Amnesty UK endorses peace without Israel

It’s a tired old formula, but some just can’t let go of it: peace in the Middle East, and the world at large, requires doing away with the Jewish state. One of the most prominent proponents of this final solution of the Middle East conflict is Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has declared that “Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime (Israel) as symbol of suppression and discrimination.”

The views espoused by Ben White thus confirm the interesting analysis by Professor Shimoni who emphasized that “apartheid has become one of the world’s most potent defamatory code-words. Hence those who a-priori seek fatally to stigmatize Israel grasp it with alacrity as a weapon in the struggle to end its existence as a Jewish state. In a sense, the Israel=apartheid fallacy can serve as a litmus test for distinguishing between those who are hostile to Israel’s very existence and those who are conscientious critics of the policies and actions of Israel’s governments and public.

'Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy' is the new book by Ben White, and considers an issue neglected by the mainstream “peace process” and many commentators: the Palestinian minority in Israel.

What many in Israel call ‘the demographic problem’ White identifies as ‘the democratic problem’ which goes to the heart of the conflict: Israel's definition not as a state of its citizens, but as a Jewish state.

With a foreword by Member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi, and endorsements by the likes of Prof. Ilan Pappe and Booker Prize-shortlisted author Ahdaf Soueif, White's new book describes how a consistent emphasis on privileging one ethno-religious group over another cannot be seen as compatible with democratic values and that, unless addressed, will undermine any attempts to find a lasting peace.