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Friday February 2, 2007

Stanford student group links Israel, apartheid

by stacey palevsky
staff writer

apartheid (a·part·heid) — n. A rigid policy in South Africa of discrimination against the nonwhite population.

Apartheid, on Stanford’s campus, now has another definition. A new student group claims Israeli policies and laws promote an apartheid state.

The group, Students Confronting Apartheid in Israel, on Jan. 25 launched a divestment campaign and invited controversial Jewish college professor and author Norman Finkelstein to speak on campus. (Finkelstein has compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Hitler’s treatment of Jews.) 

The group’s name has drawn angry, emotional reactions from Jewish students, most of whom say comparing Israel to an apartheid state is dangerous and false.

The war of words goes like this:

Many historians, journalists and Jews condemn the use of apartheid to describe Israel. Opponents of the term point out that Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East, where Arabs have equal rights and even hold governmental posts. The analogy has been called grotesque, offensive and absurd.

Those who say Israeli government policies promote apartheid argue that its laws promote separateness and inequality.

SCAI, on its Web site, says that while “there are definite differences between the practices of apartheid in Israel and in South Africa … like black South Africans, Palestinians are subject to a different system of law — one that denies them freedom of movement, equal access to resources like water, land or electricity, and the right to establish residence in Israel, a right which is granted to Jews from anywhere in the world through the Law of Return.”

Dan Kaganovich, a doctoral student, said he’s very concerned about the growing trend linking Israel to apartheid. Most recently visible was President Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”

“I suspect the situation will deteriorate and Stanford will soon become like many other campuses in California, where Jewish students literally fear physical harm,” he said.

At U.C. Irvine in May, for example, the Muslim Student Association planned a “Holocaust in the Holy Land” week, sponsoring workshops like “Israel: The Fourth Reich.” And U.C. Berkeley has long been at the center of anti-Israel demonstrations.

Stanford Hillel staff have met with the editorial board of the Stanford Daily, started an e-petition in support of Israel and a two-state solution (signed by 605 people so far), created a resource guide outlining why Israel is not a Palestinian state and held a forum.

But Kavanovich said it’s not enough.

“There are virtually no Stanford faculty or Jewish organizations willing to confront the belligerence of Arab Muslim groups,” he said. “... This is too bad, because I think that the Arab Muslim attack on Jews, freedom and democracy should be confronted because it is a threat to all of us.”

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