Letter: Israel Apartheid: Not

Dear Letter to the Editor:

With all of the horrendous human rights violations across the globe, three “human rights” organizations,  Amnesty International,  Human Rights Watch and B’Tselmen are rarely heard from except when they fill the airwaves with the allegation that Israel is an apartheid state.

Many disagree including South African Kenneth Meshore, President of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) who said: “I know what apartheid was, and Israel is not apartheid”. He continued that calling Israel an apartheid state is an “empty political statement”.

Further, anyone who is not antisemitic understands that a foundational lynchpin of South African apartheid was ZERO upward mobility for blacks. In contrast since 2019 the CEO of Bank Leumi, the largest bank in Israel, has been an Arab, Samer Haj-Mejia. Under South African apartheid if a black merely stepped into a “white” bank, he or she was immediately arrested and imprisoned.

An Arab, George Karra, is a justice on Israel’s Supreme Court. The medical professions in Israel are over represented by Arabs in terms of their percentage of the population. Academia in Israel has many Arab professors and administrators. 

Finally, Nelson Mandela in 1997 accepted an Honorary Doctorate from Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev. No rational person would believe that Nelson Mandela would have EVER accepted an Honorary Doctorate from an apartheid state.

Richard Sherman
Margate, Florida