O pinion
Israel Slandered When Described as an Apartheid State
BY JESSE FOX
PENN HAS MORE than 600
student organizations — a
laudable source of pride for our
school. I love seeing Instagram
stories and Facebook events that
highlight new student initiatives
in pursuit of academic honesty
and exploration. However,
recently, I’ve begun to see some
that are very disheartening. In
2019, student activists formed
Penn Students Against the
Occupation. After scrolling
through their Instagram page,
I encountered many posts that
propagate full of half-truths and
lies. One stands out as particu-
larly misleading.

On Feb. 1, PAO shared a
post titled “Criticism of Israel
— a settler colonial, apartheid
state, by default is not antise-
mitic.” Of course, criticizing
the actions of a government or
country is necessary to keep
them in check. However, the
appallingly inaccurate part
of the post is the insistence
that Israel is a “settler colonial,
apartheid state.” As we’ve
seen countless times, false
demonization of Israel can
lead to a surge in antisemitic
attacks. More to the point, by
employing buzzwords such as
“settler colonial” and “apart-
heid” to describe Israel, PAO
is indulging the widespread
political ploy to delegiti-
mize the Jewish state. The
logic is simple: “Apartheid”
regimes are not reformed —
they are dismantled entirely.

But in the context of Israel,
such accusations could not be
more inaccurate. Let’s take a
deeper look at how wrong their
slander against Israel is:
According to one academic
definition, settler colonialism
“is an ongoing system of power
that perpetuates the genocide
and repression of indigenous
peoples and cultures.” Most
definitions riff on themes such
as “replacement,” “resource
exploitation” and “coloniza-
tion.” Aside from the fact that
the Jewish people inhabited
the land long before the Arab
conquest of the region and have
had a continuous presence in
Israel for the last 3,000 years,
19th- and 20th-century Jewish
immigrants did not “replace”
the Palestinians, nor has Israel
ever committed anything close
to “genocide.”
In fact, the British Peel
Commission Report in 1937
reported demographic trends
that fly in the face of the
“replacement” canard: “The
Arab population shows a
remarkable increase ... partly
due to the import of Jewish
capital into Palestine and
other factors associated with
the growth of the [Jewish]
National Home.” This increase
in the Arab population was
due, in part, to migration into
Mandatory Palestine from
neighboring areas. Given this
historical reality, why are Jews
the only ones called settler
colonists? This is an inherent
double standard.

PAO’s pronouncement that Israel is a
settler colonial state indicates
either a misunderstanding of
the definition of their own
terminology, or historical
ignorance. Their post also slurs Israel
as an apartheid state. It should
be noted that there are certain
sections of the West Bank (Areas
A and B) that are controlled by
the Palestinian Authority, and
the U.S.-designated terrorist
organization Hamas controls
the Gaza Strip. Therefore, these
areas will not be included in
this conversation, as they are
separate political and national
domains. According to the United
Nations’ International Con-
vention on the Suppression
and Punishment of the Crime
of Apartheid, apartheid is
defined as denial equal rights
to people, falsely impris-
oning people, and genocide
against people based on race.

Citizens of Israel, regardless of
their race, religion or gender
all enjoy the same rights and
protections under the law.

Arab citizens of Israel (some of
whom identify as Palestinian)
can vote in Israeli elections,
and many choose to serve in
the army. There are majori-
ty-Arab political parties that
comprise a substantial portion
of the Knesset (Israel’s parlia-
ment). There are Arabs who sit
on Israel’s Supreme Court. The
second-largest bank in Israel’s
chairman is Arab. Many
Palestinians who live in Areas
A and B (not citizens of Israel)
in the West Bank commute to
Israel daily to work. Apartheid
is racial discrimination, not
seperation based on nationality
— if dividing people based on
national citizenship were apart-
heid, the whole world would be
guilty. Therefore, either Israel
has done a remarkably bad job
at being an apartheid state,
or lies and propaganda have
masked the truth that Israel is
the only liberal democracy in
the Middle East.

In sum, slandering Israel as
a “settler colonial” state or an
“apartheid state,” is factually
incorrect and academically
irresponsible. I’m a proud
Zionist and ardent supporter
of Israel, and I recognize
that criticizing the country’s
actions, or any country’s for
that matter, is legitimate.

However, slandering Israel
by employing falsities shows
that PAO has no qualms about
lying to fit its agenda. I’m
sorry to see a student organi-
zation on Penn’s campus feed
unassuming people lies and
hatred. l
Jesse Fox graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania in
December and is a 2020-2021
CAMERA Fellow.

Conversion Students are Asking Me If it’s Safe to Become
Jewish. This is What I Tell Them
In 12 years of teaching
“Introduction to the Jewish
Ex perience”
t hroug h
HaMaqom|The Place in the
San Francisco Bay Area, no
student had ever asked me that
question in those words.

This year three students
have asked it of me. The first
was a young woman, a conver-
sion candidate, and she made
an appointment to talk to me
BY RABBI RUTH ADAR
outside of class.

I answered with a question:
“RABBI ADAR, IS it dangerous “Why are you asking this
to wear my Jewish star?”
right now?” She talked about
16 JUNE 17, 2021
reading about attacks on Jews
in New York City, and in West
Hollywood. She talked about
the fact that the synagogue
she attends was vandalized a
few months ago. She talked
about how Jewish friends are
concerned about safety.

“Am I being silly?” she
asked. “Do I need to worry
about this on the streets of
Oakland and Berkeley?”
Yes, I said, this is real. We
are living through a time of
increasing antisemitism. As far
as the jewelry is concerned, I
JEWISH EXPONENT
said, it is like any other item
of personal safety: Trust your
instincts. If you don’t feel safe,
leave it off or put it out of sight.

Then I asked another
question: “This happens to the
Jewish people from time to
time. Are you sure you want to
pursue conversion?” I assured
her that I would not think
badly of her if she chose the
safer path. Confronting fears
like those is how we sort out
who we want to be, what we
want for our children, what
we want for our descendants.

There is no single right answer,
only the answer deep in each
individual heart.

The young woman said,
“No, rabbi, I want to be a Jew!”
I recognized the passion in her
voice, a passion that I still feel
after 25 years as a naturalized
Jew — my word for a Jew-
by-choice. We love the Jewish
people and we are not going
anywhere. Conversion to Judaism is
more complex than a change
See Adar, Page 20
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM