Israel, Zionism, and the Racial Double Standard

By Paul Grubach

I

Austrian political leader Jörg Haider favors a virtual ban on immigration into his nation, and he campaigned against the European Union’s eastward expansion out of fear that migrants will flood into Austria, the end result being (so he believes) the disruption of Austrian culture. This is one of the primary reasons he was widely condemned in the mainstream media of the United States and Europe as a racist.

With this in mind, consider the following statement by Jewish Middle East analyst, Mitchell Bard, made in Ohio’s most important newspaper, The Plain Dealer. “Most Israelis have argued that Israel cannot remain a Jewish state or a democracy if it incorporates the occupied territories, because Palestinians would alter the nations demographic balance. The result would be a binational state in which Arabs would wield substantial power.”[1] In more straightforward terms, most Israeli Jews view Palestinians from the occupied territories as a threat to Israeli society.

For a more recent statement of similar sentiments, we have the claims of Dan Ashbel, Israeli consul-general for the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Describing his views, The Plain Dealer noted: “Ashbel said Israel fought its wars to repel attackers bent on Israel’s destruction. Even though many Arab states and the Palestinian authority now recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist, he said the idea that millions of Palestinians are entitled to return [to Palestine-Israel] could be a backhanded way to destroy Israel.”[2]

The feelings for Palestinians expressed by most Israeli Jews and Israeli consul-general Ashbel are very similar to those Haider has expressed in regard to Eastern European and non-white immigrants. Whereas the former look upon Palestinian Arabs as unassimilable aliens and a threat to Israeli society, the latter views non-Germanic immigrants as a disruptive force within the Austrian nation. Yet, Haider is roundly condemned as a racist while Israeli Jews and Ashbel have their beliefs publicly enunciated with no outcry or editorial condemnation.

Indeed, the American mass media openly encourages Jewish separatism and racialism in Israel. One of the most important and influential newspapers in the United States is The Wall Street Journal. In regard to allowing Palestinian refugees to return to Palestine-Israel, they opined that the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees would result in the “demographic destruction of the Jewish state.”[3]

Imagine if a respected Western newspaper opined that, if Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union are allowed to migrate to a predominantly non-Jewish nation, this would result in the demographic destruction of that society. This newspaper and its editorial staff would be swiftly and incessantly condemned as “evil racists.” They could be even charged with a crime in those Western nations that have “hate crimes” laws in effect.

Adel Qa’adan is an Israeli Arab who wanted to move his family into the Jewish town of Katsir, Israel. He was told that Katsir does not accept Arabs into the community, and the Katsir local council informed him that they will not sell homes or land in Katsir to non-Jews.[4] In an attempt to remedy this injustice, Mr. Qa’adan took his case to the Israeli Supreme Court where he obtained a judgment in his favor. The Jewish state’s highest court ruled the Arab family could not be barred from living in a community built solely for Jews, overturning a 52-year-old state policy of excluding Arabs from Jewish communities. Nevertheless, the kibbutzim, or communal farms, would remain closed to Arab residents, and the government may introduce legislation that circumvents the Supreme Court ruling.[5]

Although the seemingly anti-racist, anti-segregationist New York Times (NYT), America’s most important newspaper, carried a short article and letter on this affair (possibly solely in order to maintain an image of “journalistic fairness”), they never issued an editorial hailing this victory against racial segregation, nor did they condemn Israel’s other racist practices or the fact that the kibbutzim would still exclude Arabs. A little over a month later however, NYT editorialized the Confederate flag should be removed from South Carolina’s Statehouse dome because it “symbolizes racism and segregation.”[6]

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is widely held to be one of the premier civil rights organizations in the world. On a regular basis they issue public, high profile condemnations of acts and statements of alleged racism and bigotry that occur worldwide. However, when this writer requested (in a letter sent by certified mail) that ADL Director Abraham Foxman condemn anti-Arab discrimination in Israel and publicly support the Qa’adan family in their attempt to move into the Jewish neighborhood of their choice, he waffled. Writing me a short and vague letter that repeats worn out clichés, Foxman never did issue a high-profile statement in support of Adel Qa’adan that condemns Israeli racial discrimination, nor did the ADL ever (to this writer’s knowledge) make any public pronouncements cheering the Arab family’s victory over Israeli racism–strange behavior for an organization that claims to be in the forefront of the fight against racial discrimination worldwide.[7]

What these examples suggest is there is a racial double standard that haunts American society. On a regular basis the mainstream media and public officials condemn anti-immigrant sentiment, xenophobia, racial discrimination, apartheidism and anti-Semitism—the notable exception being Zionist racism. Not only does the U.S. government, many “civil rights” advocates and the mass media usually remain silent about Zionist racism, they actively support the Israeli state which embodies it.

