Israel’s apartheid days are numbered

As Israel continues to rain terror, death and destruction on innocent civilians the world needs to act. The traditional approach encouraging the two parties to ‘negotiate’ has not worked. And those who thought it would, were either deceiving themselves, or the world. Negotiation is possible if the two parties are on equal footing. When the power imbalance is so extreme that one side has nuclear arms and the other living in a concentration camp, talks becomes farcical. There can only be submission. And the Palestinians to their great and eternal credit refuse to “submit.” There has to be a two-stage process: Israel must be forced to stop killing civilians; and secondly, there has to be a recognition that the ‘two-state solution’ is not viable and should be put to rest forever. Miko Peled, an activist for Palestinian rights, son of an Israeli Army General and author of ‘The General’s Son,’ explains the two-state solution ceased to be viable years ago because of Israeli building and settlement activity that has made the West Bank virtually an integral and inseparable part of Israel. Hence the only solution that remains viable is the one state solution. More about this later. But how to make Israel behave? The only way to do this to damage it economically. And this means sanctions. We know that America will not be party to any such move. But the truth is that it can be done without them. What is needed specifically, at the first stage, is a boycott: All nations have to deny their airspace and sea lanes to airlines and shipping companies which have flights or services to Israel. These companies have to choose between doing business with Israel or the rest of the world.This may not seem like much but its consequences will be devastating. Witness the blow to Israeli confidence when Tel Aviv airport was shut down for a day or two due to the threat of Palestinian rockets. The Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) can take steps in this direction even if other nations do not agree. Given the geographic spread of OIC nations, their implementation of boycott would bring Israel to its knees. And this is where we need it for the next step of the plan — the one state solution. Israel is an apartheid state. South Africa during its apartheid rule had three categories of people with as many sets of laws for them. In Israel too, the privileged are the Jews who roughly correspond to the whites in South Africa. They live comfortably and enjoy full protection of law. In the lowest stratum are the Palestinians who live in concentration camps surrounded by walls and barbed wire. They have no rights at all. They can be imprisoned, tortured or killed at the whims of an Israeli Army. Or, as we see now, bombed mercilessly into oblivion. They are the blacks of South Africa. And in between the two are Arabs with Israeli citizenship. Much like the Asians in South Africa, they are second rate citizens. It is a measure of the double standards of some in the West that economic sanctions were used to end South Africa’s apartheid. But in the case of Israel, even talk of sanctions is not countenanced. Yet, the Israeli apartheid will end. It will be replaced by democracy in which all people, Jews and Arabs, both Muslims and Christians, will live as equal citizens. This is the one state solution. This is what is going to happen. The days of apartheid in Israel/Palestine are numbered, just as they were in South Africa.