When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez labeled Israel an apartheid country over the weekend, writing, “Apartheid states are not democracies,” she made international headlines. And Missouri Rep. Cori Bush promptly echoed her colleague from New York. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib made the apartheid charge last week.
Apartheid states aren’t democracies.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2021
It’s obvious that the Human Rights Watch report of April 27 accusing Israel of the crime of apartheid has given others permission to open their mouths. AOC defended herself from an onslaught of critics by retweeting HRW’s statement that it didn’t arrive at the apartheid charge “lightly” and by citing the B’Tselem apartheid finding of January, along with the HRW finding.
Of course, Israel critics have leveled the apartheid charge for more than 15 years. Rep. Betty McCollum of MN first leveled the “apartheid” charge in 2018.
But the Human Rights Watch report has gotten legs from Israel’s latest Gaza onslaught; and what we are now seeing is a sudden end to a taboo (as my friend Dan Walsh says).
This weekend both John Oliver on HBO and Ali Velshi on MSNBC deployed the apartheid charge to explain what viewers are seeing.
On Sunday, John Oliver accused Israel of war crimes and apartheid against Palestinians, and cited HRW and B’Tselem. Daily Beast has the quote:
They’ve been living under a suffocating blockade for 14 years, and in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Palestinians are essentially being governed by a form of apartheid—an assessment echoed by both international and Israeli human rights groups,
Here is a longer clip of Oliver from the show.
“Both sides are suffering heartbreaking casualties. But one side is suffering them exponentially… We have got to start having this conversation honestly. And falling back on convenient, sanitized terms like real estate dispute and air strikes on militants feels a little disingenous, when what you are describing is forcing people form the homes they have lived in for decades and killing civilians and children…
“Some things are pretty simple. One side is suffering much more…If America really wants to help… I would hope that a real friend would tell me when I’m being an asshole and definitely when I’m committing a fucking war crime.
Ali Velshi spoke out on May 15, on MSNBC, this clip thanks to CAIR:
Palestinians are at best third-class citizens in the nation of their birth. The idea that it is even remotely controversial to call what Israel has imposed on Palestinians a form of apartheid is laughable. One look at a map of Israel, Gaza and the occupied territories conjures up only one other example, apartheid era South Africa…
It may be worth gong deeper than what you may hear in your bubble in understanding the depth to which the Palestinian people are subject to apartheid in their own land, deprived of basic necessities and subject to relentless civil rights violations. This is not a secret. It’s out there to see. You just have to look for it.
Velshi was soon echoed by Joy-Ann Reid:
What @AliVelshi says in this succinct explanation is just facts: painful, well known and documented facts. Israel has a right to exist in peace but so do Palestinians, who currently suffer under what can only be called apartheid. And no one is doing anything about it.
The young Jewish group IfNotNow has made apartheid a regular allegation in their messaging.
To bomb schools today — or any day — goes against everything it means to be Jewish. #JewsAgainstApartheid
This morning David Rothkopf, scribe of the liberal establishment, tweeted: “Israel is an apartheid state. Apartheid states are not democracies.”
And yesterday, Iran labeled Israel an “apartheid” state and called for international action to stop its systematic violations of human rights.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.