Not ‘apart’ – rather, taking part

Regarding “Amnesty International renews its attack on an old foe” (February 10), one of the epithets used to falsely attack Israel/ Zionism/ Jews is “Apartheid.”

Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial segregation in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. The non-European (non-white) population of South Africa did not have the vote and so had no representation in government and parliament. They had to carry ID cards and were not allowed to live in “white” neighborhoods.

Their schooling was inferior. They did not attend university so couldn’t aspire to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. Medical attention was second-rate; they were not treated at superior “white” hospitals. They had separate public transport, entrances to banks and post-offices, park benches, beaches and were not admitted to any hotels.

I know all this personally, as I was born and grew up in South Africa.

Calling Israel an apartheid state implies that the Arab population in Israel is similarly treated by the Jewish majority. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every citizen of Israel has the right to vote and there are a number of Druze and Arab members of Knesset with complete freedom of speech.

The percentage of Arab students in Israeli universities and colleges is similar to that in the general population. Jewish and Arab patients attend hospitals and clinics staffed by Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses; the director of one of the major hospitals is an Arab.

Arabs and Jews mingle freely in buses, at shopping malls, holiday resorts, recreation centers and beaches. They travel overseas on Israeli passports. I know all this personally because I live in Israel. If you call Israel an Apartheid state, you are a deliberate falsifier of facts, an inherent antisemite or simply ignorant of the real facts. BERYL RATZER Netanya