How much of the influence to end the apartheid at South Africa was internal, how much was local, and how much was global?
I really don't know the answer to that. It's hard to say what kind of influence will work on the Israel apartheid, but a declared ongoing external war makes a strong impression that is an influence on the wrong direction.
I don't know that. Economic historians and others have to figure out exactly what caused the end of South Africa's apartheid system (my layman's guess is that it was a combination of multiple factors).
What I do know is that black South Africans begged us not to do business with their country until apartheid was abolished. Many of us (and even the US in the end) obliged and cut ties with South Africa. Palestinians are similarly begging us not to do business with Israel over similar human rights violations. We did (eventually) heed the black South Africans' call, so why can't we today heed the Palestinians' call?
Yes, most of them. The amount of land offered varied.
In particular check the Olmert peace offer from 2008 which offered Palestinians basically every single thing they wanted - but they refused it anyway (apparently because Abbas was too weak politically to make it happen, and Olmert did not want to go public without assurances from Abbas that it would actually happen).
(Not sure about the unconditional part though - why in the world would it be unconditional?)
Land provided with conditional use is not sovereign land. If the palestinians must continue to defer to israeli conditions on use then the land hasn't truly been returned.
The Olmert offering required the large settlements remain, which is an obvious non-starter.
As an Israeli living abroad I am torn on this. Not that I think Israel has South Africa level apartheid, but since both Israel and the Palestinians are up to their chins in the conflict and both wouldn't budge a millimetre a good kick in the ass towards one of them could lead to somekind of dialog.
As much as I disliked Trump and his actions in the area, at least he did something out of the ordinary that could have led to untying the mess. The latest "peace agreements" with Arab countries are probably a result of this and might lead to something in the future.
Unlike South Africa the level of religion extremism is too high on both sides to allow a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
"Explicitly jewish" could be a democratic state with jewish majority.
And it could be a jewish minority ruling over a non jewish majority.
Most Israel want the former. A hard core minority wants the latter.
The last few decades the latter set the tone because the dovish side of the map hadn't propose a viable course of action to change the status quo. The moderate majority is too scared and it lost faith in trying to reach a peace agreement again after the violence the last try brought, And the "death to israel" rhetoric of palestinian leaders.
So while the majority is pretty moderate, the perceived lack of partner basically put in power an extreme right minority. This might change as there's an undercurrent of population change, where the new majority might be less preoccupied with western values of democracy and citizen rights.
You are technically right, although currently it's a mixed bag. Many cite religious as the reason for not letting go of the land, others simple Zionism.
As for letting go of the entire country, there is nowhere else to go, as for giving the Palestinians what they want, just look at the trouble Gaza alone is causing, look how many innocent civilians (on both sides, mind) Hamas has killed. I don't think for the majority of Israelis it's ideological.
You're conceptually right, but the current right wing in Israel is very much centered around the concept of a united Israel rooted in Biblical reasoning.
Zionism might not be religious, but the political forces that would prevent relinquishing territories in modern day Israel very much are.
Trump's 'peace agreements' were mostly mutual defence signals (re: Iran) that paradoxically make the 'real issue' between Israel and West Bank even harder to solve.
Gulf states are more worried about Iran's intransigence than they are about the rights of Palestinians and that's where we are today.
Fifty something years of more or less the same type of international efforts didn't really work, that's why I think something extraordinary is needed.
Trump is not here anymore, but I don't think his efforts actually made the situation harder to solve, this is a misconception, they did push the Palestinians to a corner and they lost some Arab support, but it could have led to new negotiations where the Palestinians are pushed by this reduced support and Israel is pushed by behind the scenes threats from Trump to lose support.
The Palestinians nothing more than a play tool for other Arab nations, not just the Gulf states. Even their close neighbors, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, are not big fans
You are wrong, because trump didn't push israel to do anything.
So the Palestinians got nothing, netanyahu "proved" that being an asshile is how you get good deals.
And this situation get to fester while corrupting both our people.
So you're right I don't think Trump did anything to make it so much harder - however - he had absolutely not one iota of interest in helping to solve the Palestinian problem.
Trump's 'big gamble' on N. Korea for example does not apply to Israel in that way.
If anything Trump would 'end' the situation by caving to pressure to declare the occupations 'legal territory of Israel' or something along those lines.
