Israeli peace activist calls “annexation” “apartheid” on webinar
Encouraging viewers to rethink both the historical and current circumstances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, renowned Israeli author and peace activist AB Yehoshua called annexation “apartheid” and stressed the importance of Israel extracting this “cancer” from its society.
AB Yehoshua (Photo: Screenshot)
Yehoshua joined Dr Mark Baker for a webinar run by the New Israel Fund Australia discussing annexation, Israeli democracy and peace. More than 400 people joined the lively conversation to hear of his reflections on a lifetime spent advocating for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
“At a difficult moment like the one we’re in – with the Netanyahu-Gantz government focused on pushing ahead with its annexation of parts of the West Bank – having AB Yehoshua speak to his Australian fans and offer his thoughts on the path forward was an absolute privilege. It’s incumbent on us, as Jews in the Diaspora who want to protect Israel Jewish and democratic character, to stand up and call out this disastrous plan for what it is,” said NIF Australia’s executive director Liam Getreu.
He accused both Israelis and Palestinians of “dwelling on too much memory. We have a surplus of memory.” Israelis always talking about the Holocaust and Palestinians always insisting on the right of return to their original homes from generations ago. He believes this intransigence is why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the longest-running conflicts in the world, despite the many high profile efforts and time spent trying to resolve it.
With a looming July deadline for planned annexation to begin in the West Bank, he encouraged everyone to try and think of new paradigms about how a future peace between Israelis and Palestinians could play out. Yehoshua said that although he has been a long time advocate of the two-state solution, that the reality of 400,000 Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories could make evacuation impossible today. One of his alternatives included offering annexed Palestinians civil rights under a new federation system. He noted the relative success of Palestinians living within Israel as citizens. He added that “Palestinians don’t want a miserable bantustan state. They want equal rights.”
“The cancer today is apartheid in the West Bank.” He insisted that “this apartheid is digging more and more deeply into Israeli society and impacting Israel’s humanity.” He explained that his desire to speak up came out of concern for his children and grandchildren and their future.
Link to the webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvaxIcernM
Nothing can be more calculated to bring war than futilely to attempt to appease the Arab “Palestinians” by pursuing a policy that is contrary to that enunciated by Yitzhak Rabin, z”l.
AB Yehoshua dishonours Rabin’s memory by propagandising in favour of the anti-Rabin policy.
He should be called a “war activist,” not a “peace activist.”
AB Yehoshua and the so-called “New Israel Fund” need to convince the Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” to jettison their genocidal ideology.
It is their leaders and their populace, which has acquiesced in the pursuit of that ideology, who have brought upon themselves their condition.
As for “annexation,” Yehoshua might be a talented writer and propagandist, but he either does not know the meaning of the word, or is being disingenuous.
The majority of Israel’s voters absolutely disagree with his stance, as did Yitzhak Rabin, z”l.
ORWELL WOULD BE PROUD
Israel is not going to be “annexing” any land for a simple reason; it already belongs to Israel under international law. Specifically, Article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (preserved under Article 80 of the U.N. Charter) calls for “close Jewish settlement” on the land West of the Jordan river.
Additionally, even the text of the original version of the Palestinian National Charter — formulated in 1964, a full three years before the “West Bank” fell under Israeli administration — unequivocally forswears (in Article 24) Palestinian claims to “any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Gaza.”
It is difficult to imagine a more authoritative source for exposing as bogus the Palestinian claim that the West Bank and Gaza comprise their “ancient homeland.”