II

Zionism is a political philosophy which is firmly grounded in the anti-integrationist racial thought of the past and present.[8] In the words of Zionist political thinker Moses Hess, “Jews are not a religious group, but a separate nation, a special race, and the modern Jew who denies this is not only an apostate, a religious renegade, but a traitor to his people, his tribe, his race.”[9]

In a similar vein, the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote: “I referred previously to our [Jewish] assimilation [with gentiles]. I do not for a moment wish to imply that I desire such an end. Our national character is too glorious in history and, in spite of every degradation, too noble to make its annihilation desirable.”[10]

Although it may raise eyebrows, it is no exaggeration to say that political Zionism and German Nazism bear some distinct similarities.[11] Joachim Prinz, a former Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, in 1934 praised the Nazi revolution (1933) in Germany: “The significance of the German revolution for the German people will ultimately be revealed only to those who have undertaken to achieve it, and have themselves shaped its form. Its significance for us [Jews] will be stated here…We want to posit instead of assimilation [into Gentile communities] something new; undertaking the yoke of joining the Jewish people and the Jewish race. Only a state based on the principle of the purity of the nation and the race can possibly endow dignity and honor on…those Jews who themselves subscribe to this priniciple.”[12]

Stephen S. Wise, a former president of the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress, told a New York rally in June 1938: “I am not an American citizen of the Jewish faith, I am a Jew…Hitler was right in one thing. He calls the Jewish people a race and we are a race.”[13]

Although these passages were composed over 60 years ago, the beliefs they contain still are part and parcel of Zionist ideology and practice.

In an attempt to shed light upon the biological history of the Jewish people and how the latter differ from the non-Jewish world, Israeli and American scientists have conducted studies which show that Jewish communities differ significantly from gentile communities in a genetic-biological sense.[14] As we shall soon see, this information is apparently going to be used to define into existence a “Jewish race” and discriminate against non-Jews.

What is even more interesting about these research projects is that they highlight the hypocritical double standard that is so deeply ingrained in certain segments of society. It’s socially and morally acceptable for Jews to conduct such research projects. Anthropologist Roselle Tekiner suggested that queries into Jewish genetics may be motivated by a desire to “justify” and bolster Zionist nationalism; the idea of a “Jewish race” with a special set of “Jewish genes” could serve to unite world Jewry.[15] There is no highly visible, widespread public condemnation of these inquiries, which there would be if others were to conduct similar studies. Indeed, Jewish Zionists and their gentile supporters would probably be the most vocal of all protestors if, for example, it were found that German and British scientists were attempting to determine how Nordics differ from Jews and Blacks in genetic-biological sense, and this information would be used to implement racially discriminatory policies.

Enter Dr. Jared Diamond, a prominent Jewish scientist and well-known opponent of alleged “racism.” He hailed Genes, Peoples, and Languages, the book by Professor Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a population geneticist, for allegedly dismantling the idea of race.

In the New York Review of Books, Diamond saluted Cavalli-Sforza for “demolishing scientists’ attempts to classify human populations into races in the same way that they classify birds and other species into races.”[16] According to this thinking, the classification of humans into races has proved to be a futile exercise; because the popular assumption of clearly defined races has allegedly been discredited, this will lead to the elimination of so-called “racism.”

Apparently, Diamond operates with a hypocritical double standard. In an article that appeared in the prestigious Natural History, Diamond discussed the genetic studies on how Jews differ from non-Jews. He made this astounding statement: “There are also practical reasons for interest in Jewish genes. The state of Israel has been going to much expense to support immigration and job retraining of Jews who were persecuted minorities in other countries. That immediately poses the problem of defining who is a Jew.”[17]

The implication here is obvious. The Zionist elite is planning to refuse a person the right to settle in Israel if they do not have “Jewish genes.” With this in mind, consider point #4 of the Nazi Party Program of May 25, 1920. It reads: “None but members of the nationality may be citizens of the state. None but those of German blood, irrespective of religion, may be members of the nationality.”[18] In contemporary terms, only those with “German genes” could be citizens of Nazi Germany. I can’t emphasize enough that this is similar to the type of Israeli policy that Diamond describes.

Diamond, a prominent “anti-racist,” opposes classifying human populations into races—except of course populations of Jews and non-Jews. He apparently has given his silent assent to the proposed Israeli-Zionist policy of defining and classifying Jews and non-Jews on the basis of whether or not they possess “Jewish genes.”

In May 2000, another major study of Jewish genetics was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. According to the New York Times, the analysis provided genetic witness that the Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East “retained their biological identity separate from their host populations, evidence of relatively little intermarriage or conversion into Judaism over the centuries.”[19]

What is most interesting is that the results of this study are apparently going to be used to define into existence a “Jewish race.” Dr. Lawrence H. Schiffman, chairman of the department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, said that the findings would be used to answer the question of “who is a Jew.”[20]

We live in a society in which any manifestation or hint of racism brings forth numerous and high profile condemnations—except of course when the racialist ideas and practices serve the interests of organized Jewry and its Zionist ideology.

