1 00:00:02,060 --> 00:00:06,740 Maybe you’ve heard someone say that Israel is an apartheid state. 2 00:00:06,740 --> 00:00:11,520 That Israel has a policy of segregating and oppressing the minority population within 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:14,880 its borders – like South Africa once did. 4 00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:21,000 Maybe you’ve been so outraged by this information that you have considered joining the BDS movement -- 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:28,900 the effort to boycott, divest and sanction Israel until it ends its alleged “racist” policies. 6 00:00:28,900 --> 00:00:30,280 I don’t blame you. 7 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:36,380 Apartheid is a great evil and deserves to be fought wherever we find it. 8 00:00:36,380 --> 00:00:41,300 But here’s the thing: You won’t find apartheid in the State of Israel. 9 00:00:41,300 --> 00:00:50,300 So, I’ll put it bluntly: The BDS movement is a slick propaganda effort built on lies. 10 00:00:50,300 --> 00:00:53,700 I think I have the credibility to make this claim. 11 00:00:53,700 --> 00:00:59,360 Having grown up in South Africa, and having spent a fair amount of time in Israel, 12 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:04,420 I know what apartheid is and what it is not. 13 00:01:04,420 --> 00:01:10,479 My parents were raised under real apartheid where blacks were, by law, separated from 14 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:16,040 whites at every level, from education to drinking fountains. 15 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:22,420 Blacks couldn’t vote, couldn’t own land, couldn’t live next to, or use the same transportation 16 00:01:22,420 --> 00:01:24,920 system as whites. 17 00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:30,280 I remember my father telling me about how my grandfather was kicked and humiliated in 18 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:33,700 public by a young white boy. 19 00:01:33,700 --> 00:01:39,220 All he was permitted to say was, “Please stop, little boss.” 20 00:01:39,220 --> 00:01:42,280 That was the world my family lived in. 21 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:46,420 That was the world of apartheid South Africa. 22 00:01:46,420 --> 00:01:49,760 But in Israel, the law is color-blind. 23 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:53,460 Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. 24 00:01:53,460 --> 00:01:59,680 They ride the same buses, study in the same schools, and are treated in the same hospitals. 25 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:06,860 Arabs are elected to Israel’s parliament, serve as judges, and fight in the Israeli military. 26 00:02:06,860 --> 00:02:13,980 On my first trip to Israel, the group I was with had a Jewish tour guide and an Arab bus driver. 27 00:02:13,980 --> 00:02:18,620 Imagine our surprise, having heard that Israel is an apartheid state. 28 00:02:18,620 --> 00:02:23,420 This would have been inconceivable in apartheid South Africa. 29 00:02:23,420 --> 00:02:28,900 All these things would be self-evident to anyone who did any kind of actual research, 30 00:02:28,900 --> 00:02:35,260 or, even better, visited Israel -- something I encourage everyone to do. 31 00:02:35,260 --> 00:02:38,820 BDS doesn’t want you to do research or visit Israel. 32 00:02:38,820 --> 00:02:42,040 It depends on the ignorance of its audience. 33 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:48,040 Sadly, on American college campuses, BDS has a significant presence. 34 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:54,460 It succeeds by playing on the good intentions of good people through deliberate deception. 35 00:02:54,460 --> 00:02:57,380 In short, they lie. 36 00:02:57,380 --> 00:03:01,600 And lies really make me angry because lies empower evil. 37 00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:05,240 Lies about blacks empowered apartheid in South Africa. 38 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:09,020 Lies about Jews made the Holocaust possible. 39 00:03:09,020 --> 00:03:14,140 And lies about Israel are misleading a lot of good-hearted young people into opposing 40 00:03:14,140 --> 00:03:19,409 the only country in the entire Middle East that doesn’t segregate and oppress its minority 41 00:03:19,409 --> 00:03:20,890 population. 42 00:03:20,890 --> 00:03:26,700 Just ask the next Egyptian Copt or Iraqi Christian you meet on campus. 43 00:03:26,700 --> 00:03:33,400 So, the question people should really be asking is: What does the BDS movement want? 44 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:35,360 The answer is simple. 45 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:37,980 They want to destroy Israel. 46 00:03:37,980 --> 00:03:43,280 They can’t do it militarily, so they try to do it through lies. 47 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:46,420 They say that Jews have no historic claim to Israel. 48 00:03:46,420 --> 00:03:47,840 Lie. 49 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:51,600 They say that Israel treats its Arabs as second-class citizens. 50 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:52,960 Lie. 51 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:56,880 They say that Israel doesn’t want peace with its Arab neighbors. 52 00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:58,580 Lie. 53 00:03:58,580 --> 00:04:03,000 If you tell lies, and you tell them often enough, people who don’t know the truth 54 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,060 start to believe them. 55 00:04:05,060 --> 00:04:09,700 The BDS movement’s leaders barely try to hide this charade. 56 00:04:09,700 --> 00:04:15,560 They will lie and say that they only want a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel, 57 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:22,040 and then they say this: “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine…. 58 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:26,460 Ending the occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean upending 59 00:04:26,460 --> 00:04:29,340 the Jewish state itself.” 60 00:04:29,340 --> 00:04:34,340 That’s from Omar Barghouti, a founder of BDS. 61 00:04:34,340 --> 00:04:40,640 Barghouti lives in Israel, so you might expect that he said this from inside an Israeli prison, 62 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:44,380 like Nelson Mandela during South African apartheid. 63 00:04:44,380 --> 00:04:46,400 You would be wrong. 64 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:53,260 Barghouti is a PhD student at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, where he enjoys the same 65 00:04:53,260 --> 00:04:56,500 rights as every Israeli. 66 00:04:56,500 --> 00:05:00,980 My parents could only dream of that kind of freedom. 67 00:05:00,980 --> 00:05:03,220 Is Israel a perfect country? 68 00:05:03,220 --> 00:05:04,640 No. 69 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:09,100 There are as many perfect countries as there are perfect people. 70 00:05:09,100 --> 00:05:14,310 But to call it an apartheid state is not only an insult to the only democracy in the Middle 71 00:05:14,310 --> 00:05:20,950 East and the only country with equal rights for all its minorities, it’s also an insult 72 00:05:20,950 --> 00:05:27,860 to the actual victims of apartheid -- like my parents and all those who suffered under it. 73 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:31,840 I’m Olga Meshoe for Prager University.