I don't think he remotely understands the history or cares, he'll take what some of his wealthy buddy 'advisers' tell him about it.
I believe he would do it in a heartbeat in exchange for guarantees for financing on construction of a few buildings in NYC and Tel Aviv.
He is as corrupt as he can be within the law, he will offer powerful people 'whatever' on a personal basis, in exchange for some personal gain be it populist or prospect of future deals.
FYI I don't think he had anything to gain on N. Korea but some kind of accolade, it's the only situation that didn't provide for considerably conflict of interest.
And yes, I agree that the Gulf States don't care that much about the Palestinians, but they do at least a little bit.
Arab(muslim/christian) citizens get full rights under law, vote like any jew israeli.
On the flip side, in the occupied territories the Palestinians (arab muslims/christians) don't get to vote, and are basically under military occupation.
So Israel is (was) willing to give equal rights to any one who accepts jews place in israel.
The last few decades are begining to erode this willingness. And I fear we maybe slipping to full apartheid.
Not that surprising though that someone who is trying to form their own country won’t get to vote in a country which they don’t recognize as having a right to exist and don’t want any part in.
We don't have a constitution per se.
We do have "fundamental laws" protected by an independent supreme court. The Israeli right wing is orchestrating a decades long campaign to discredit the supreme court and make it less independent.
So who knows what the future will bring.
Volunteers aren't conscripts. Surely you know this.
Non-apartheid-type governments by definition do not have laws that discriminate by race.
Both Apartheid South Africa and contemporary Israel had and have laws explicitly preventing an emormous fraction of their society from every getting near military hardware.
Again, for the same reason.
I personally couldn't care, but the OP was falsely stating that Israel had no race defined laws in common with Apartheid South Africa.
[They have a few more in common, but this was one example I chose].
You're arguing that the privilege of Arabs avoiding military service proves the Israeli government discriminates /against/ Arab citizens. If that's your strongest argument then I'm quite happy.
So why then put the extra burden of defending Israel on just the Jews? An act of unsolicted kindness?
Unless of course Israeli jews really, really, really want to avoid training generation after generation after generation of Arabs citizens in IDF tactics and technology. Every year, year-in, year-out.
Clearly not trusting people is very obviously a form of government sanctioned discrimination.
Which again, is also why Apartheid South Africa also didn't feel comfortable handing millions of young Zulu men (ironically) Israeli designed R4 automatic weapons.
The point though, is that it is weird to bring up a situation where arabs are being discriminated in favor of, as some sort of killer argument as for why israel is discriminating against Arabs.
It undermines the argument.
Use a different one if you want to make that argument, because that one is bad.
Because, they aren't being discriminated in their favour (except in the most immediate sense).
Rather, like Apartheid South Africa, Arab Israelis are being very, very clearly told that they cannot be TRUSTED in bulk with something like assault rifles in the presense of Jewish citizens.
Apartheid was not merely Jim Crow type laws - it was existential.
I deliberately chose these laws because they get to the heart of what an Apartheid state is.
> Because, they aren't being discriminated in their favour
On that specific point they are being discriminated in favor of, though. Please show the specific harm, of how not forcing someone to join the military but still allowing them to if they want, is harm, if you disagree.
If you have other examples of them being discriminated against, just use those.
> they cannot be TRUSTED
They are allowed to volunteer if they want. They aren't being prevented from joining. Instead they are only not being forced to, which is discrimination in favor of the people who are not forced to join.
You need to show an actual specific law that harms them, to support your argument. Not forcing people to join the military is a benefit, not a drawback.
There are basically no circumstances, where not forcing someone to join the military, is a drawback.
Edit: looks like the parent didn't even bother much research - Arabs aren't forced to do military service but they're welcome to do so:
> National service is compulsory in Israel, with some exemptions — three years for men and two years for women. This rule also applies to the country's non-Jewish Druze and Circassian communities.
> Muslim Bedouins, who tend to identify more as Israeli than other Arabs, and Christian Arabs can voluntarily sign up and each minority is represented by a couple of hundred members of the armed forces.
"Arabs aren't forced to do military service but they're welcome to do so"
Exactly the same situation in Apartheid South Africa. There were whole battalions of volunteer black soldiers. Hell, after 1981 there were even black commissioned officers.
