Kerry and others talk in terms of demographics, but it’s a question of rights
By James Kirchick|May 2, 2014 4:00 PM
Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks last week to the Trilateral Commission predicting Israel’s potential transformation into an “apartheid state” should it fail to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians raised howls of protest from American Jewish leaders.
In Kerry’s defense, a number of commentators have pointed to Israeli leaders who have argued the same point, including Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Indeed, many genuine friends of Israel—of which Kerry is undoubtedly one—have warned of the apartheid scenario, doing so often in service of specifically deflecting claims that Israel is already an apartheid state. Let the peace process fester, these pro-Israel voices warn, and that calumny could one day become true. But is this admonition accurate?
The apartheid regime in South Africa consisted of a white minority ruling over a non-white majority, and it is this feature that those who invoke the specter of apartheid over Israel cite as evidence for their claim. If Israelis and Palestinians do not reach a two-state solution, they warn, then a Jewish minority will eventually rule over a non-Jewish majority in the area spanning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Jeffrey Goldberg quoted his own 10-year-old New Yorker article on this point:
By 2020, the Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola has predicted, Jews will make up less than forty-seven per cent of the population. If a self-sustaining Palestinian state—one that is territorially contiguous within the West Bank—does not emerge, the Jews of Israel will be faced with two choices: a binational state with an Arab majority, which would be the end of the idea of Zionism, or an apartheid state, in which the Arab majority would be ruled by a Jewish minority.
The problem with the logic is that relative population size has nothing to do with whether or not a system can be described as “apartheid.” Please CLICK HERE to keep reading
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