There’s another great letter in today’s Australian newspaper in response to yesterday’s smear of Israel critics:
I don’t think the blame for identifiying Israel as an apartheid state can be laid exclusively at the door of the Australian “hard-left”
It is only seven years since Michael Ben-Yair, a former Israeli attorney-general, wrote: “In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That regime exists to this day.” (Haaretz, March 3, 2002.)
Delving further back into history, we see “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”, in the South African newspaper the Rand Daily Mail (November 23, 1961). This was said by Hendrik Verwoerd, who was at the time prime minister of South Africa and considered something of an expert on apartheid. He apparently used to get quite peeved when his government was criticised for its aparthed policies whilst its allies in Israel were feted by the international community.
Jennifer Killen
St Peters, NSW