In the winter-spring 2000 in London, British historian David Irving brought a high-profile libel suit against Jewish activist and historian Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books. Irving was labeled a “racist” because he was accused of opposing the intermarriage between whites and non-whites. Even D.D. Guttenplan, an anti-Irving journalist who covered the trial, hinted at the racial double standard at work here. He wrote: “…it was hard not to feel queasy listening to Rampton [the defense attorney for Lipstadt] quiz Irving about his attitude to ‘intermarriage between the races’—on behalf of a defendant who has written, ‘We [Lipstadt and her fellow Jews] know what we fight against: anti-Semitism and assimilation [of Jews and non-Jews], intermarriage [between Jews and non-Jews] and Israel-bashing.”[21]

In her famous book, Denying the Holocaust, Lipstadt specifically condemned white gentile Holocaust revisionists who oppose the integration of Europeans with non-whites. She wrote: “These [revisionist] publications constitute vivid examples of the relationship between Holocaust denial, racist nationalism, and antisemitism.”

She then goes on to discuss a specific example of “this evil, white racist nationalism,” the work of Richard Harwood: “Harwood echoed the familiar extremist charge that the Anglo-Saxon world faced the gravest danger in its history: the presence of ‘alien races’ in its midst. Linking Holocaust denial and the defense of the ‘race,’ he argued that unless something was done to halt the immigration and assimilation of non-Caucasians, Anglo-Saxons were certain to experience not only ‘biological alteration’ but the ‘destruction’ of their European culture and heritage.”[22]

So let’s get this straight. According to Lipstadt and a large segment of the Western academic establishment, it is “extremist and evil” for European gentiles to oppose the intermarriage and integration of whites with non-whites, but it is “right, good, and moral” for Jews to oppose the intermarriage and integration of Jews with non-Jews.

Two experts on political extremism, John George and Laird Wilcox, pointed out that one characteristic of an extremist is that she promotes double standards and feels no guilt for so doing.[23] Lipstadt apparently feels no guilt for openly promoting a racial double standard.

German Nazism and political Zionism are akin in another way. Their respective leaders believed they had a “right” to forcibly deport ethnic minorities. The Nazi hierarchy’s advocacy of brutal and immoral population transfers is well known and need not be documented here. Yet, has anyone in the mass media or halls of Congress ever publicly condemned David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, for claiming: “I am for compulsory transfer [of Arab people from areas under Israeli control]; I don’t see anything immoral in it.”[24]

The practical implications of the Zionist goal to transform Palestine into a Jewish state were made perfectly clear by one of the architects of Zionist settlement, Joseph Weitz, a former Deputy chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an organization which controls much land in Israel. “Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no place in the country for both peoples together [Jews and Arabs]…there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here [Israel] to the neighboring countries, transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain, and the transfer must aim at Iraq, Syria and even Transjordan. For this purpose money will be found, much money; and only with this transfer could the country absorb millions of our brothers. There is no other alternative…”[25]

Some years ago Rabbi Avahram Toledano, head of the Jewish-supremacist “Kach” movement founded by the late Meir Kahane, conducted a lecture tour in the U.S. and Canada. Toledano advocates the forcible mass expulsion of Arabs from “greater Israel.” He told a Heights Jewish Center (Cleveland, OH) meeting on November 14, 1991, that Arabs would be forced out of Israel. In response to the question, “What would the nations of the world say to Israel’s expulsion of Arabs?, “ Toledano said: “I don’t know and I don’t care. We are proud to be Jews and to have a Jewish state.”[26]

In spite of his intolerant views, Toledano was given a respectful public forum in prominent Jewish synagogues throughout North America. In Cleveland, for example, his lecture was announced beforehand in the city’s main Jewish community paper, Cleveland Jewish News.[27] This is nothing new. While he was still alive, this same paper also routinely announced the lecture appearances of Kahane, who also promoted an anti-Arab program.

Neither the ADL, which is so alert to every expression of real and imagined racism, nor the mainstream Cleveland media publicly protested the appearances of Toledano and Kahane. Nor did these pro-Zionist groups ever make a high profile condemnation of Rabbi Toledano’s message of hate, which they would have done if, for example, a right-wing Christian minister who advocates a similar policy of forced deportation of Jews would have been scheduled to speak at mainstream Christian churches.

In Toronto, Toledano told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 300 at the Shaarii Tefilah synagogue: “The Jewish state, the Jewish land, belongs only to the Jewish people. There is no room for a people that doesn’t recognize Jewish sovereignty.”[28] Imagine the outcry if, for example, a white Christian minister would have told a mainstream Canadian church: “The Canadian state, Canadian land, belongs only to white Canadians. There is no room for a people that doesn’t recognize white sovereignty.” The very church that sponsored his speech would have been ostracized and castigated to this day.

Furthermore, Toronto is the same city where German-born publisher Ernst Zündel was put on trial for publishing a booklet that questions the Holocaust extermination story. Consider the utter hypocrisy here. It was legal in Canada for a militant Rabbi to openly call for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, an action that would cause horrible hardship and suffering for millions of people. Yet, it was a crime for a Gentile to present valid evidence showing that the “Holocaust” is not all it’s cracked up to be.

