En Passant

Three key features characterize Israeli apartheid:

•Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation. In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories, Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.

•About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens. More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.

•Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes and land in present-day Israel, even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Pappe came to Melbourne not only to dispel the myths but also to realign the discussion. He presented a view that, until recent years, has been deemed either too radical or simply impossible: the view of a single democratic state in which both Jews and Palestinians may live as equal citizens, where the both can live free from injustice and oppression.

The only just solution in Palestine is to have one democratic state that offers equal rights for Arabs and Jews, and the right for Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. Achieving this “one state solution” would require dismantling the racist apartheid state of Israel and breaking the power of US imperialism in the region. But it is the only way Palestine can be free.

The Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC), the peak trade union body in Victoria, has passed a motion supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign in support of Palestinian rights and opposing the police attacks on BDS protests at Max Brenner in Melbourne.

In one of the most severe crackdowns on civil liberties in decades, four pro-Palestine activists were arrested in dawn raids on 9 August in Melbourne.

The raids are part of an ongoing attempt by the Victorian government, the Victoria Police and the Zionist establishment to target activists involved in the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.