Israel Bars Anti-Zionist Groups From Lecturing In Schools Amid B’Tselem Claims Of ‘Apartheid’

‘A big lie unconnected to truth’

Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative think tank, said the apartheid accusation “is not just totally false, it is anti-Semitic.”

Israel “has no policies of racial or ethnic separation,” he said.

B’Tselem’s accusation, he told JNS, “is classic anti-Semitism: a big lie unconnected to truth that resonates with contemporary concerns—in this case about racial justice, and whose repetition will nonetheless convince some that it must be at least somewhat true.”

Kontorovich noted the absurdity of B’Tselem’s report, pointing out that “some policies do resemble apartheid rules—in particular, the Palestinian Authority’s prohibition, with severe penalties, of selling any real estate to Jews. Ironically, the closest thing in the region to an apartheid policy is not mentioned at all.”

Kontorovich also noted that “unlike non-white South Africans, the Palestinians have been offered full international statehood by Israel in numerous times and have turned it down as many times. … Indeed, the Palestinian ability to reject full statehood offers shows that the conditions under which they live cannot be compared to apartheid.”

The B’Tselem report blamed Israel’s government for pushing right-wing “apartheid” policies, such as Israel’s nation-state law, which specifies the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Kontorovich, however, slammed B’Tselem’s “ludicrous statement” and pointed out that Israel’s nation-state law “closely resembles numerous European democratic constitutional provisions.”

“Indeed, it is almost entirely declarative,” he said, adding that “B’Tselem’s report is dishonest in almost all its particulars and designed simply to attach to Israel in the public mind a vicious smear: classic anti-Semitism.”