One of the reasons that Jörg Haider was so widely condemned is because some of his beliefs bear similarities to Nazi beliefs. But lo and behold, the racial double standard strikes again! This writer can find no mainstream American media source that criticizes Jewish Zionists for adopting a political ideology that bears similarities to Nazi ideology.

The pro-Israeli ADL ardently promotes the following beliefs:

1. “Modern Israel is an open, democratic, multi-racial society.”[29]
2. “In keeping with Israel’s democratic principles, the Arab citizens of Israel are afforded all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship.”[30]
3. “ Today, Israel’s Arab citizens are accorded full civil and political rights, entitled to complete participation in Israeli society.”[31]

As we shall soon see, this is false propaganda, designed to mask the profound anti-Arab discrimination that exists in the Zionist state. Israel is not a democracy in the ADL’s sense of the term. Where different ethnic groups coexist in the same area or nation, ADL is a strong advocate of an integrated society in which all ethnic groups function as social and political equals. ADL promotes racial integration, racial equality and multiculturalism—everywhere outside Israel of course.

Dr. Oren Yiftachel, an Israeli professor at Ben-Gurion University, pointed out that Israel is not a democracy in the sense in which it is currently understood in the West. Rather, it is an “ethnocracy”—a land controlled and allocated by ethnicity. In his own words: “The Israeli regime is ruled by and and for one ethnic group in a multi-ethnic reality.” Factors that make Israel an “ethnocracy” include the facts that 1) immigration to the Jewish state is restricted to Jews only. Some 2.5 million displaced Palestinians who would like to return are not allowed to migrate to Israel; 2) military service is according to ethnicity; 3) economic control is based on race, religion, and ethnicity; 4) The country’s land regime entails transfer of land ownership in one direction, from Arab to Jewish control, but never back again.[32]

Dr. Uri Davis is a Jewish scholar and activist who has written extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has developed the foregoing ideas in great detail. The title of one of his thorough studies says it all; Israel: An Apartheid State.

All factions of the Zionist movement—socialist Zionism, religious Zionism and right-wing Zionism—share a common goal; a commitment to the establishment and continued existence in Palestine of a state for the benefit of the world’s Jewish communities. Ultimately, Israel’s founders transformed their beliefs in apartheidism into concrete reality. Israel was established as a state that would benefit Jews only, not as a state that would benefit all its citizens, Arab and Jew alike.[33]

The UN Partition Plan For Palestine of 1947 stated that each proposed state, Arab and Jewish, would be required to draft a democratic constitution which would guarantee equal human rights for all, Jew and non-Jew. Because Israel never fulfilled the requirement for a democratic constitution, its government was able to act without constitutional legal restriction; they enacted apartheid legislation that favors Jews and discriminates against Arabs on a grand scale. Indeed, apartheid in Israel—applied under the categories of “Jew” vs. “non-Jew”—is an overarching legal reality that determines the quality of everyday existence for everyone who resides in the Zionist state.[34]

In Israel, racial discrimination begins at birth. The law is set up in such a manner that a Jewish infant is registered as having Israeli citizenship at birth, whereas an Arab newborn is stateless at birth, his citizenship status being indefinite.[35]

In order to comprehend the racist import of Israeli apartheid laws, one must first realize that as a result of the 1948 armed conflict in Palestine, the majority of the Arab population that resided within the areas coming under Israeli rule and occupation either fled during the hostilities, or were forcibly expelled by the Israeli army. Israel has never allowed these people to return to their homeland.[36]

The Law of Return is one of the fundamental laws of Israel. It legalizes an alleged right that is inherent by virtue of being a Jew. Davis notes one of its consequences: “…under Israeli law, any Jew throughout the world has the right of immediate immigration into, settlement in and citizenship of the state of Israel after an alleged forced absence of 2,000 years. On the other hand, the displaced Palestinian Arab refugees of 1948 and their descendants—some two million people—are denied the same right in violation of international law and United Nations resolutions, although their forced absence is less than forty years.”[37]

Israeli law divides non-Jewish potential applicants for residency and citizenship into two broad categories: applicants who, in view of the law, exist and are “present,” versus applicants who, in view of the law, DO NOT EXIST, that is, are “absentees.” As a consequence of this legal artifice, all of the Palestinian Arabs (and their descendants) who fled or were forcibly expelled in 1948 are simply denied Israeli citizenship. So declares Israeli law: since they are “absent and do not exist,” there is no need to grant them citizenship. This law does not apply to numerous Palestinian Jewish families who also fled during the hostilities. Their citizenship is guaranteed through the Law of Return.[38]

The Absentee Property Law (1950) was passed before the Law of Return (1950). In essence, this enabled Zionist legislators (1) to define the displaced Palestinian Arab out of legal existence as an “absentee,” and (2) to guarantee every Jew throughout the world access to the land and property which this hapless Arab refugee left behind. Once again, the effect of this law does not apply to the Palestinian Jews who fled during the 1948 war, as their property rights are guaranteed through an alleged Biblical title.[39]

The 1947 Partition plan for Palestine of the UN General Assembly stipulated that all the 1948 Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants are constitutionally entitled without qualification to Israeli citizenship. In violation of this agreement, the net effect of the Law of Return and the Absentee Property Law is to literally denationalize millions of Palestinian Arabs who are entitled to Israeli citizenship. Davis cogently observes: “The Absentee Property Law (1950), having defined the mass of Palestinian Arab refugees from the territories that came under Israeli rule and occupation in 1948-1949 out of existence as “absentees,” not only denies them the right of citizenship in the Jewish state as stipulated by the 1947 UN Resolution, but at the same time denies them the right to their vast properties inside Israel. It is important to note that the status of “absentee” is inherited. Children of “absentees” whether born inside or outside the state of Israel, are similarly classified as “absentees.”[40]

For the Palestinian Arabs who, after the armed conflict of 1948, remained within the borders of Israel, second-class citizenship is their lot.

The mechanics of land ownership in Israel is a complicated matter that is beyond the scope of this article. What concerns us here are the apartheid consequences of Zionist land policies. Non-Jews, first and foremost Palestinian Arabs, were (until the March 2000 Supreme Court decision) excluded by law from leasing or cultivating land in 92.6% of the territory of Israel.[41] In some localities, Arabs were confined to ghettoes, unable to live in communities built solely for Jews.[42]

Regarding the allotment of agricultural land in Israel, Knesset Member Shulamit Almi summed up the situation: “…any person who is non-Jewish, even if he (or she) is the spouse of a Jew, cannot be a farmer here in this country, even if he (or she) is a citizen.”[43] This is the reality that remains hidden behind the ideological façade of “Zionist socialism,” and it still holds true, despite the aforementioned Israeli Supreme Court ruling of March 8, 2000.

The Histadrut, in addition to being a federation of Zionist trade union organizations, is the second largest employer in Israel (second to state employment), controlling a good portion of Israel’s economy: holding corporations, companies, banks, industrial concerns, agro-industries, etc. The kibbutzim and moshavim, which are mainly agricultural settlements, are also under its auspices.[44]

Prior to 1960, membership in the Histadrut was restricted to Jews only. In 1960 legal provisions were made permitting membership in the Histadrut for Palestinian Arab workers who hold Israeli citizenship. Subsequently, at the Tenth Histadrut Convention in 1966, the name of the Histadrut Federation was changed from “The General Federation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel” to the “The General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel.” Presumably in response to external pressure in the form of “what will the world say?”, other companies within the hierarchy of the Histadrut also made changes that made them appear more racially inclusionary and multicultural.[45]

As Davis shows however, these were merely cosmetic changes, designed to make the public falsely believe the Histadrut is a democratic organization where Arabs and Jews function as equals. The Zionists had to maintain effectively the apartheid structure presented abroad as an advanced form of egalitarian democracy.[46]

Davis explains that the principle of legal exclusion of non-Jews is clearly a constitutional unifying norm that pervades the hierarchy of Histadrut institutions, corporations and enterprises. Non-Jewish membership in the moshavim and kibbutzim (which are mainly agricultural settlements), for example, is legally barred by two insurmountable obstacles. First, moshavim and kibbutzim land is legally defined as land that is under the sole ownership of the “Jewish people.” Second, moshavim and kibbutzim membership require endorsement of NIR (Cooperative Company for the Settlement of Hebrew Workers Ltd.). All kibbutzim and moshavim agricultural settlements in Israel are incorporated as daughter companies of NIR. NIR is constitutionally restricted to the promotion of the settlement of Hebrew workers only.[47]

Jewish scholar Ian Lustick has pointed out that the Israeli military is, by and large, a segregated institution. Most Muslim Arabs, who constitute the overwhelming majority of Israeli Arab citizens, do not serve in the armed forces—they are not conscripted, nor are they permitted to volunteer for service. This has important social consequences. In Israel, participation in the armed services is a prerequisite to social advancement and mobility. Cut off from the military, they are cut off from access to one of the main avenues of social advancement.[48]

The Labor party of Israel espouses an egalitarian socialist ideology. Yet, never told to Western readers is its apartheid practice of separating Israeli Jews and Arabs into different “sectors.” Jews and non-Jews are thus confined on an ethnic basis. As Jewish scholars Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky so rightly noted, such a proposal for operation of political parties in the U.S. would be branded as “anti-Semitic.”[49]

All of the Israeli apartheid laws and practices that discriminate against Arabs violate the letter and spirit of the Balfour Declaration and UN Partition Plan of 1947. Both documents made it perfectly clear that no law should be passed or practice be established which would violate the civil, political, economic and religious rights of non-Jewish communities of Palestine.

Furthermore, all of the aforementioned discriminatory practices are part and parcel of official Zionist policy, thus falsifying ADL claims which attempt to downplay Israeli racism and apartheidism. On their Website we read this falsehood: “Israeli Arabs do face discrimination, not as a result of official policy but in practice.”[50]

In February 2000, President George W. Bush spoke at Bob Jones University, a South Carolina institution that opposed interracial dating and marriage. Widely criticized by those who consider such a practice as an example of racial intolerance, Mr. Bush eventually expressed regret for not publicly criticizing the college’s policy.

Christians and Muslims cannot marry Jews in Israel, and if they are married elsewhere, the marriage is not recognized by the rabbinical court in Israel.[51] Opposition to ethnic intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews is common in pro-Zionist Jewish communities throughout the U.S. In a major study of Judaism, California psychology professor Kevin MacDonald concluded: “The organized Jewish community is the only ethnic or religious community in the United States that continues to attempt to limit outmarriage or discourage conversions and intermarriage [between Jews and non-Jews].”[52] The Conservative movement of Judaism, the largest branch of the faith, is on record as being officially opposed to intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.[53]

This Jewish-Zionist opposition to intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews is, in many cases, racially motivated. According to the chief rabbi of France (in 1987), Rene Samuel Sirat, “…the racial disappearance of French Jews is the greatest threat to the community…” Rabbi Sirat also claimed that “there are two ways to exterminate the Jews: the radical method, concentration camps and terrorist attacks, or the slow method through mixed marriages…” In keeping with his desire to preserve the racial makeup of French Jews, Rabbi Sirat refuses the religious conversion of non-Jewish spouses.[54]

But here is where our society’s hypocritical double standard comes into play. President Bush was widely criticized for speaking at a white Christian college which opposes interracial dating and marriage, but what mainstream media source or politician would dare castigate any public figure for speaking in Israel (where intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews is not recognized) or at a Conservative Jewish synagogue where it is official policy to oppose intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews?

The racial double standard even plagues one of the holiest shrines of contemporary American society, the U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Director of the Research Institute of the Museum, Michael Berenbaum, affirmed that one of the museum’s purposes is to highlight the evolution of absolute Nazi evil, “from the infamous Nuremberg laws to the introduction of segregation, economic confiscation and apartheid…”—Stop here![55]

Previously, we saw that such practices as segregation of Jews and Arabs, economic confiscation of Arab property and apartheid practices are an integral part of Israel’s past and present. Nevertheless, the Holocaust Museum hails Israel as a “great triumph.” In this vein, Berenbaum writes: “The birth of the state of Israel was the most significant positive consequence of the Holocaust.”[56]

III

We return to the original question of this article. Why the racial double standard in regard to Zionism and Israel?

Prominent Jewish writer I.F. Stone acknowledged the hypocritical double standard which plagues contemporary Jewish values: “For Israel is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in world Jewry. In the outside world, the welfare of Jewry depends on the maintenance of secular, non-racial, pluralistic societies. In Israel, Jewry finds itself defending a society in which mixed marriages cannot be legalized, in which non-Jews have a lesser status than Jews, and in which the ideal is racist and exclusionist. Jews might fight elsewhere for their very security and existence against principles and practices they find themselves defending in Israel.”[57]

In his classic work on the sociology of knowledge, Ideology and Utopia, Karl Mannheim noted that in any society a large part of the prevailing ideologies, world-view, and “moral” judgments reflect the sociopolitical interests of that society’s power elites and controlling elements.[58] One of the most powerful and influential of these elements in American society is the Jewish political and cultural establishment.[59]

Definite forms of social consciousness derive from the fact that the Jewish-Zionist elite possesses the power and authority to impose its values—inclusive of the racial double standard in regard to Zionism—upon the American people. Most people never think to question these preformed patterns of thought, and thus, remain locked in a dogmatic slumber.

But why has the Jewish-Zionist power elite been so successful in imposing the racial double standard on American society? Why don’t Americans realize and reject this hypocrisy? The reasons are many and complicated, too numerous and complex to discuss in this brief essay. Nevertheless, Israel: An Apartheid State does provide us with one of the reasons.

Israeli civil rights activist Davis has pointed out: “…the Jewish state avoided [directly copying the former South Africa’s apartheid structure] and took a different route so as not to lose international support and sympathy and not to flaunt the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. The ideological predisposition of the Zionist leadership was to pursue rights for Jews only…but it needed to appear democratic while making sure discrimination was not immediately visible on the surface.”[60]

Indeed, since Israel’s welfare is dependent upon how it is viewed in the West, Davis explains it was never possible for Zionist legislators to pass openly explicit apartheid legislation. It was necessary to present Israel to the world as an advanced form of democracy and social progress. Thus, duplicitous legal structures were devised which effectively mask the racial discrimination and apartheid.[61]

By implication then, U.S. society is generally silent about Israeli racism and apartheidism because the majority of people aren’t aware it exists. They have been fooled into believing that racial equality exists in the Jewish state.

This explanation—which holds true when applied to certain segments of society—is only part of the answer to our question. It breaks down when applied to “people in the know,” such as political figures and news media executives.

