Israeli Apartheid Week

POV|date=April 2008

Israeli Apartheid Week is an annual series of university lectures and rallies held in February. It began in Toronto in 2004 and, by 2008, had spread to campuses in over 20 cities around the world including cities in the United States, Canada, Israel, the West Bank, South Africa and England. [ [http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2008/02/07/Opinion/How-Did.The.Most.Humane.State.In.History.Become.Demonized-3194623.shtml How did the most humane state in history become demonized? - Opinion ] ] [http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14001&Itemid=101 The Canadian Jewish News - Israel Apartheid Week gains momentum ] ]

Criticism

The Institute for Global Jewish Affairs describes Israel Apartheid week as example of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism. [Another Year of Global Academic Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism, by Manfred Gerstenfeld No. 73, 2 October 2008 [http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=624&PID=0&IID=2518&TTL=2007-2008:_Another_Year_of_Global_Academic_Anti-Semitism_and_Anti-Israelism] ]

Orna Hollander of Betar Canada called for supporters of Israel to stand up to the event telling "Canadian Jewish News" that "The strategy has been… from an organized community end, to not lend credibility, to be quiet about it, not bring press around it… Four years later, I think we definitely learned that we can keep our heads in the sand, but it’s going to go on with or without us. [IAW organizers] very much control the PR and rhetoric on campus, and its time to stand up and take responsibility.”

In 2008, pro-Israel activists countered the event with "Islamic State Apartheid Week" organized by the Hasbara Fellowships and endorsed by Betar.

The organizers of the counterprotest stated that they "want to remove the connection that modern-day students have to the word apartheid and Israel and refocus it to the countries that we think really exemplify the definition of apartheid, being a policy of separation and segregation. Through a week which encompasses the themes of gender, sexual and political apartheid, we hope to get out a new message."

"International Israeli Apartheid Week is one of many symptoms of the unjust double standard that the international community has applied to Israel since its birth. Critics target Israel's Law of Return for Jews as an "apartheid" policy while almost identical citizenship laws in countries like Germany and Ireland go unnoticed," claimed Gary Yavlevev of the "Daily Californian". [ [http://www.dailycal.org/article/100295/apartheid_label_is_grossly_misapplied_to_israel_th The Daily Californian - Apartheid Label Is Grossly Misapplied to Israel, the Middle East's Only Democracy ] ]

Israel's ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, denounced Israeli Apartheid Week as "crude propagandism, pure hypocrisy and cynical manipulation of the student body." [ [http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=33fde202-2d1b-4a6a-b947-809d83ac97d8 Israeli ambassador condemns students for 'celebration of ignorance' ] ]

In 2007, the event spread to New York University, Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City. [http://www.nysun.com/article/48542 ‘Israel Apartheid Week' Begins, Reigniting Carter-Led Debate - February 13, 2007 - The New York Sun ] ] The David Project, organized meetings the same week opposition to the characterization of Israel as an apartheid state and the American Jewish Committee denounced the apartheid week saying "the specter of apartheid should not be raised in any form," the director of the American Jewish Committee's Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations, Steven Bayme, said.

References

ee also

*Economic and political boycotts of Israel

External links

* [http://www.apartheidweek.org/ Israeli Apartheid Week official site]