Katie Halper & Lee Camp: The Truth Will Not Be Televised

1 comment

1. Interesting. I guess I take issue with use of the term “apartheid.” If I remember correctly the term built on the system in South Africa has specific meaning which denoted political, economic, cultural, social, regional segregation and hierarchy. Apartheid was the complete dehumanization of Africans by Affrikaaners, white minority. Israel doesn’t meet the original definition because Arabs are integrated into the political, legal, economic structure, e.g as members of the Knesset and justices on the Israeli Supreme Court.

   The term, apartheid has been re-formed to the extent that American Jim Crow would now qualify as apartheid.

   I raise this because my work with IRA and UFV in Northern Ireland raised the same questions and I learned from those folks ( and former combatants) the term doesn’t capture what is happening in Israel, unlike in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the very existence of Israel( which was borne out of Western guilt and the bloody Brits) creates a very different political situation which in essence is the reverse of the South African experience and so many other experiences.

   I think at times the expansion of the term, has effectively weakened needed resistance to African experience in South Africa and South West Africa, now Namibia. Israel bears no resemblance to this. Yet, treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and settlements in Jerusalem, as structured by the likes of Netanyahu and followers of Meir Kahane, is Jim Crow at its worst. Is it a violation of the 2007 iteration of a crime v humanity? Need to think about that. I tend to agree; as are US treatment of immigrants, POC—one reason we aren’t members of the ICC.

   Would love to talk with you about this. I love Halper, which is what got me to your show.