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Comment and Opinion

The Times of Israel: The peace process and the Apartheid smear: We need to be armed with the facts by David Walsh

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The characterisation of Israel as an apartheid regime under which Palestinians live in a sort of Bantustan and minorities within the state itself are subject to systematic discrimination is not just a distortion of reality. By creating a toxic international environment, it is a threat to the peace process itself. As Secretary Kerry prepares to present his framework agreement in the coming weeks, this smear campaign can’t be ignored.

The apartheid smear was once the preserve of the political fringe. The campaign to mainstream it is gaining ground. ‘The new face of apartheid’ was how one website described Scarlett Johansson following her deal to market the soft drink machine manufacturer SodaStream while Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has aroused controversy with his remarks on Israel being a ‘racist, apartheid regime’. On slow burn for a number of years, occasionally coming to the boil when figures such as Desmond Tutu brought it up, the Apartheid Smear is used to malign Israel as a whole or Israeli policy in the Palestinian Territories, specifically. Often it is purposefully conflated.

Read the article in full in The Times of Israel.