Anti-Apartheid Preacher: Labeling Israel Apartheid is “Absolute Nonsense”
Malcolm Hedding, a minister who grew up in apartheid South Africa and preached against his government’s racist practices, has forcefully spoken out against those that argue Israel is an “apartheid state”:
“Calling Israel an ‘apartheid state’ is absolute nonsense,” he insists. “You might have structures that look like apartheid, but they’re not. The barrier fence has nothing to do with apartheid and everything to do with Israel’s self-defense. There was no such barrier until the second intifada, when people were being murdered on the highways. And the country does not dehumanize its minority in the sense of apartheid. The issues are totally different.”
Hedding believes Israel has more than proven its desire to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians, while granting political rights to its own Arab citizens within a liberal democratic system. Nevertheless, the Palestinians remain committed to Israel’s destruction.
By contrast, he says, it was a tiny minority in South Africa that held power and once democracy came, the Nationalist Party that had dominated the masses disappeared.
“Israel is not trying to dominate the Arab minority or dehumanize it; she’s trying to facilitate sovereignty in one way or another while protecting her own citizens from a program of destruction. In no way is it an apartheid system.”
Read the rest of the article, including Hedding’s message to Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, here.
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