It’s the 3rd Annual Israeli Apartheid Week, folks (hat tip: Jewlicious). And it looks like the idiocy is spreading.
Canada’s Press Release РFor Immediate Release –FOUR CANADIAN CITIES HOLD EVENTS AS ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK GOES GLOBAL(TORONTO, February 9, 2007) The 3rd Annual Israeli Apartheid Week, hosted in Toronto by the Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), will take place from February 12th-17th 2007. Although the week started as a Toronto event in 2005, this year it will also be taking place in Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Oxford, Cambridge, and New York City.The aim of Israeli Apartheid Week is to raise awareness about Israel as an apartheid state and how apartheid affects the different aspects of Palestinian life.
And here’s the punchline:
According to the keynote speaker of the week, Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) Dr. Jamal Zahalka, “Israel is implementing apartheid policies in Palestine by building the apartheid separation wall, bypass roads for Jews only in the West Bank, restrictions on movement of Palestinians, hundreds of checkpoints, in addition to the siege and daily violation of basic human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.” He adds, “Even Palestinian citizens of Israel are in fact second degree citizens that suffer systematic discrimination in all aspects of their lives.”
You can’t make stuff like this up.
And in case you are wondering how on Earth they could invite a keynote speaker whose job title alone undermines the claims of apartheid, the answer is that this is not really about apartheid. It’s about fighting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Israeli Apartheid Week will culminate in a Day of Action calling for the Boycott of Chapters and Indigo Bookstores as part of the growing international movement of Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli Apartheid. “This movement is a direct response to the July 2005 Palestinian civil society call for an international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign” states Nadia Daar, spokesperson for SAIA. “These non-violent measures should be taken until Israel grants full equality to Palestinian citizens of Israel, ends the occupation and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza, and implements the right of return and compensation for Palestinian refugees who have been expelled from their homes and lands since 1947.”
It’s also possible that these people did not quite think things through.
