No, Israel is not an apartheid state

Donna Nevel’s opinion piece “Supporting Israel Now Means Demanding Change” amounts to nothing more than pouring old wine in a new bottle. To claim that Israel is an apartheid state, as Nevel does, is disingenuous and, more importantly, it is incorrect. Nevel relies on reports from Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem to support her assertions. These organizations have a long record of blaming Israel for all of its difficult relations with its Palestinian neighbors while at the same time demonstrating a “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil” approach to Palestinian misdeeds.

Since 1948, Israel has sought peace with its Arab neighbors, including Palestinians, and embraced in its declaration of independence an invitation to Arabs to join as citizens of Israel. Many Palestinians rebuffed this invitation at the insistence of Arab governments that were certain they could destroy the fledgling Israeli state. Sadly, these same Palestinians, their children and grandchildren languish today in refugee camps whose existence continues only as a result of Arab intransigence and the unrealistic expectation that they will one day control the land of Israel “from the river to the sea.” (From the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.)

Today’s Israel is a beacon of democracy. Arab citizens are well-represented in Israel’s parliament and Arab political parties are poised to play a pivotal role in the formation of Israel’s next governing coalition. To suggest that Israel, which welcomes Arab political participation, is an apartheid state is contradictory to the practice of apartheid as we witnessed in its cruel, racist and inhumane form in South Africa from the 1950s to the 1990s.

We also need to take a good look at the Palestinian scorecard when it comes to human rights violations, which Nevel ignored. We can start with the terrorist groups operating in Gaza who fire rockets into Israel. Their favorite targets are Israeli farmers working the fields in southern Israel, kindergarten children on school playgrounds, health clinics and homes. These attacks are bent on killing Jews. Thankfully, a strong Israeli civil defense system and sophisticated Israeli defensive weaponry such as Iron Dome have prevented a largescale loss of human life.

Then, of course, there is Hamas, which, when Israel responds to rocket attacks, commandeers local homes and uses residents as human shields. What more egregious human rights violation can one conjure up than this? And if local residents resist, they often find themselves arrested or imprisoned, or in the worst case, if residents are deemed to be “collaborators” with Israel, they are subjected to extrajudicial punishment including execution.

Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to be unresolvable. Which is shameful, because there is a way forward, as we have seen with the implementation of the Abraham Accords. The Palestinian Authority refuses to come to the negotiating table with Israel. There has not been a Palestinian election in 15 years, and the most recently planned election was canceled, and guess who was blamed falsely for the cancellation? Yes, they blamed Israel.

Lastly, and perhaps most detrimentally to any hope for peace, Palestinian children are subjected to the worst form of propaganda in their schools. Textbooks continue to portray Jews in inhuman ways and generally promote antisemitism in its most vile form.

There is a way out of this futile decades-long failed search for peace, but not if Nevel and others remain entrenched in an approach that solely blames Israel. A true path to peace will begin, and only begin, when the Palestinians embrace, in good faith, the values of democracy, dialogue and diplomacy.