TO THE EDITOR:
UNC Students for Justice in Palestine hosted Israeli Apartheid Week with the intent of examining the situation in Palestine from a viewpoint that more accurately depicts the ongoing Palestinian struggle.
Our events have attracted a diverse audience, including the three guest columnists on Tuesday speaking out against our use of “apartheid.”
We have created an open forum where everyone is welcome to contribute, and the issue has never seen so much attention on campus.
Our use of the term apartheid stems from the realities in Israel/Palestine, where Jewish-only roads and settlements strangle the villages of the West Bank, where the native population is tyrannized through an aggressive military occupation, where buses are segregated by the color of one’s ID card, where native Palestinians are classified as “present absentee” and given fewer rights than Jewish citizens just as in South Africa.
The comparison is not new; Hendrik Verwoerd, former South African prime minister, said in 1961: “The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”
Israel is an apartheid state just as South Africa was for many decades. Shaking one’s head in denial of this simple fact does not change reality, but accepting it and using this premise as a starting point for conversation has proven to be fruitful on campus.
Samer Hjouj ’13
President
Students for Justice in Palestine
