by Joseph Puder
Benjamin Pogrund, a South African journalist who battled apartheid in South Africa wrote, “use of the apartheid label against Israel, is at best ignorant and naïve, and at worst cynical and manipulative.”
The hypocrisy of the Left in the US is boundless. The likes of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) epitomize it. This New York Congresswoman has shamelessly called Israel an “apartheid state.” She didn’t call the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza, which is “Judenrein,” (any Jew found in Gaza would be murdered) or Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, who do not allow Jews to live in its territories, apartheid states. They actually deserve that title. Conversely, Israel is an open democracy with a free press, the rule-of-law, and where human and civil rights are observed. Israel brought Black African Jews from Ethiopia, to live among former Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, expelled by Arab regimes after millenniums of residency in their countries. These Jewish refugees were literally kicked out with only shirts on their back. Added to that diversity are the Jewish Holocaust survivors from Europe, and now, Black Muslim migrants from Sudan.
While Jewish life no longer exists in most of the Middle East (Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are exceptions), Arab citizens in Israel enjoy full equality under the law. They also enjoy liberties and higher standards of living than their brethren in the West Bank and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
To be clear, Israel was founded as a Jewish state, the only Jewish sovereign existence on earth after 2,000 years of forced exile, and endless persecution. The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, also known as the Partition Plan, specifically voted to partition Mandatory Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. (Israeli Jews prior to 1948 were called Palestinians). The Arabs in Palestine rejected partition and instead aimed at destroying the Jewish state with the help of neighboring Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. They failed.
The resurrected Jewish state, a historical miracle in itself, restored the ancient Jewish symbols that existed in previous Jewish commonwealths - the Star of David in its flag, and the Menorah. The Arabs who chose to stay in Israel, were given all the privileges of citizenship but naturally, not their religious and nationalistic symbols. For such symbols, they could choose to go to any of the 22 Arab League states.
Given the long history of Jewish persecution in Christian Europe, and the Muslim world, which culminated in the Nazi perpetrated Holocaust, the Israeli government enacted the Law of Return. It permitted Jews anywhere to become citizens of Israel upon arrival. It should be remembered however, that this law was the direct result of the nations of the world, including the US shutting their doors to European Jews attempting to flee the Nazis. The British Mandatory authorities in Palestine (under pressure from Hitler’s ally Haj Amin el-Husseini, leader of the Palestinian Arabs), issued in 1939 the infamous White Paper policy, which barred European Jews from entering their ancestral home, resulting in millions of Jews having no place to go but to their death. The Mufti of Jerusalem, el Husseini, actually implored Hitler to set up concentration camps for Jews in Palestine. The Law of Return, used by Israel’s enemies as an example for apartheid, is no such thing; in fact, it is poetic and historical justice.
Far greater minds than AOC, professors and internationally recognized jurists, Irwin Cutler, a former Canadian Attorney General, and Richard Goldstone, former Justice of the South African Constitutional Court, asserted that labeling Israel as an “apartheid state” amounts to “distortion and slander.” Irwin Cutler, added, “Let there be no mistake about it: to indict Israel as an apartheid state is a prologue and justification for dismantling the Jewish state.” Richard Goldstone, in a New York Times piece wrote: “In Israel there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid.”
AOC, with her radical and anti-Semitic partners in the “squad” who support the dismantling of the Jewish state and endorse the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel would stop at nothing to smear the Jewish state. Benjamin Pogrund, a South African journalist who battled apartheid in South Africa wrote, “use of the apartheid label against Israel, is at best ignorant and naïve, and at worst cynical and manipulative.” AOC would qualify for both.
AOC challenged President Joe Biden’s assertion that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” She charged, “Do Palestinians have a right to survive?” The better question would be, do Israeli children have the right to sleep in peace and not be a target for Hamas’ rockets? If AOC bothered to look at the facts, which she conveniently ignored, she would discover that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) attacked Israeli civilian populations with rockets unprovoked. Israel has eased matters for Hamas by allowing Qatari money to go through. Additionally, Israel undertook a number of humanitarian gestures, hoping to facilitate an agreement with the Gaza terrorists for a long-term calm.
What Israel got back from Hamas was more than 4,000 rockets on its cities, and innocent civilians killed, among them children. While Israel takes careful measures to avoid civilian casualties, Hamas specifically targets Israeli civilians, and endangers its own civilian population by deliberately using them as human shields. One wonders what AOC has to say about that? Better yet, AOC ought to take the time to read the Hamas charter, instead of shooting from her hip.
The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement was issued on August 18, 1988. The Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as the Hamas, is an extremist fundamentalist Islamic organization. Its Covenant is a comprehensive manifesto comprised of 36 separate articles, all of which promote the basic Hamas goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad (Islamic Holy War). The following are excerpts of the HAMAS Covenant: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (Preamble). “The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (Holy Possession consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day). No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it” (Article 11). “The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised” (Article 15). “Peace initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement... Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility” (Article 13). “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him” (Article 7).
AOC endorses Hamas and its jihadist allies in the destruction of Israel, as well as the exclusivity of Islam in controlling the land, essentially one of religious apartheid and intolerance. Hamas also calls for jihad against Jews, rejects any peace with Israel, and employs anti-Semitic incitement. This is what the “progressive” AOC aids and abets.
Joseph Puder
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/apartheid-and-aocs-malicious-ignorance-joseph-puder/
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