First of all, this is incredibly ________ (pick a word... ridiculous? inappropriate? insane? absurd? laughable? offensive? slanderous? irrational? appalling?).
Secondly, anyone who has studied history can easily see what has become of various nations throughout the ages who have attempted significant harm against Israel just as America is doing now. One can read these facts presented in John McTernan's "As America Has Done To Israel" or "Israel, God and America" by David Stein. Quicker and more to the point, one could read Genesis 12:3 where God Himself declared that He would bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel.
Thirdly, one can see where this kind of policy, if enacted, could adversely affect anyone - including corporations, churches, individuals, web-sites, etc., who choose to support Israel. If this kind of policy is enacted by the U.S. we would see anti-Semitism sanctioned in an official manner. Imagine where that could go.
Of course we know this will happen sooner or later, but now "sooner" appears to be the key words.
The nations who actively seek to harm Israel will do so at their own peril.
We can see the news coverage of this emerging story:
The secretary of state said that if Israel doesn’t make peace soon, it could become ‘an apartheid state,’ like the old South Africa. Jewish leaders are fuming over the comparison.
If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a room of influential world leaders in a closed-door meeting Friday.
Senior American officials have rarely, if ever, used the term “apartheid” in reference to Israel, and President Obama has previously rejected the idea that the word should apply to the Jewish state. Kerry's use of the loaded term is already rankling Jewish leaders in America—and it could attract unwanted attention in Israel, as well.
It wasn't the only controversial comment on the Middle East that Kerry made during his remarks to the Trilateral Commission, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Beast.
Kerry also repeated his warning that a failure of Middle East peace talks could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. He suggested that a change in either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership could make achieving a peace deal more feasible.
“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” Kerry told the group of senior officials and experts from the U.S., Western Europe, Russia, and Japan. “Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.”
According to the 1998 Rome Statute, the “crime of apartheid” is defined as “inhumane acts… committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” The term is most often used in reference to the system of racial segregation and oppression that governed South Africa from 1948 until 1994.
Leading experts, including Richard Goldstone, a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court who led the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict of 2008 and 2009, have argued that comparisons between the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and “apartheid” are offensive and wrong.
“One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues ‘apartheid’ policies,” Goldstone wrote in The New York Times in 2011. “It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.”
Let's see what others have to say:
Kerry is coming under all kinds of fire for the comments. Pro-Israel groups are none too pleased:
NJDC reaffirms the importance of the State of Israel as the Jewish state and as a critical ally to the United States. We remain grateful for the support of the Administration and Congress. That support is important not just because Israel represents a continuation of the resistance to the evil of anti-semitism, but because of the values of democracy and human rights shared with America.
For that reason, we express our deep disappointment that the Secretary of State has chosen to invoke the specter of “apartheid” in discussing his concerns about the failing peace process. We reject entirely that racially-based governance inherent in that word in any way describes Israel, as well as the implication that the government of Israel uses such prejudice to formalize disadvantages for any of its citizens or neighbors. It is surprising that Secretary Kerry would use this term and he should apologize and eschew the use of that formulation in the future.
Nor are many members of Congress, and on Monday afternoon, Sen. Ted Cruz called for Kerry’s resignation:
“I was convinced that as Secretary of State John Kerry would place what he considered to be the wishes of the international community above the national security interests of the United States. I fear with these most-recent ill-chosen remarks, Secretary Kerry has proven those concerns well founded,” Cruz said in a floor speech. “Secretary Kerry has thus proven himself unsuitable for his position and that before any further harm is done to our alliance with Israel, he should offer President Obama his resignation and the President should accept it.” …
“The term ‘apartheid’ means ‘apart’ — different, isolated — the state of the victims of apartheid with which the Jews are all too familiar. The notion that Israel would go down that path, and so face the same condemnation that met South Africa, is unconscionable,” Cruz said. “The fact that Secretary Kerry sees nothing wrong with making such a statement on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day demonstrates a shocking lack of sensitivity to the incendiary and damaging nature of his rhetoric.”
Charles Krauthammer:
It’s beyond nonsense, it’s pernicious and extremely harmful. What the Secretary of State of the United States has succeeded in doing, in what he thought was a private comment, is to echo and therefore to legitimize the worst of the libelous claims against the Jewish state. If there is one minority in the Middle East that enjoys the rule of law, and protection, and democracy it is Arabs in Israel. One out of every five Israelis is a Palestinian, overwhelming they are Muslim. There are Arabs in the government, in the Supreme Court, in all walks of life, in the universities.
There’s actually affirmative action if you are a Palestinian in the universities. And to compare that in anyway with the systematic discrimination against black Africans in South Africa is truly appalling and hurtful. I think Cruz is right, this is beyond something requiring a apology. I think this is a resigning type statement.
There’s actually affirmative action if you are a Palestinian in the universities. And to compare that in anyway with the systematic discrimination against black Africans in South Africa is truly appalling and hurtful. I think Cruz is right, this is beyond something requiring a apology. I think this is a resigning type statement.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Monday demanded that Secretary of State John Kerry apologize to Israel for alleged comments likening the Jewish state to South Africa’s racist apartheid regime.
"Reports that Secretary Kerry has suggested Israel is becoming an apartheid state are extremely disappointing. The use of the word apartheid has routinely been dismissed as both offensive and inaccurate, and Secretary Kerry’s use of it makes peace even harder to achieve,” Cantor said.
"President Obama has rejected the use of the term apartheid in the past, correctly saying it is historically inaccurate and emotionally loaded. I hope that President Obama will again reiterate these views, and call on Secretary Kerry to apologize to the Israeli government and people,” he added.
On Sunday, The Daily Beast reported that Kerry told a group of influential world leaders behind closed doors on Friday that Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state.”
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) told The Times of Israel that not only was Kerry’s prediction false, it could also be applied to Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank far more accurately than to Israel.
“There are many alternatives [to a two-state solution] and there is room to consider them in the future. Today there is not a single Jew in Gaza, not a single Jewish soldier, and we still can see very well that hatred for Israel rules there,” he said.
Also responding to Kerry’s comparison Monday was Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), who wrote on his official Facebook page that “there are some words that must not be uttered.”
Katz said that on Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time to reflect the atrocities inflicted on Jews by the Nazis “while the world stood silent,” Kerry’s comments stood out even more starkly against the reality of the Jewish state.
“The US secretary of state describes Israel as an apartheid state. Us? The Jewish state that rose to defend itself from existential threats? Kerry, shame on you! There are some words that must not be uttered,” Katz wrote.
In the United States, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) director Abraham Foxman said the American Jewish organization was “startled and disappointed” by the report that Kerry had “used the highly inappropriate and offensive term ‘apartheid’ to warn what might become of Israel should an agreement not be reached.”
Foxman said it was “startling and deeply disappointing” that a “knowledgeable, experienced” diplomat of Kerry’s caliber would choose to “use such an inaccurate and incendiary term” to describe the politics of a country with which he is so intimately familiar.
He added that while the ADL appreciated Kerry’s “deep concern for Israel and his desires to ensure that it have a future of peace and security,” his choice of words could not be seen as an expression of friendship or support.
“If he used the repugnant language of Israel’s adversaries and accusers to express concern for Israel’s future, it was undiplomatic, unwise and unfair,” Foxman said.
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