“Apartheid” is an official government program of racial segregation, which authorizes discrimination in the political, legal, and economic spheres. No such system exists in Israel.
Arab Israelis, who constitute 21% of the population, enjoy the same civil rights as Jewish Israelis. They serve as elected representatives in the Knesset and as judges in Israeli courts. An Arab Israeli, sitting on the Supreme Court, authored the decision upholding the rape conviction of a former President of Israel. They are also culturally integrated. In 1999, an Arab Israeli woman was crowned Miss Israel. In 2016, an Arab Israeli was crowned Miss Trans Israel.
If you want to see the absurdity of calling Israel an “apartheid” state, attend a soccer game when the popular Maccabi Haifa team is playing. Two of the team’s biggest stars are Arab Israelis, Dia Saba and Mahmoud Jaber. The team roster includes players of four different religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Druze. Messay Dego, a member of Israel’s Ethiopian community, is the team’s first black head coach.
Arab Israelis are exempt from the draft, but many thousands of them volunteer to serve in the IDF.
It is also worth noting that a majority of Israeli Jews are Sephardic, meaning that they are of Middle Eastern or North African descent. In the United States, such people would be perceived as “people of color,” not white. So the term “apartheid” doesn’t even make sense when applied to Israel.
Finally, a racist “apartheid” state would not have gone to great lengths, as Israel did, to transport thousands of oppressed Ethiopian Jews out of Africa to Israel. Throughout history, many nations have removed Africans from that continent to subject them to slavery. Israel alone among the nations of the world has rescued Africans from that continent to elevate them to freedom.
toputitbluntly.com 