12 January 2018

Haaretz: What the 'One-state Solution' Really Means: Israeli-sanctioned Apartheid or Eternal, Bloody Civil War

The Likud Central Committee and the Jewish Voice for Peace have joined the same team, along with other extremist forces on the right and the left. Both are intent on establishing a bi-national state in place of the Jewish state of Israel. Both are committed to a one-state solution that will put an end to Israel as a Jewish and democratic commonwealth. Both constitute a mortal danger to mainstream Zionism. [...]

Contrary to widespread press reports, the awkwardly worded resolution adopted that evening did not actually call for the formal annexation of territories. Its intention was to encourage the application of Israeli law in the West Bank to Jews - and Jews alone.

In fact, this is already the case; but the current legal situation is temporary, at least in theory, and is dependent on the approval of the military governor of the territories, who has ultimate legal authority. But if the resolution were to be passed into law, as Likud now demands, the legal discrimination would become official Israeli policy. [...]

And if adopted by the Knesset, the decision would put in place some form of apartheid - a word that most of us in the mainstream Jewish community have carefully avoided until now. But since the Likud resolution intends to apply two different sets of legal rules to different populations occupying the same territory, there is simply no word other than "apartheid" that fits.

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