A study of Israeli and South African apartheid published in the 1980s made the observation that “The parallels between South Africa’s system of legalized racism and that of Israel are well-known in academic circles but rarely discussed in the mainstream media, peace community or halls of Congress.”[62]

Former Congressman George W. Crockett, Jr. noted back in 1985 that the U.S. Congress turns a blind eye to apartheid in Israeli-occupied territories. He observed that “Here in Congress we are fighting against South Africa’s repressive measures, and yet closing our eyes to the institutional repression and the brutality that is daily being conducted against the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Arab territories.”[63]

Indeed, the former editor-in-chief of the Rand Daily Mail (the Johannesburg newspaper that fought against South African apartheid), Raymond Louw, claimed that the situation in the Israeli occupied territories is worse than the way things were under the South African apartheid regime. He was quoted as saying: “It’s depressing. This is a city [Avraham Avinu area] under military occupation without any rights for the occupied. There was never a situation like this with apartheid [in South Africa]. The control in the black areas was not so forceful. I don’t think you can compare the two situations. Under apartheid, there was a recognition that the blacks would continue to live in these areas. Here the impression is that the objective is to push the Palestinians out.”[64]

Clearly, the racial double standard in regard to Israel and Zionism is evident most everywhere in American society, even among non-Jews who would be in a position to know about Israeli racism. Take former President Clinton for example. He warned Americans of “the dangers of racial separation and pleaded with them not to give up on the idea of integration.” He has stressed that we must all “reject [racial] separation and isolation,” and that racial equality was a driving obsession of his life.[65] Mr. Clinton’s driving obsession for racial equality ends where Israel begins, for he has been the most pro-Zionist president in U.S. history, ardently supporting the apartheid Israel at just about every turn. No one can say he doesn’t know about racial inequality in Israel.

We live in a society in which racial integration, multiculturalism, and racial equality are looked upon as the “supreme good.” One would think that Uri Davis’s vision of the future for the occupied Palestine/Israel would be what Western governments and the mass media would want for the resolution of Arab-Israeli conflict. It is desirable, he writes, “that all 1948 Palestinian Arab displaced persons (refugees) return to localities as close as possible to their original places of residence, thereby transforming almost every Jewish settlement, urban or rural, from an exclusively, or next to exclusively, Jewish locality, into a mixed Jewish/Arab/Arab-Jewish locality; and thereby transforming the exclusively Jewish state of Israel into a binational Arab-Jewish/Jewish-Arab state as originally envisaged by the United Nations in 1947 in the vote to adopt the Plan for Partition and Economic Union.”[66]

This type of plan is precisely what Western governments, Zionist groups and the mass media work against.

Jewish-Zionist organizations generally promote racial integration and racial equality in all societies outside Israel, where Jews are a minority, but oppose it in Israel, where they are a majority. This strongly suggests they push for racial equality and integration only when there are benefits to be gained for themselves.[67] It is highly likely that world Zionism in collusion with Western governments will (at least for the foreseeable future) be able to prevent Davis’s vision from coming into being.

A more likely outcome is the “two-state” solution, a separate Jewish and Palestinian state. But one should not indulge in self-deception, for even this solution is plagued with the racial double standard. As leading Palestinian Christian, Rev. Dr. Raim Ateek, has pointed out, the powers that be would be forcing Jews and Arabs to live in pockets based on ethnic identity, similar to the condemned South African apartheid policy of separating blacks and whites into various homelands. In addition, the “independent” Palestinian state would probably end up under the domination of Israel.[68]

In other areas of the world the former Clinton administration fought against the “separate-ethnic-states” solution because it bespeaks of racial segregation. In regard to the Bosnian conflict, it was reported that “heading off demands of ultra-nationalist politicians for ethnicity-based independent states is a key goal of the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace accords that ended the war.”[69]

Yet, ethnicity-based independent states in the Middle East are exactly what Forward, one of the premier Jewish newspapers in the U.S., has demanded. They opined: “Two nations, Israel and Palestine must step apart. The notion that one could claim the entire land and the other might acquiesce is now utterly bankrupt. The two peoples must permit each other to live separate national lives, separated by clearly marked boundaries.”[70]

Western governments, the Western media and the world community in general condemned the South African apartheid policy of separating blacks and whites into separate homelands. The world community demanded that blacks and whites live in a racially integrated state with black majority rule. Yet, Western governments and the Western media in general seem to be more than willing to separate Jews and Palestinians into separate, apartheid states.

If the world community accepts the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are granting to Jewish-Zionists the right to racially segregate themselves from others, something that has been denied to other non-Jewish ethnic groups. The racial double standard will be alive and well.

Notes

© Copyright 2001, Paul Grubach

[1]

The Plain Dealer, 19 January 1989, p. 3-E.

[2]

The Plain Dealer, 23 October 1999, p. 6-A.

[3]

The Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2001, p. A26.

[4]

See Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/Aug. 1999, pp. 14, 20.

[5]

The New York Times, 9 March 2000, p. 3-A; The Plain Dealer, 9 March 2000, p. 4-A.

[6]

The New York Times, 17 April 2000, p. 24-A.

[7]

For the exchange of letters between Abraham Foxman and Paul Grubach, see the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2000, pp.73-74.

