A commenter is requesting that we answer Mearsheimer’s apartheid charges directly.
Feel free.
The Catmage Chronicles
Andy thought he was going crazy when a talking cat showed up at his front door. He couldn’t have been more wrong.Goldeneyes is a Catmage – a cat with human intelligence and magical abilities. Andy is an eighth grader who is smart, impulsive, and trying to avoid the school bully at all costs. A prophecy threw them together. There’s just one problem: Goldeneyes can’t stand humans.The Catmage world is heading toward war. Goldeneyes and Andy must try to stop the enemy from getting stronger. And they must save a powerful Catmage who’s been kidnapped. For Goldeneyes, it’s personal. That Catmage is her grandmother.Andy and Goldeneyes must try to put aside their differences. If they can’t, the enemy will soon be too powerful to defeat…
There is no point. Mearsheimer already discredited himself with his anti-Semitic and refuted “The Israel Lobby” screed. Moreover, I didn’t see any actual evidence in the speech that Israel is an apartheid state. It was all just Mearsheimer’s personal opinions and predictions. The few facts that were in the the speech were out of context.
If the commenter can provide any evidence to support the claim that Israel is an apartheid state, then the charge can be addressed. (It would also be interesting how the commenter feels about Saudi Arabia and Jordan regarding the charge of apartheid. If he merely singles out Israel for criticism, that in itself is telling.)
If “he” doesn’t see the language of Mearsheimer as nasty and Jew baiting, then there is no reason to even try.
I gave it a go, but as aunursa and gliker commented, above, he’s arguing in bad faith and therefore not worth the effort. Anyone who considers terrorism “resistance” and the Palestinians’ “right” is beyond hope.
Laura
It finally occurred to me why he’s stuck on the term “apartheid.” He thinks it means any case of “a smaller group having political control over a larger group.” Thus, while Israel is in control of the territories, if there are more people living in the territories than there are citizens of Israel, Israel is (by his definition) an apartheid state. Because this is his definition, it doesn’t matter that the Palestinians are not and never have been citizens of Israel. It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians have their own leadership and their own elections. It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians are at war with Israel. And in fact, he explicitly states that it doesn’t even matter that the Palestinians *could* have their own state right now if they wanted, because it’s their right to reject any offer made to them. So – in his mind, as long as Israel controls the territories and doesn’t let the Palestinians become full citizens, that’s apartheid. Q.E.D.
In other words – he’s a crank.
“It finally occurred to me why he’s stuck on the term “apartheid.†”
He, and Mearshimer and the rest are “stuck” on the term apartheid because they are deliberately trying to demonize Israel and place all the blame for the failure to resolve this conflict on Israel despite the fact that the fault for its perpetuation lies OVERWHELMINGLY with the Arabs. It has nothing to do with misunderstanding the term, rather it is a sophistic and dishonest debating tactic. In other words, it’s exactly what you expect from antisemites.
Don’t feed the trolls
Another reason “apartheid” is wrong (not that any facts or logic will stop the Jew-baiters) is that there are a million or more Arab citizens of Israel, ethnically indistinguishable from the Palestinians, who can vote.