Leading Israeli Journalist Says Israel Is an Apartheid State

• Leading Israeli journalist says Israel is an Apartheid state
  by Ben Norton, http://mondoweiss.net/  
  A leading Israeli journalist—writing in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest and most-prestigious daily newspaper—says “It’s Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid.” 
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  The author, Bradley Burston, a Haaretz columnist and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com, is well-known in the Israeli media. He has all the journalistic bona fides and decades of experience at distinguished outlets under his belt. For years, Burston served as a Gaza and military correspondent for the right-wing Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post. Later, he reported for renowned international news agency Reuters.
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  Burston writes:
  What I’m about to write will not come easily for me.
  I used to be one of those people who took issue with the label of apartheid as applied to Israel. I was one of those people who could be counted on to argue that, while the country’s settlement and occupation policies were anti-democratic and brutal and slow-dose suicidal, the word apartheid did not apply.
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  I’m not one of those people any more.  Not after the last few weeks.
  Not after terrorists firebombed a West Bank Palestinian home, annihilating a family, murdering an 18-month-old boy and his father, burning his mother over 90 percent of her body – only to have Israel’s government rule the family ineligible for the financial support and compensation automatically granted Israeli victims of terrorism, settlers included.
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  I can’t pretend anymore. Not after Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, explicitly declaring stone-throwing to be terrorism, drove the passage of a bill holding stone-throwers liable to up to 20 years in prison.
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  The law did not specify that it targeted only Palestinian stone-throwers. It didn’t have to.
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  Just one week later, pro-settlement Jews hurled rocks, furniture, and bottles of urine at Israeli soldiers and police at a West Bank settlement, and in response, Benjamin Netanyahu immediately rewarded the Jewish stone-throwers with a pledge to build hundreds of new settlement homes.
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  This is what has become of the rule of law. Two sets of books. One for Us, and one to throw at Them. Apartheid.
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  An article like this published by an editor of Haaretz, often described as the Israeli equivalent of the New York Times, is a sign—one of many—that political attitudes are changing within Israel.
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  Burston is no anti-Zionist. He served in the Israeli military as a combat medic. Burston also helped to establish a kibbutz. In a 2010 article he identified as “a supporter of the idea of a truly democratic Jewish state.”
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  Nor is Burston a staunch leftist. In a 2011 column, he criticized “progressives” for what he claimed were their double standards toward Israel. If one had to make a generalization, Burston’s views can largely be seen as representative of those of many liberal Israelis.
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  Like many liberal Zionists, nonetheless, Burston is beginning to see more and more signs that the liberal Zionist dream has transmogrified into a nightmare.
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  The Death Knell for Liberal Zionism
  Many polls predicted that the liberal Zionist Union coalition would win the March 2015 Israeli election. Instead, hardline right-wing Prime Minister Netanyahu was re-elected for a fourth term. When Netanyahu completes his present term, he will be the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Israel, having ruled longer than even founder David Ben-Gurion, often described as the “Father of Modern Israel.” 
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  Netanyahu was re-elected on the explicit promise that Palestinians will never have an independent state. He also filled his government with right-wing extremists:
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  * Ayelet Shaked, who called for genocide of Palestinians, was appointed justice minister.
  * Eli Ben-Dahan, who now serves as Israel’s deputy defense minister, calls Palestinians “animals,” claiming “they aren’t human.” According to Ben-Dahan, “a Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.”
  * Miri Regev, Israel’s new minister of culture, maintains that African asylum-seekers in Israel (who face intense discrimination) “are a cancer in our body.”
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  “There was a time when I drew a distinction between Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and this country I have loved so long,” Burston remarks. “No more. Every single day we wake to yet another outrage.”
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  Apartheid, ‘in Israeli Terms’
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  read more.

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