Israel and the Question of Apartheid

c889234799e865bbe90cee71f6cd2e53_MIsraeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is upon us again, and while Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (C-SJP) sets up on College Walk, pro-Israeli organizations ranging from Hillel to LionPAC, and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are launching their responses to begin damage control.

IAW’s detractors are quick to argue that using the term “apartheid” in the context of Israeli occupation diminishes the suffering of South African victims of the Apartheid regime and exaggerates the current situation in Israel and Palestine. Time and again, pro-Palestinian groups, like C-SJP, are told that equating Israeli occupation with apartheid is a sensationalist, divisive tactic that, as Columbia Hillel’s Ariel Brinkman posits, represents a “perverse paradigm of prejudice against the Jewish state.” Continue reading Israel and the Question of Apartheid