South Africa Reasserts ‘the Lie of Israeli Apartheid’ at Biased UN

The falsehood of ‘Israeli apartheid’ was started by terrorist Yasser Arafat. It is being promulgated by South Africa’s BDS movement and given legitimacy by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

By Shimon Bar Lev, United with Israel

Speaking with a straight face while spouting a false narrative, South African diplomat Clinton Swemmer on Tuesday told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva that ‘apartheid,’ the term used to describe black disenfranchisement in South Africa, now applies to Israel because of its policies toward Palestinians and other non-Jews.

Swemmer told the Council, “Israel is the only state in the world that can be called an apartheid state. We remain deeply concerned at the denial of the right of self-determination to the Palestinian people, in the absence of which no other human right can be exercised or enjoyed.”

South Africa was an apartheid regime between 1948 and 1991, and the term is generally used to specifically denote South Africa’s racial separation under white minority rule, but Israel’s enemies have used the term in recent years to characterize the Jewish State.

Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has conducted studies and written extensively on the issue. Diker told UWI, “The apartheid libel against Israel has very strong roots in the South African BDS network. It’s comprised of many people who know little or nothing about Israel and never lived through apartheid.”

According to Diker, “The use of this slanderous, libelous and baseless attack against Israel has become a requirement of the ANC narrative.”

The ANC, or African National Council, is the ruling party in South Africa. “If you’re South African public servant or government official, you can be punished economically and politically if you fail to use the term ‘apartheid’ when referring to Israel,” Diker said.

“The problem is that words spoken at the biased and slanted UNHRC are published and become a weapon in the hands of Israel haters in European and North America. It has also seeped into academia and become a ‘legitimate’ term when referring to Israel,” Diker explained.

“The first time the ‘apartheid’ slander was used against Israel was when Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat used the word when he spoke at the United Nations back in 1974,” he added.

Does Israel Practice Apartheid?

“There is not even one point of similarity. Apartheid is total racial separation between the ruling whites and the majority black population. Israel is a free democratic state with a Jewish character. Our parliament, Supreme Court, universities, bathrooms, hospitals and everything else in Israel are fully integrated,” Diker said.

South African anti-BDS activist and radio journalist Rolene Marks told WIN, “What was uttered in Geneva shows an extreme bias and lack of knowledge about Israel. ANC supports Hamas terrorists, so they have no right to comment and have no understanding about Israeli society. It’s a bizarre usage of a phrase that has no connection to reality, and it is extremely fallacious and designed to be hurtful to Israel, which prides itself on inclusion.”

“The government in Pretoria does not officially use ‘apartheid’ references  about  Israel,” Marks continued. “They favor ‘two states for two people’ but the policy is being hijacked in order to isolate Israel in the way that South Africa was isolated before the end of apartheid. There are pressures to downgrade the embassy, but the government is resisting.”

According to Marks, “There are many friends of Israel in South Africa and a groundswell of support from opposition political parties, the churches, the Zulu and others who want to strengthen ties between Israel and South Africa.”

The ANC last month voted to urge the government to immediately downgrade Pretoria’s embassy in Israel. At the ANC’s biannual National Conference in Johannesburg, the party unanimously passed a resolution to turn the embassy in Ramat Gan into a liaison office. It remains unclear whether the government in Pretoria will implement the decision.