Worlds apart?

Sometimes you read an article or a series of articles and think, damn that was good journalism. Such was the case on Monday and Tuesday (though only got to reading that one tonight) in the Guardian with a series looking at whether or not Israel can be compared to South Africa during the apartheid era.

Chris McGreal, after reporting from Johannesburg for a decade and more recently from Jerusalem for four years, decided to pose the question to Israelis, South Africans and a few Palestinians, as well as examine the stats. What he found was that while Israel never set up a racist state in the overt way the white South Africans did, the bureaucratic result of trying to maintain Jewish dominance has had remarkably similar results.

Stepping into modern Israel, anyone who experienced the old South Africa would see few immediately visible comparisons. There are no signs segregating Jews and non-Jews. Yet, as in white South Africa then and now, there is a world of discrimination and oppression that most Israelis choose not to see.

Now there was one significant socio-economic point regarding Arab Israelis that McGreal failed to mention. Many jobs in Israel require service in the military and Arabs, with the exception of Druze, are excluded from the military. Thus, because they lack this necessary qualification, they have fewer job opportunities than Jewish Israelis.

But, this is a great series if you have the time to read it.