White America’s defense of apartheid Israel is indefensible

This essay was first published here on Nov. 11, 2024 by the Arab American News.

As the controversial exchange between Tony Dokoupil and Ta-Nehisi Coates illustrated, there is a deep disconnect between how many white people view Israel versus how people of color view it. According to a poll conducted by NPR and PBS, 72% of white people support Israel versus 51% of non-whites while another poll conducted by the Pew Research Center shows 68% of white evangelicals support it. This suggests they either do not care or not believe Israel is an apartheid state.

Despite white America’s refusal to admit it, the evidence Israel is a brutal apartheid state is overwhelming and irrefutable. It is not a matter upon which reasonable minds can differ, but an immutable truth.

The term apartheid was first used to describe South Africa’s political system, which was designed to disenfranchise the country’s black majority. It has since evolved into a shorthand term to describe any political system designed to oppress and marginalize people based on their race, ethnicity, or religion. Based on this definition, several human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem have described Israel as an apartheid state. Israel’s former attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, agreed, saying “I must also conclude that my country has sunk to such political and moral depths that it is now an apartheid regime.” Tamir Pardo, the former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, put it best when he explained, “in a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state.”

Mr. Pardo’s description succinctly gets to the heart of the issue. Israel is the de facto political and military authority over the West Bank and the 2.8 million Palestinians who live there. These people have been forced to live under Israeli military law for nearly six decades while the roughly 450,000 Jewish settlers living among them are governed under an Israeli civil code that gives them greater rights and due process protections. Israel is an apartheid state by virtue of the different set of laws governing Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank. To suggest otherwise would be like denying segregation existed in America because it was officially limited to the South. It is a nonsensical argument grounded in racist delusions, not facts.

As Mr. Coates explained, apartheid systems are inherently evil regardless of the context that led to their creation. As such, white America’s defense of apartheid Israel is indefensible. It is largely based on implicitly racist perspectives that show America learned very little from its own dark history of racial injustice.

Bigoted notions of white supremacy have been a feature of the American ethos for centuries. They were enshrined in America’s founding documents and played an integral part in justifying the Atlantic slave trade, the genocide perpetrated against Native Americans, the abuse of Chinese laborers and the Jim Crow era. The only difference between the supposedly enlightened America of today and the overtly racist America of the past is the degree of gaslighting and deflection that now permeates the conversation. Whereas white people were once open about their racist contempt for non-whites, today they simply deny the truth or use ridiculous labels like “woke” or “terrorist sympathizer” to stifle meaningful conversations about their racist actions.

While condemning America’s enduring racism is certainly worthwhile, it is more important to recognize how these values drive violence towards Arabs and Muslims. As Sam Huntington famously argued in his work about the clash of civilizations, the world’s geopolitical tensions are largely tribal in nature. The bigotry and xenophobia that allows so many Americans to ignore or support apartheid Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians are merely a reflection of this tribalism since America and Israel are part of the same Western bloc. These dynamics have shaped America’s hegemonic and violent policies towards Palestine and the Muslim world for decades.

Over the years, America has given a nation that is very close to Nazi Germany on the ideological spectrum $260 billion, which it used to build one of the most powerful militaries in the world. Thanks to this aid, Israel boasts a fleet of deadly tanks, stealth fighters, and drones as well as advanced cyber warfare and intelligence capabilities. As Israeli government minister Amihai Eliyahu admitted when he suggested using one against Gaza’s defenseless people, it also possesses a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons.

America’s leaders are so blinded by racism and hubris, they believe giving Israel the means to slaughter nearly 17,000 Palestinian children and threaten its neighbors with annihilation will cement its place among them. Nothing could be further from the truth. By empowering it to commit such horrific crimes, America has only made Israel less secure by destroying any chance for genuine peace with the Palestinians or the wider Muslim world.

The push to create a homeland for Jews by conquering Palestine and subjugating its people was an incredibly short-sighted idea born of desperation. It essentially forced Jews out of the fire and into the frying pan by creating the conditions for perpetual war between them and the Muslim world. As the famous Zionist slogan, “a land without a people, for a people without a land” shows by the way it so brazenly erases the very existence of the Palestinians, it was also rooted in blatantly racist values. Instead of forcing Germany to pay for its crimes by carving one of its states out as a homeland for Jews after WW2, the West collectively decided to force Palestinians to pay for its sins. Due to the illogical and immoral perspectives that led to its creation, Israel’s path towards a long and prosperous future in the Muslim world was always tenuous.

Israel’s leaders responded to their precarious position by pursuing a strategy of maintaining total military dominance over the Palestinians and their Muslim neighbors. Buoyed by their destruction of Gaza and decapitation of Hezbollah, they probably believe their strategy is working. But that only proves the depths of their delusions.

Aside from showing Israel is ruled by barbaric sociopaths, the past year has also proven the limits of this strategy by highlighting Israel’s long-term vulnerabilities should it ever need to stand on its own. Even after spending decades arming it to the teeth, America has been forced to provide its ally near daily shipments of ammunition, almost $18 billion in emergency funding, and naval and air defense assets to augment its missile defense systems. All of which shows, without America’s support, Israel’s strategy is doomed to fail.

Though it may be hard to envision today, America’s days of protecting Israel are slowly coming to an end. Its debt currently sits at $35 trillion and is expected to grow to $54 trillion in just ten years. The interest payments required to service it consumed a trillion dollars this year alone and are already the second largest line item in the US government’s budget. Like many empires before it, America has overstretched itself, which means retrenchment is inevitable. When that day comes, Israel will be alone among those it has spent decades abusing.

White America’s support for apartheid Israel is indefensible not just because it is morally repugnant but because it is counter to Israel’s long-term interests. To put things in historical terms, the last time Europeans took control of the Holy Land, they held it for almost 200 years. Eventually, the egregious nature of their crimes united their Muslim neighbors against them, leading to their expulsion. Modern day Israel is only 75 years old but, as the growing cooperation between the previously estranged people of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran shows, the vile nature of its actions has already set similar forces in motion. The only way to prevent history from repeating itself is by dismantling the apartheid state built to rule the Palestinians. Until Palestinians can live in peace and dignity, Israel will remain in a state of intermittent war with not just the Palestinians, but those within the wider Muslim world justifiably compelled to help them. Even if it takes another 200 years, it is only a matter of time before it loses one of these wars.  

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