In January 1975, Bayard Rustin – a colleague of Dr. King and one of the architects of the 1963 March on Washington, wrote an article entitled, The PLO: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists. This was Rustin’s opening statement: “One of the most distressing reflections of the unhappy state of world politics is the ease with which words can be perverted, stripped of significance, and made to mean their opposite.” Rustin was referring specifically to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat’s recent speech at the United Nations, during which he reframed his murderous intensions for Israel and the Jewish people as Palestinian “liberation” and efforts towards “peace” and a fight against “racism.”
We reflect on this relevant history as we consider Amnesty International’s latest assault against Israel in a 280-page document brimming with disinformation and antisemitic propaganda. In what can only be understood to be a churlish attempt at remaining relevant in the world of human rights, the Amnesty report omits context, distorts the reality on the ground, manipulates and misapplies international law, and fabricates the intent behind Israeli laws and policies
The libel that Israel is an apartheid state has been debunked countless times over the years. People from around the world – from politicians in South Africa, civil rights leaders in the United States and international law experts in Europe to Palestinians and Israeli Arabs – have explained why it is factually wrong, legally incorrect and morally reprehensible to describe the free and democratic state of Israel as apartheid.
Recognizing that Israel would not be defeated militarily, the Soviet Union created the ‘Zionism is racism’ and ‘apartheid’ slurs that fueled the rise in global antisemitism.
It should be noted that apartheid is a Dutch Afrikaans word meaning apartness used exclusively to define the brutal system of segregation, discrimination and oppression perpetrated on Black South Africans by the racist National Party from 1948 - 1994. Especially since the infamous 2001 UN Conference against Racism in Durban, where Israel was declared to be a “racist, apartheid state,” many Black South Africans have raised their voices to condemn the Palestinian appropriation of the word apartheid to describe a free and democratic Jewish State. In what may very well be a response to those voices, Amnesty attempts to disavow what it is actually doing by engaging in overt double-speak.
Page 7:[Amnesty International] does not seek to argue that…any system of oppression and domination as perpetrated in Israel...is…the same or analogous to the system of segregation, oppression and domination as perpetrated in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.
Page 211:Amnesty International has analyzed Israel’s intent to create and maintain a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians and examined its key components: territorial fragmentation; segregation and control…It has concluded that this system amounts to apartheid.
It is sinister and disingenuous for Amnesty to pursue this growing trend spearheaded by Israel-haters, because the diversity and democracy of Israel cannot be compared to apartheid South Africa. No doubt, Yasser Arafat would be proud of Amnesty’s report.
In addition to distorting what real apartheid was, the Amnesty report also challenges the right to self-determination of the Jewish people in a Jewish state as being apartheid. The right of the French to self-determination in France is not challenged. Neither is the right of the Chinese to self-determinate in China. There are approximately 50 Muslim countries in the world, and at least 20 of these countries declare Islam the religion of the country in their constitution. Similarly, Christianity is deemed to be the state religion in numerous countries across the globe. Yet, in keeping with its intellectual dishonesty, Amnesty International deems that only Israel is guilty of apartheid because of its Jewish identity.
Attention must be given to the impact this relentless apartheid campaign – also embraced by human rights watch in its 2021 anti-Israel report – has had. The redefinition of this term goes beyond the goal of charging Israel with crimes against humanity and thus making them liable for prosecution by the International criminal court and court of public opinion. It erases the very real, very lived experience of the brutality of apartheid -a reality that includes mothers who to this day do not know what happened to their children and a life of real segregation and persecution, purely because they were not white. Once again, the Black experience is being commandeered as an antisemitic tool, at the expense and harm of Blacks.
In 1975, following Arafat’s diatribe against Israel at the UN, the UN General Assembly passed the abominable resolution 3379, stating that “Zionism is a form of racism.” Bayard Rustin responded by forming BASIC, Black Americans to Support Israel Committee, whose members included Arthur Ashe, Mrs. Louis Armstrong, Ralph Ellison, as well as Martin Luther King, Sr. and Coretta Scott King.
Now, just as then, the true struggle against real racism and Jew-hatred continues, and Black/African voices must lead the way in fighting it and be true allies of the Jewish people.
Pastor Dumisani Washington is a human rights activist and the Founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI). Olga Meshoe is a South African attorney and CEO of DEISI International.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Yoseph Haddad.