But under no circumstances where they arming and training the 'enemy' wholesale - as you said before your edit 'to protect THEIR people'. (Telling choice of words there).
South africa also had water pipes, so your country is an apartheid country.
See? This is silly.
Israel is in a tough situation where there are civilians with relative who swear they want to kill al jews. Israel tries to be fair in this scenario.
A matter of fact is, non jews can vote, join the police the army and the country has laws that gives non jews the same rights as jews. There are scholarship for non jews, and even programs to make sure they are getting to be doctors lawyers etc.
Heck, there are non jewish judges (in the supreme court!), parliament members, and government ministers.
The situation is far from normal or sane, But this is very different than what the situation in SA was.
Now, all of this might change, as there are very dark forces that through the political situation in israel are trying to change israel from being a liberal democracy (at least striving to be) to become a theocracy/ethnocracy.
If they succeed, you might be right in calling israel an apartheid state.
Arab citizens are very much allowed to volunteer for military service and are given access to the same kind of weapons as any other soldier:
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rJVoNmyCP
It's true they are exempted from the draft, but I don't quite see how that constitutes discrimination _against_ them.
The point of calling Israel an apartheid state is of course not to claim that Israel is identical to what South Africa was. The point is to emphasize that it is the same racist and supremacist ideology that permeates both systems. In South Africa, you had white people (Boers) dominating and oppressing colored people. In Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, you have Jews dominating and oppressing Palestinians.
The Palestinians agreed in the Oslo Accords t govern themselves. They don't vote in Israeli elections, and Israelis don't vote in their elections (if they had any).
Israel denies citizenship, voting rights, and equal rights to Palestinians (who still have to live according to the law Israeli citizens decide because Israel controls their territory). And the entire basis for doing this is that Jewish people must be the ethnic majority in Israel. It's literally apartheid on ethnic lines.
Well anyone who ever visited the Israeli Palestinian border or ever had to go through a border crossing security check would see how obviously it is apartheid.
I'm sorry it hurts your feelings but real people are losing their homes and livelihoods every day to ever increasing Israeli settlement.
I've visited it numerous times. The label on it doesn't make it ok or not.
The issue is the circumstances there don't meet the factual criterion of apartheid. That's not a question of feelings. The fact the apartheid label is applied here while it is not emphasized or even applied to non-Jewish countries is a double standard. That fits the definition of anti-semitism.
They do meet the factual definition whether you like it or not.
If I'm Palestinian, I live my life completely according to the rules of Israel (because of the blockade and checkpoints and control of the territory). As a Palestinian, I also cannot vote in Israel and will never be granted the ability to vote in Israel, in order to preserve the ethnic majority of Israel. As a Palestinian I can also have my home taken away from me to make room for Israeli settlers.
I saw "Israel" in the title of this post and immediately thought "there is going to be a lengthy discussion in the comments, irrelevant to the subject of the post, where people argue about politics." Scrolled down, wasn't disappointed.
Ok, but please don't make the thread even worse with meta comments about offtopicness.
It's not surprising that an internet forum thread about Israel turns into a political, etc., flamewar—that's unfortunately the expected outcome. The important question is how to develop a site culture where that's less likely to happen.
True. Peace has been on the table for two decades but the expansion of settlements makes it very very difficult to deliver any kind of contiguous Palestinian State. Imagine trying to turn this map into a two state solution https://www.btselem.org/map.
In the past two decades Israel has given back complete control of Gaza to the Palestinians. They had one election 15 years ago. Hamas won on a campaign of abolishing Israel (“from the river to the sea...”). They proceeded to shoot thousands of rockets into major Israeli population centers - rockets that couldn’t have reached had Israel not given back Gaza.
While I don’t at all agree with the settlements, the truth is that’s a lightening rod point and the actual amount of land is a drop in the bucket. Israel has always been willing to trade land for peace. But both parties must want peace.
To those who would like to learn more, GP is referring to the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, which, to quote Wikipedia, "was the unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of the settlers and Israeli army from inside the Gaza Strip." [0]
But did Israel give back "complete control of Gaza"? Here's another Wikipedia quote: "Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities." [1]
My own opinion on the matter is not contained within this post; just providing some more facts for the interested.
