1 00:00:00,440 --> 00:00:07,300 There is a widespread allegation -- really a slander -- that Israel is an apartheid state. 2 00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:10,220 That notion is simply wrong. 3 00:00:10,370 --> 00:00:12,990 It is inaccurate and it is malicious. 4 00:00:13,820 --> 00:00:17,620 And it will not help to promote peace and harmony in the Middle East. 5 00:00:18,180 --> 00:00:27,200 Its only purpose is to demonize Israel, and to isolate her in an attempt to de-legitimize Israel's existence. 6 00:00:27,870 --> 00:00:33,320 And because it is so inaccurate, it betrays the memory of those who suffered through a 7 00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:35,220 real apartheid. 8 00:00:35,580 --> 00:00:41,079 As a black South African, who was born under apartheid, in the administrative capital of 9 00:00:41,080 --> 00:00:49,400 South Africa, Pretoria, I know what apartheid is. I've experienced it. My parents experienced it. 10 00:00:49,930 --> 00:00:55,830 But having been to Israel on a number of occasions, I know that nothing is happening in that country 11 00:00:55,830 --> 00:01:02,170 -- that I have either seen or read -- that can be compared to apartheid in South Africa. 12 00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:09,080 Let's remember the major reason Nelson Mandela went to prison -- why he was involved with 13 00:01:09,090 --> 00:01:15,310 the armed struggle. He was fighting for the right to vote, for the right to choose the 14 00:01:15,310 --> 00:01:21,399 leaders who one believes in, for the right to move and travel freely, to live wherever 15 00:01:21,399 --> 00:01:29,539 one wants, to be educated, and to be admitted to the hospital or medical facility of your choice. 16 00:01:30,130 --> 00:01:35,840 All these things Mandela fought for because black people never enjoyed any of them in 17 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:41,850 their very own country. For example, when I had to see a white doctor -- a white doctor 18 00:01:41,850 --> 00:01:48,369 who was prepared to have black patients -- I would have go to a back room, a specially 19 00:01:48,369 --> 00:01:55,090 segregated room where black patients of white doctors went who could never enter through 20 00:01:55,090 --> 00:01:58,099 the same door that was used by white people. 21 00:01:58,099 --> 00:02:05,099 Now compare that to Israel. A few years ago, a black pastor friend of mine went to Israel 22 00:02:05,340 --> 00:02:12,030 where he had an accident and had to be hospitalized. When he came back to South Africa, he said 23 00:02:12,030 --> 00:02:18,500 to as many people as he could, that the people who are talking about apartheid in Israel 24 00:02:18,500 --> 00:02:20,040 are talking nonsense. 25 00:02:20,540 --> 00:02:26,560 "When I was in that hospital in Israel," he tells people, "on my right was sleeping a 26 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:33,560 Jew and on my left was a Palestinian Muslim and in between that Palestinian Muslim and 27 00:02:33,799 --> 00:02:37,349 that Jew was this black South African." 28 00:02:37,349 --> 00:02:44,349 In private, the Palestinians he was with in the hospital said to him, "This 'Israel-is-an-apartheid-state' 29 00:02:44,849 --> 00:02:51,849 thing is what politicians are saying. It is not what we are experiencing on the ground." 30 00:02:52,700 --> 00:02:57,879 We all need to recognize that those who say that what is happening in Israel is like apartheid 31 00:02:57,879 --> 00:03:03,560 South Africa are minimizing the suffering that black South Africans endured. They are 32 00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:09,489 taking the sting out of the pain that we suffered in South Africa. If South African apartheid 33 00:03:09,489 --> 00:03:15,469 was what people are seeing in Israel, there would never have been any need for an armed 34 00:03:15,469 --> 00:03:20,609 struggle. There would never have been any need for a Nelson Mandela to go to prison 35 00:03:20,609 --> 00:03:24,189 because he would have all the rights Arabs in Israel have. 36 00:03:24,189 --> 00:03:30,379 There are judges in the Israel courts who are not Jewish. In apartheid South Africa, 37 00:03:30,379 --> 00:03:37,090 you could never have had something like that. You have teachers who are not Jewish who are 38 00:03:37,090 --> 00:03:43,480 teaching Jewish children. These non-Jews in Israel have everything that we non-whites 39 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:49,099 in apartheid South Africa never shared with white South Africans. 40 00:03:49,099 --> 00:03:55,030 Most South Africans know this. They know that to call Israel an apartheid state is false; 41 00:03:55,030 --> 00:04:01,340 that what we suffered in South Africa is not being suffered by anybody in Israel. 42 00:04:01,340 --> 00:04:09,280 But to those South Africans who believe these falsehoods about Israel we say, "Go to Israel, 43 00:04:09,639 --> 00:04:16,239 go and see for yourself. Tell us where you see Palestinians having to endure what we 44 00:04:16,239 --> 00:04:19,220 endured during Apartheid." 45 00:04:19,220 --> 00:04:25,010 As a member of the South African parliament, and in the name of millions of my fellow black 46 00:04:25,010 --> 00:04:30,910 citizens of that country -- we know what apartheid really was -- 47 00:04:31,480 --> 00:04:39,140 and I therefore ask those in the United States, Europe and anywhere else in the world who charge Israel with 48 00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:43,380 practicing apartheid to please stop doing so. 49 00:04:43,620 --> 00:04:49,000 You are damaging the truth, you are damaging any chance for peace in the Middle East, 50 00:04:49,060 --> 00:04:54,840 and most of all, you are destroying the memory of the real apartheid. 51 00:04:54,840 --> 00:05:00,870 The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a lie about the real Israel and it is a 52 00:05:00,870 --> 00:05:04,060 lie about the real apartheid. 53 00:05:04,060 --> 00:05:09,800 I am Kenneth Meshoe, member of the South African parliament for Prager University.