Growing condemnation of Israeli apartheid
JVL Introduction
A lot has happened in one year to change the minds of so many about the nature of the Israeli regime.
Last week it was the turn of the Chicago Episcopalians who a year before had decisively rejected an attempt to censure Israel.
In the meanwhile, B’Tselem’s apartheid report in January and Human Rights Watch report in April have both legitimised the description of Israel as an apartheid society.
Add to that the Kairos coalition of Palestinian Christians, “Cry for Hope: a call for decisive action,” issued in July 2020, and it is as though the dam’s walls have finally been breached.
In July the general synod of the mainline United Church of Christ voted overwhelmingly to “reject Israel’s apartheid system of laws and legal procedures”.
In November the Vermont Episcopalians did likewise, followed by those of Atlanta.
And now the Chicago Episcopalians…
Perhaps, concludes this report, “what should really frighten Zionists is that the growing opposition to their policies isn’t coming from hostile antisemites but from patient, Christian friends of the Jewish people, and the Jewish religion.”
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Tue 30 Nov 2021. Read the original here.
Israeli ‘apartheid’ is antithetical to our values, Chicago Episcopalians say, by nearly 3 to 1
One year after Chicago Episcopalians knocked down a resolution condemning Israeli apartheid by a sizeable margin, its convention approved a similar resolution by 72 to 28 percent.
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Interesting, though it would be interesting to know how many people attended this convention and how many adherents they represent. An alternative explanation for the lack of discussion may have been a feeling that this vote. as I read it, was to propose a resolution to a larger convention and that they could leave it to the General Convention, guided by God, to approve or refuse. That sort of thing sometimes happens where people prefer to avoid a local heated argument with those they know well.
“Perhaps what should really frighten Zionists is that the growing opposition to their policies isn’t coming from hostile antisemites…”
Hostile antisemites often love Zionist policies for obvious reasons. I suppose you could say that actually they are friendly antisemites.
Haaretz had story last week about the Church of Sweden also calling out Israel apartheid. Good to see some finally waking up. Too little to late I fear.
Here is to the Conservative/Labour Friends of Israel being politically stranded.
To reply to Paul Seligman: the convention spent about 35 minutes discussing the resolution and an amendment (I didn’t listen to all of it). The amended resolution was passed with 300 votes in favour and 114 against.
https://youtu.be/gNo3uh4FfwM?t=18384
It is very gratifying that this has happened, and that it is part of a larger programme of holding Israel to account for its actions. It is easy to brush off anything you enemies might have to say about you; it is far harder when it is your friends who are finding fault. When Israel is called out by those who want it to fail, it is bound to dismiss their objections; but if Israel is being called out by those who want it to succeed, then it really must, and maybe in the future will, start questioning the moral consequences of its political stand. Roll on the day.
Many social developments take years in the making … and then at some stage become unstoppable and start revving up the speed at which change happens.
For example, cigarette companies knew of the links between smoking and cancer in the 1960s; the public didn’t find out about them until the 1970s; and it’s only very recently within the UK that smoking indoors in public spaces has been both illegal and effectively banished. So, some 60 years to reduce the harm the tobacco industry does in the developed world (sadly, the developing world remains largely unprotected).
I think Israel is now at the same tipping point of globally increasing public condemnation and concern that the tobacco industry reached in the 1980s. It truly would be a wonderful catalyst for change if the USA made its future diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel contingent on Israel behaving much better than it now does.
Linda is right in suggesting that such processes take time. The analysis by Israeli scholar Uri Davis in his 1987 book ‘Israel: an apartheid state’ (London, Zed Books; 145pp) is still valid. Davis traces many features of the Israeli state back to the period of the British mandate, when the British were the colonial masters.
Emboldened by the defenestration of Jeremy Corbyn and the takeover of the Labour Party by a self-proclaimed ‘Zionist without qualification’, Israel believes that it is still winning the propaganda war, at least in the UK. Just yesterday I read an craven apology by David Lammy for nominating JC in 2015. As with Trumpist dictatorships throughout history, Lammy has signed up to what amounts to a pledge of loyalty, trading any conscience he might have in exchange for the highly dubious possibility of political advancement. So long as it is expedient to do so, careerist politicians and careerist journalists alike will continue to defend the indefensible and sell out the Palestinians without a second thought. Their names will one day be coated with shame, but in the meantime they will have no difficulty accumulating the tarnished honours they believe are their due.