Recently, Jennifer Sachs of the student group Hoos for Israel penned a guest column for The Cavalier Daily. This article was a response to the recent annual “Apartheid Week” the Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine held. While the author claims to want to engage in meaningful dialogue regarding the Israel-Palestine crisis, she merely deflects the core issues of the current situation and only seeks to discredit and malign the opposing viewpoint.
Rather than engage in the core issues driving the current unsustainable situation in Palestine, Sachs instead focuses on how Israel’s policies are not perfectly analogous to South African apartheid. Sachs claims Israel “resembles nothing close to this bigoted environment and does not discriminate against race, creed or sex.” Additionally, she points to the inclusion of Arab members in the Israeli Parliament — the Knesset — as proof of Israel’s commitment to equality and inclusivity. While this is admirably part of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, it is certainly not the practiced policy of the current government. The Arab members of the Knesset that Sachs proudly points to are subjected to verbal and even physical assault from the other members of the Knesset. Furthermore, in the most recent election Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blatantly pandered to racist paranoia by claiming Arab-Israeli voters were turning out in “droves” in an effort to increase voter turnout in his favor. This antic elicited criticism in a comment from President Obama stating that this practice “starts to erode the meaning of democracy in the country.”
Sachs later points to Israel as a “beacon of democracy, diversity and equality and a home to people of many religions and skin colors." Sachs is correct. Many people from diverse backgrounds call Israel home. Yet, Sachs fails to mention that of the 13 million people living in territory controlled by Israel, only 8 million have a right to vote. While some will argue voting is the privilege of a country’s citizens, the process of obtaining Israeli citizenship is arduous and not applied equally across those who inhabit its borders. Even though Palestinians from East Jerusalem are allowed to apply for citizenship, according to The Los Angeles Times, “the number who have had their permanent residency revoked by the Israeli government since 1967 is as large as the number who have been successful in attaining citizenship.” Unfortunately, Sachs’ “beacon of democracy” is more tragically flawed than she seems willing to admit.
Even with these shortcomings, the most reprehensible one in Sachs’ piece is her choice to deflect accusations made against Israel by pointing to the injustices and human rights violations committed by ISIS and Arab/Muslim governments in the region. By doing this, Sachs sets the bar pathetically low for the “beacon of democracy” she believes in. One moral failure by no means excuses another. Sachs’ logic implies the members and supporters of SPJP are by some means complicit or passively supportive of these violations (and in the case of ISIS atrocities). Unfortunately, Sachs does not stop here and instead alleges the political corruption of the Palestinian Authority and argues the Palestinians are oppressed not by Israel but “by their own governing body.” To Sachs, the continued construction and funding of illegal settlements and outposts by the government must certainly not count as a symptom of systemic corruption and weak rule of law by the Israeli government as Gershom Gorenberg argues in his book, “The Unmaking of Israel.”
Sachs is right: Israel isn’t exactly like South Africa. However, rather than engage with and acknowledge the fundamental issue of inequality she instead sidesteps the issue by nit-picking an analogy and diverts attention from Israel’s moral failures by pointing to the faults of neighboring (Arab) countries. Sachs ends her argument by stating: "To SPJP and the supporters of this cause, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be just a fraction closer to being resolved when you retire your accusations and understand the reality of the situation." I can’t help but wonder if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be exponentially closer to resolve if rather than denying the issue and shamelessly trying to discredit other views, groups like Hoos for Israel would instead choose to acknowledge the unsustainable status quo and seek out more meaningful and productive ways to engage on such a dynamic and multi-faceted conflict.
Jake Olson is a Viewpoint writer.
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