Hebrew University professor: Calling Israel apartheid is 'describing reality'

Calling Israel an apartheid regime has nothing to do with anti-Semitism but is the description of what is happening in reality, according to an Israeli university professor.

Amos Goldberg, a leading professor of the Holocaust at Hebrew University in the occupied al-Quds, made the comment in response to an earlier statement by Germany’s anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein, who said applying the framework of apartheid to discuss Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “an anti-Semitic narrative.”

In an interview with the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Goldberg rejected Klein’s remarks and said, “Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic—it’s describing reality.”

In a veiled reference to Klein, Goldberg added, “All decent people must decide which side of history they want to be on.”

The Israeli university professor also warned against the conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, describing the issue as a “disturbing” phenomenon as he argued that some of the harshest opponents of Zionism were Jews.

“These identifications are serious because they are derived from alleged lessons of the Holocaust,” he added. “And so it appears that any substantial criticism of Israel and Zionism is perceived in public opinion, and especially among national and international political and cultural institutions, as an ideological continuation of the Holocaust.”

“From the moment Zionism appeared on the stage of history at the end of the 19th century, opposition to it was born within the Jewish world.”

Read more:

• Israeli occupation of Palestine amounts to apartheid: Academics

In an open letter earlier in the month, hundreds of academics and public figures from across occupied Palestine and other nations equated the Israeli regime’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories with apartheid.

The signatories complained that the Palestinian people “lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.”

The Israeli oppression of Palestinians has witnessed a sharp rise under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition cabinet, which is composed of far-right Zionist parties that oppose Palestinian statehood and support the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied lands.

Over the past months, the usurping regime has intensified attacks against Palestinian towns. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested.

According to the United Nations, 2023 is already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since it began recording fatalities in 2005. The previous year, 2022, had been the most lethal year with 150 Palestinians killed, of whom 33 were minors, as reported by the United Nations.

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