreign migrant labourers on temporary work permits. In 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act was passed, and border industries and the Bantu Investment Corporation were established to promote economic development and the provision of employment in or near the homelands. Many black South Africans who had never resided in their identified homeland were forcibly removed from the cities to the homelands.

Ten homelands were allocated to different black ethnic groups: Lebowa (North Sotho, also referred to as Pedi), QwaQwa (South Sotho), Bophuthatswana (Tswana), KwaZulu (Zulu), KaNgwane (Swazi), Transkei and Ciskei (Xhosa), Gazankulu (Tsonga), Venda (Venda) and KwaNdebele (Ndebele). Four of these were declared independent by the South African government: Transkei in 1976, Bophuthatswana in 1977, Venda in 1979, and Ciskei in 1981 (known as the TBVC states). Once a homeland was granted its nominal independence, its designated citizens had their South African citizenship revoked, replaced with citizenship in their homeland. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the nominally autonomous homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, meaning they were no longer legally considered South African.[55] The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black citizens of the homelands and the problems which other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid#Homeland_system

The idea was that Blacks actually living and working in South Africa would be declared not citizens of South Africa, but rather citizens of a "bantustan". Therefore, they would have no citizenship rights in SA, but rather be legally treated as foreign "migrant workers".

The situation in Israel is totally different. The Palestinians affected are not living in Israel, and increasingly, they are not working in Israel either - Israel more or less intends to wall them out. There is no suggestion (from anyone non-crazy) of revoking Israeli Arab citizenship and making them citizens of "Palestine".

[Malthus]

The problem you describe only happens if Israel imposes it on itself.

Exactly. Which is what settlements and the growing radicalisation of the right is doing.

The mind reading bit is not about the minority which has views different from official government policy (as Nick Clegg what that is like), but rather about arguing that the non-crazy cabinet members secretly hold the same crazy views as the crazy ones do.

It's not me who's saying that only about 5 Likudniks are fully behind a two-state solution, it was the Deputy Foreign Minister. He may be mind-reading, but I doubt it.

I'm glad we agree they're crazy. There are more crazy ones in this cabinet than in the last. The Likud list in 2013 was crazier than previously. It's no longer a party with space for Benny Begin or Dan Meridor. The extraordinary and worrying thing is that now Lieberman looks like a moderate.

Goldberg's article certainly doesn't argue that Israel is an apartheid state but rather that his conspiracy theory says it will be.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Israel is an apartheid state. I haven't. Goldberg doesn't. Kerry hasn't.

What's the conspiracy theory here?

Seriously? I thought we dealt with this. So what if one party wants that. If it's not government policy it's not government policy. So what if one party wants that?

This is a non-sequitur though.

It's like someone saying there's a risk that the UK could leave the EU: Euroscepticism is becoming more mainstream, there's a growing number of Tories who want out and the main parties are being challenged by an increasingly popular Ukip. And the response is it's not government policy, Cameron wants to stay in.

Edit: Incidentally Netanyahu is also now a moderate and looks relatively wounded. It certainly seems like Lieberman and other possible replacements are on manoeuvres.

To my mind, the more probable "risk" is a continuation of the status quo - that is, Israeli authorizing slicing off a bit of the WB at a time and effectively walling itself off from the remaint's problems. The notion of attempting to absorb the WB holus-bolus population and all is highly unpopular in Israel, whatever some radical politicos may want.

[Viking]

No, I was referring to israel voluntarily giving the vote to west bank arabs....Settlements and growing radicalization in israel is certainly not going to lead to palestinian suffrage in israeli elections.

I thought you wanted to spell out a scenario of the choice between democracy and a Jewish state. There you go: pieds noirs in the West Bank, sympathisers in the Cabinet.

So, basically as long as israel does not annex any bits of Area A in the west bank then Isreal will not be at risk of having to choose between being an apartheid state and being jewish. I'm happy with that.

And Cameron is PM. Once Nigel Farage or John Redwood or Ian Duncan Smith or Daniel Hannan becomes PM then the UK leaving might be policy. But it isn't.

But who's saying it is policy? It's a risk.

Now you're just playing semantics...

Then again, if you want that to be your standard, the PA just started supporting genocide since it just made a unity government deal with hamas.

It feels like you're not actually reading my posts but what you think I'm saying. I don't see how this follows from anything I've said.

However obviously at the moment negotiations are impossible because of the unity deal.

I'm pointing out how ridiculous it is to ascribe the policy of some members of the government to the government itself.

[Norgy]

He's right.

Also, 'apartheid' isn't a word you use accidentally.

Even if you believe it's right, that's just not something a diplomatic should say unless they're intending to just blow up the negotiations right there.

What is a diplomatic, Tim? Kerry isn't a diplomat. He's your foreign minister.
And of course he's right. Israel is something only you Americans are fond of.

[Admiral Yi]

He's our senior diplomat.

