Hillel has launched a campaign across campuses in Montreal called “BeLIEve,” most likely with the hopes of trying to salvage world opinion of Israel following the recent war in Gaza.

The campaign consists of a series of postcards with different “lies” and “facts” about Israel and I had a chance to pick up these postcards from a Hillel table on the mezzanine at Concordia the other day.

One of the “BeLIEve” postcards that struck me in particular had the headline, “Lie: Israel is an apartheid state.” I am glad that Hillel is distributing these postcards, and in that sense, finally engaging in a public debate around Israeli apartheid.

Hillel’s postcard contends, “the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be explained by slogans.” I completely agree. However, a deeper look into the policies and laws of Israel will reveal that apartheid—a term used to describe the situation in Israel by South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter—is not merely a slogan, but rather an apt paradigm to apply to the situation.

Hillel’s first “fact” is that “Israel extends equal rights to all its citizens.” This statement is, unfortunately, categorically false. If apartheid is a legalized and institutionalized system of discrimination and segregation based on race or ethnicity, then Israel, like South Africa, fits the bill.

While Palestinian/Arab citizens of Israel are allowed to vote in national elections, there are no less than 20 Israeli laws that discriminate against non-Jewish citizens. These laws govern—among other aspects of Palestinian daily life—the prohibition of Palestinians living in Israel from living with their spouses who come from the Occupied Territories, the prevention of non-Jewish land ownership on 93 per cent of Israel’s territory and the denial of the right of Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 to return to their homes and properties.

Hillel’s postcard decries the comparison to South Africa, stating, “unlike South Africa, Israel’s actions are based on security rather than race.” This bizarre point raises serious questions about Hillel’s position on the issue.

First, the justifications of security that Israel invokes to defend its military policies have no intellectual or political ground to stand on. Years of research and human rights work have unmasked and invalidated these justifications as a rationale for Israeli actions against Palestinians. This has been evidenced from the country’s security wall which annexes some of the most valuable lands in the West Bank, to the series of checkpoints in the Occupied Territories which severely restrict Palestinian freedom of movement, to its unilateral disengagement from Gaza in order to fortify its illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Secondly, Hillel tacitly admits that Israel employs policies that could be defined as apartheid by arguing that it is the justifications for its policies, rather than the policies themselves, that are incongruous with the label “apartheid.” In this case, it’s apartheid in application, not intention that we should be concerned with. Even some of the main architects of apartheid in South Africa invoked justifications of security, going so far as to describe apartheid as “a policy of good neighbourliness.”

Finally, Hillel claims that the apartheid paradigm can more aptly be applied to the situation of women in Saudi Arabia or the treatment of Kurds in Syria and Iraq. Certainly the oppressive policies in other Arab dictatorships are indefensible. However, making these comparisons to other countries doesn’t get Israel off the hook.

People in Canada should be concerned with Israeli apartheid because our own government has a cozy relationship with theirs, and hence we all share some degree of responsibility and investment in such a brutal regime. If we are going to make comparisons, then we need look no further than Canada and the apartheid-like conditions facing indigenous people in our country.

The lack of clean drinking water on reserves, the consistent denial of land rights, denial of basic human dignity looks a lot like many of the unrecognized Palestinian villages in the Negev desert or northern Israel.

From March 1st to 9th Israeli Apartheid Week will be taking place at Concordia, as well as dozens of other campuses around the world. During that week, students will be able to make up their own minds about Israeli apartheid. Until then, Hillel’s campaign doesn’t offer us any clarity, or for that matter, any real truths around Israel and apartheid.

We can make “believe”, but it won’t make Israel any less of an apartheid state.

The charge of “apartheid” against Israel is easily countered by this simple fact: Israel offers equal rights to all of its citizens regardless of race, gender, or religion.

Arab-Israelis have the same rights of suffrage and access to the courts as Jews. Minorities in Israel can run for public office, and Hebrew and Arabic are Israel’s official languages.

Arabs living within Israel make up 18 to 20 per cent of Israel’s population. Israeli Arabs do face some discrimination within Israeli society, but they are much better off economically than neighbouring Arabs and unlike minorities in other Middle Eastern countries are free to worship, congregate, and live as they please. In some sectors, Israel even employs a policy of affirmative action.

Can Israel do better? Yes. Is it fair to call it apartheid? No.

What was once a fringe trend has rapidly become a staple of anti-Israel propaganda over the last decade. Since the infamous Durban conference in South Africa, many opponents of Zionism have attempted to portray Israel as an “apartheid” state.

Ironically, in a poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2007, 28 per cent of South Africans sided with Israel, with only 19 per cent siding with the Palestinians. It is telling that those who actually suffered from true apartheid have mostly rejected the analogy.

Freedom House evaluates nations around the world based on their devotion to principles of freedom and democracy. On a scale of one to seven, with one being an open democracy and seven a repressive dictatorship, Israel averaged a one. Most of its Arab neighbors averaged a seven.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has fair elections; strict laws against hate crimes; strict laws against honour killings; freedom of religion; a free and critical media; a devotion to the environment and sustainability; free entry of foreign arts, books, and media; academic freedom; and equal rights for women and homosexuals.

It is a stunning paradox that Israel is also the only country in the Middle East with an annual week dedicated to criticizing itself.

As is the case with every other nation on Earth, some Israeli policies warrant criticism. Still, you don’t have to agree with Israeli policy in Gaza and the West Bank to see that it is dictated by security, not race.

Unlike South Africa, Israel is a tiny country that has been forced into a perpetual state of self-defence since its founding. Those who demand an end to the occupation of the West Bank do so without regard for historical precedent. In 2005, Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza, removing 21 settlements and ending its military presence.

Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was a good first step in establishing Palestinian autonomy in Gaza, taken in goodwill by Israel with an eye towards establishing a long-term peace accord. Hamas’ response was to indiscriminately rain crude rockets into the neighboring Israeli town of Sderot on a near constant basis.

The security barrier surrounding the West Bank provides another good case study. Israel’s security fence is often characterized as an “apartheid wall” and is offered as proof of Israel’s unjust policies. Once again, these accusations ignore the facts on the ground. The fence, only 5 per cent of which is a physical wall, was erected as a last resort to stop Palestinian suicide bombers from blowing themselves up inside Israeli nightclubs and buses. With over 1,000 Israeli civilians killed since 2000, the Israeli government built a barrier to keep martyrdom-seeking terrorists out of Israel. Since the barrier was constructed, terror attacks originating from the West Bank have plummeted.

Consider for a moment that Israel is the only state in the world whose existence is the subject of open threats by a trifecta of governmental, terrorist and religious groups.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called the Jewish state “a cancerous tumour to be excised.” Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaida, and Islamic Jihad refuse to recognize Israel while actively and openly committing acts of terror against its civilian population.

In radical Mosques throughout the Middle East, Europe, and North America, the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews are preached as a religious obligation. Faced with such existential threats, Israel has continued to maintain a level of freedom, openness, and democracy that is unparalleled in the Middle East.

I challenge any critic of Israeli society to imagine what would happen to the civil liberties we take for granted here in Canada if we had but one terrorist attack take place on our soil. That Israel remains a liberal democracy speaks to its dedication to the ideals of freedom and liberty.