[8]

Roselle Tekiner, Samir Abed-Rabbo, Norton Mezvinsky, eds., Anti-Zionism: Analytic Reflections (Amana Books, 1988); Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State(Zed Books, LTD, 1987); The International Organization for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, Zionism and Racism (North American, 1979); Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question(University of Texas Press, 1985); Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (Lawrence Hill, 1983); Regina Sharif, Non-Jewish Zionism: Its Roots in Western History (Zed Press, 1983).

[9]

Quoted in Dr. Robert John, Behind the Balfour Declaration: The Hidden Origin of Today's Mideast Crisis (Institute for Historical Review, 1988), p. 35.

[10]

Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea(Greenwood Press, 1959), pp. 219-220.

[11]

Francis R. Nicosia,The Third Reich and the Palestine Question, pp. 16-21.

[12]

Quoted in Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, pp. 1-2.

[13]

New York Herald Tribune, 13 June 1938, p. 12.

[14]

Nature, 21 March 1985, p. 208; See the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9 May 2000, as reported on in Nicholas Wade, “Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora,” New York Times, 9 May 2000.

[15]

Tekiner, Abed-Rabbo, Mezvinsky, pp. 63-89.

[16]

See New York Review of Books, 13 April 2000, p. 61.

[17]

Natural History, November 1993, p. 12.

[18]

See Robert Vexler’s Germany: A Chronology and Fact Book: 1415-1972, p. 129.

[19]

Nicholas Wade, “Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora, “ New York Times, 9 May 2000.

[20]

Ibid.

[21]

D.D. Guttenplan, The Holocaust on Trial(W.W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 209.

[22]

Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (The Free Press, 1993), p. 106.

[23]

See Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (University of California Press, 2000), p. 88.

[24]

Quoted in Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (Pantheon Books, 1987), p. 103.

[25]

Quoted in Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, p. 5.

[26]

Cleveland Jewish News, 22 November 1991.

[27]

Cleveland Jewish News, 8 November 1991, p. 12.

[28]

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 1991, p. 58.

[29]

“Israeli Society,” online: www.adl.org/Israel/Record/society.html

[30]

“Minorities in Israel,” online: www.adl.org/Israel/Record/minorities.html

[31]

Ibid.

[32]

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1999, p. 120.

[33]

Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, p. 9.

[34]

Ibid., p. 22.

[35]

Ibid., p. 27-30.

[36]

Ibid., p. 17; Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, pp. 81-118.

[37]

Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, p. 34.

[38]

Ibid., pp. 34-36.

[39]

Ibid., pp. 34, 36.

[40]

Ibid., pp. 25, 35.

[41]

Ibid., pp. 39-40.

[42]

Ibid., p. 17.

[43]

Ibid., p. 49.

[44]

Ibid., p. 50.

[45]

Ibid., pp. 50-51.

[46]

Ibid., p. 53.

[47]

Ibid., p. 55.

[48]

Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State; Israel's Control of a National Minority, pp. 93-94.

[49]

Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (Pluto Press, 1999), pp. 151-152.

[50]

“Minorities in Israel,” online: www.adl.org/Israel/Record/minorities.html

[51]

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1993, p. 75; Roselle Tekiner, Samir Abed-Raboo, Norton Mezvinsky, eds., Anti-Zionism; Analytical Reflections, pp. 86-87, note 21.

[52]

Kevin MacDonald, Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (Praeger, 1988), p. 266.

[53]

Religious News Service Press Release, 3 December 1991, printed in Christian News, 16 December 1991, p. 15.

[54]

The Plain Dealer, 26 October 1987, p. 9-A.

[55]

Michael Berenbaum, “The Growing Assault on the Truth of Absolute Evil, Los Angeles Times, 28 January 2000.

[56]

Michael Berenbaum, The History of the Holocaust as told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The World Must Know (Little, Brown and Company, 1993), p. 214.

[57]

Quoted in Moshe Menuhin, The Decadence of Judaism in our Time (Beruit: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969), p. 210.

[58]

Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1936), p. 10, passim.

[59]

The following is a small sample of the many works that document the power and influence of the Jewish political and cultural establishment. J.J. Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996); Andrew Hurley, One Nation under Israel; Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998); Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood(New York: Crown Publishers, 1988); Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby(Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1985).

[60]

Quoted in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (July/Aug. 1999), p. 14.

[61]

Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, pp. 4, 25, 44, 49, 53, 55, 58, 60.

[62]

Louise Cainkar, ed., Separate and Unequal: The Dynamics of South African and Israeli Rule(Chicago: Palestine Human Rights Campaign, 1985), see Preface.

[63]

Ibid., p. 49.

[64]

Quoted in Ha’aretz (Israel), 24 May 2001.

[65]

The Plain Dealer, 26 September 1997, pp. 1-A, 10-A.

[66]

Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, pp. 78-79.

[67]

For a discussion of this phenomenon, see the works of California psychologist Kevin MacDonald, Separation and Its Discontents: An Evolutionary Analysis of Anti-Semitism (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998).

[68]

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Jan./Feb. 2000), p. 52.

[69]

The Plain Dealer, September 1, 1998.

[70]

Forward, 6 October 2000, p. 8.