[Sheilbh]

To my mind, the more probable "risk" is a continuation of the status quo - that is, Israeli authorizing slicing off a bit of the WB at a time and effectively walling itself off from the remaint's problems. The notion of attempting to absorb the WB holus-bolus population and all is highly unpopular in Israel, whatever some radical politicos may want.

My problem is it's no longer just a radical position. As I say the right is radicalising. The worry isn't necessarily that Israel's becoming more right-wing but that the right-wing she has is becoming more intransigent.

Bennett's led the Jewish Home to the best result the far-right and religious Zionist movement have had since the 70s. He's a potent threat to Likud's right-wing, which causes Likud to take increasingly hard stances. Obviously they've got the ministry in charge of construction in settlements.

Prior to 2013 the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu merger seemed like one of a centre-right and a right wing party.But after the 2012 Likud primaries I think there's barely any ideological difference. Of the top 20 candidates on the Likud list, 12 support at least partial annexation of Area C. Seven have publicly supported building a Third Temple. Likud's a party that's now seen Moshe Feiglin elected as an MK. The major difference between them and Yisrael Beiteinu is no longer about right/centre-right but about background: Likud's a more traditional and more religious party, Yisrael Beiteinu's more secular and more focused on Russian speakers.

Ehud Barak's worried about it, but he's on the left. But Dan Meridor talked about the radicalisation of Likud (after he'd been voted off the list), 'they have just one thing – the territories. But the human rights part of it, the democratic part of it, the equality part of it is not part of their way of thinking. I heard one of them saying he's for human rights but not civil rights. What's the difference? Not voting. It's like South Africa. So I think it's dangerous...it's a dramatic departure from the Likud history.'

Roughly I think it's like what's happened to the Republican party, but more worrying. Because I think the margins in Israeli politics are smaller and I think a radical settler-influenced right in Israel is more dangerous than the Tea Party (to mix metaphors they're a bit like pieds noirs). We're seeing this in the growing 'price tag' movement torching and vandalising mosques, churches and Palestinian olive groves; assaulting Arabs and members of the IDF. The exception is that unlike in the US the Israeli left and centre is more or less moribund (with the exception of Lapid). The current polls in Israel show the religious-right coalition would gain more seats.

Now you're just playing semantics...

No I'm not. The difference isn't just semantics, if I say there's a risk of rain saying it's not raining now isn't an answer. A policy is a fact and generally present tense. A risk is something that could happen and is generally future tense.

I'm pointing out how ridiculous it is to ascribe the policy of some members of the government to the government itself.

Which isn't something I've done anywhere in this thread.

[Valmy]

My problem is it's no longer just a radical position. As I say the right is radicalising. The worry isn't necessarily that Israel's becoming more right-wing but that the right-wing she has is becoming more intransigent.

Bennett's led the Jewish Home to the best result the far-right and religious Zionist movement have had since the 70s. He's a potent threat to Likud's right-wing, which causes Likud to take increasingly hard stances. Obviously they've got the ministry in charge of construction in settlements.

Prior to 2013 the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu merger seemed like one of a centre-right and a right wing party.But after the 2012 Likud primaries I think there's barely any ideological difference. Of the top 20 candidates on the Likud list, 12 support at least partial annexation of Area C. Seven have publicly supported building a Third Temple. Likud's a party that's now seen Moshe Feiglin elected as an MK. The major difference between them and Yisrael Beiteinu is no longer about right/centre-right but about background: Likud's a more traditional and more religious party, Yisrael Beiteinu's more secular and more focused on Russian speakers.

Ehud Barak's worried about it, but he's on the left. But Dan Meridor talked about the radicalisation of Likud (after he'd been voted off the list), 'they have just one thing – the territories. But the human rights part of it, the democratic part of it, the equality part of it is not part of their way of thinking. I heard one of them saying he’s for human rights but not civil rights. What’s the difference? Not voting. It’s like South Africa. So I think it’s dangerous…it’s a dramatic departure from the Likud history.'

Roughly I think it's like what's happened to the Republican party, but more worrying. Because I think the margins in Israeli politics are smaller and I think a radical settler-influenced right in Israel is more dangerous than the Tea Party (to mix metaphors they're a bit like pieds noirs). We're seeing this in the growing 'price tag' movement torching and vandalising mosques, churches and Palestinian olive groves; assaulting Arabs and members of the IDF. The exception is that unlike in the US the Israeli left and centre is more or less moribund (with the exception of Lapid). The current polls in Israel show the religious-right coalition would gain more seats.

This has been a trend for awhile.  I think it is a combination of frustration with the failures of the peace process, general exposure to the increasingly unhinged culture issues in the area, and the demographic trends where the secular Israelis are shrinking and the religious ones are increasing.  I think Israel is becoming less and less of a rational actor every year and I fear what might become of them.  I don't think this will end well for anybody.  I would love to be proven wrong of course, but this thing was hard enough to do with just the Palestinians being held hostage by irrational nutters.