{"id":43135,"date":"2023-07-20T12:05:46","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T20:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=43135"},"modified":"2023-07-20T12:05:46","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T20:05:46","slug":"congress-tries-to-wish-away-israeli-racism-and-apartheid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/20\/congress-tries-to-wish-away-israeli-racism-and-apartheid\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Tries to Wish Away Israeli Racism and Apartheid"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 18, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution by the kind of lopsided vote (412 for, 9 against, 1 present) normally reserved for proclamations lauding members\u2019 hometown Little League programs. Unlike most legislation,\u00a0Concurrent Resolution 57<\/a>\u00a0is short enough to fit comfortably into newspaper op-ed length:<\/p>\n

\u201cResolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring)<\/em>, That it is the sense of Congress that \u2014<\/p>\n

\u201c(1) the State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state;<\/p>\n

\u201c(2) Congress rejects all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia; and<\/p>\n

\u201c(3) the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The billions Congress wastes annually on xenophobic nonsense like \u201cborder security\u201d and \u201ccountering China\u201d\u00a0 belie the resolution\u2019s second point, and the third point is simply bizarre \u2014 ask the Lakota or the Cherokee about how trustworthy the US is when it comes to \u201calways\u201d commitments.<\/p>\n

But what about that first point, which was what the resolution was really intended to get across after US Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) stepped on a political third rail by contradicting it on July 16 (Jayapal quickly turned tail, apologized, and voted for the resolution)?<\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s a problem with that point as well:<\/p>\n

Israel IS a racist (at least if the concept of \u201crace\u201d encompasses ethno-religious groups) and apartheid state.<\/p>\n

Israel was expressly founded as a \u201chomeland\u201d for people of a specific ethnic\/religious group, and its \u201cbasic law\u201d clearly and unambiguously affirms that \u201cIsrael is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-Jews, and especially Palestinian Arabs, are legally treated as second-class citizens, when they\u2019re treated as citizens at all. For example, a \u201cright of return\u201d to Israel is offered to all Jews, no matter where they were born, but not to Palestinian Arabs who may have actually been born right there.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s racist, period. Disagree? Substitute \u201cMontana\u201d for \u201cIsrael\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d for \u201cJewish.\u201d How does it read now?<\/p>\n

As for the \u201capartheid\u201d allegation, no other term fits a state which has spilled outside its internationally recognized borders (as codified in 1948 by United Nations Resolution 181) and set up a two-tier system based on race\/ethnicity in territory it occupies. A system where Arabs are subject to Jewish rule without representation in the Knesset, where Arab property is subject to legalized theft by Jewish \u201csettlers,\u201d where roads and other infrastructure facilities are segregated into \u201cArab\u201d and \u201cJews Only\u201d use, and under which a menial class of Arabs are allowed to cross into Israel proper from their designated \u201chomelands\u201d to work, but not to live.<\/p>\n

The usual defenses I see of Israel on these matters is that its existence as a \u201cJewish state,\u201d and its apartheid treatment of Palestinian Arabs, are justified and must therefore not be considered \u201cracist\u201d or \u201capartheid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presumably American supporters of racial segregation and South African supporters of the original \u201capartheid\u201d considered their systems justified as well.<\/p>\n

Claiming something\u2019s justified doesn\u2019t magically make it something other than what it is.<\/p>\n

Neither does lying about it in a congressional resolution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On July 18, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution by the kind of lopsided vote (412 for, 9 against, 1 present) normally reserved for proclamations lauding members\u2019 hometown Little League programs. Unlike most legislation,\u00a0Concurrent Resolution 57\u00a0is short enough to fit comfortably into newspaper op-ed length: \u201cResolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-43135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43136,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43135\/revisions\/43136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43135"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=43135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}