Anatomy of an Apartheid State

Israel held its parliamentary elections this week. And like in every election since the country’s founding, no political party managed to achieve a majority of Knesset seats to govern the nation. That’s because Israel has 11 political parties! In some elections they have had even more. There is considerable fragmentation. It takes 61 parliamentary seats to obtain a majority. (The Knesset has 120 seats.)

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party received the most votes but only managed to collect 26 seats. Once again, Israel’s prime minister, whomever that should be, must assemble a coalition of other parties to form a government. Otherwise Israel’s president will be forced to call for new elections—even though voter turnout was an astounding 77.7% of the nation.

Israel is a vibrant but chaotic liberal democracy. The sheer number of viable political parties with drastically conflicting priorities is the best evidence of it. Some receive tens of thousands of votes, but in a proportional representation system, still fail to garner even a single seat. Two separate pro-cannabis parties (one the “Green Leaf”) suffered that result in past elections.

Take a guess: Are there pot-smoking parties in Arab-Muslim nations? Most permit a man to take a child bride without any political opposition. Saudi Arabia officially allows beheadings. Is there an opposition party in the Kingdom demanding un-severed heads?

But here’s the thing — Israel’s customary gridlock in cobbling together coalition governments may face a situation unlike any other democracy: cabinet members, privy to national security intelligence, who are opposed to the existence of the Jewish state. Worse still, they refuse to denounce terrorism or even call Hamas terrorists.

Israel’s customary gridlock in cobbling together coalition governments may face a situation unlike any other democracy: cabinet members, privy to national security intelligence, who are opposed to the existence of the Jewish state. Worse still, they refuse to denounce terrorism or even call Hamas terrorists.

Netanyahu’s former coalition partners—mostly religious parties—fell very short in this past election. Four other Zionist opposition parties together received 48 seats, but they have refused to serve in a Netanyahu-led government. But two Arab non-Zionist parties together claimed 19 seats—a truly stunning showing! (Netanyahu is accusing them of fraud and bribery, with Qatari money possibly boosting voter turnout.)

If the Zionist opposition parties join up with anti-Zionist, terror-neutral Arabs, they would have 67 seats, and a government could be formed.

But what kind of a coalition would that look like? The leader of one of those opposition parties, Avigdor Liberman, said on Friday: “We will not sit with supporters of terrorism!” (Several of the candidates in one of the Arab parties openly celebrated October 7, 2023.) But he said that he will not join a Netanyahu government, either.

Yet, one Arab political leader (an Islamist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood), joined an Israeli coalition government in 2021. So, there is precedent for such a mixed-marriage of politicians who might as well engage in mixed-martial arts.

But 2021 was not 2026, with Israelis reeling from the post-October 7 realization of just how far Palestinians are willing to go to kill Jews. Hamas remains in Gaza, fully weaponized. Hezbollah is mobilizing missiles in Lebanon. The Houthis are already lofting them from Yemen. And a formidable IRGC still prowls Iran.

Can Israel afford to have a Muslim politician who is agnostic about terror serve in the cabinet and attend security briefings?

Who knows how this will all work out? But I do know one thing: A society so open and committed to its democratic character that it permits Arabs and Islamists who wish harm to come to the Jewish state to sit in parliament, and are asked to join the governing coalition, is not an apartheid state.

Imagine if America’s Secretary of the Interior was sympathetic to what happened on 9/11.

Jew-haters like Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and, of course, Bernie Sanders—and any number of other self-loathing Jews of political influence—repeatedly slander Israel as an apartheid state knowing full well the absurdity of such a charge.

Apartheid, as it was practiced in South Africa, is defined as institutionalized racial segregation that literally results in “apartness” or “separation.”

But Muslims and Arabs, who constitute 20% of Israel’s population, are fully integrated into Israel’s civil society. There are no legal restrictions or separations of any kind. Jews and Arabs ride the same public transports, eat in the same restaurants, and as we can see from this recent electoral predicament, vote in the same elections and serve in the same parliament.

Not to mention serve in the IDF and occupy seats on the Supreme Court. Moreover, Islam is not a race but a religion, so apartheid could never have applied. But just in case, Israel recently crowned a Black Israeli from Ethiopia as Miss Israel.

What an insult to Black South Africans to compare their Soweto degradation to the Shangri-la that is Israel for Muslims.

But a more important point must be made here, something we have seen in global cities such as London, Rotterdam and New York, and in smaller locales such as Dearborn, Michigan and Hamtramck, Michigan, and all throughout Minnesota: Muslims vote, in large numbers, and in a bloc.

They might not be enamored with Western values, but they surely know how to participate in representative democracy. Reckless immigration policies throughout the West have resulted in electoral armies of Muslims doing battle, fabulously, at the ballot box.

Nineteen seat-holders out of 120 in the Knesset would end parliament in a heartbeat and hand the keys to Israel’s Jewish kingdom over to Hamas. They have been given the civil rights to make such an outcome real. Foolishly deluded nations have done so all throughout the Western world: allowed their constitutional freedoms to be manipulated by an Islamic global agenda.

It starts small, mostly in local governments. It might even seem innocuous or churlish to deny calls to prayer in public spaces, No-Go Zones, Sharia courts, and agitators exercising their First Amendment rights to scream: “Globalize the Intifada!” and “Death to America!”

But these are not small concessions. They are very different in kind and character than past First Amendment challenges: Christian prayers in public schools and protest signs that read, “F— the Draft!” Devout Christians and draft-dodgers were never paving the way toward a new American theocracy on the level of an Islamic caliphate.

What we are seeing around the West is the leveraging of democracy in ways that endanger the broader freedoms that would otherwise be enjoyed by all, and the granting of rights that exceed what liberalism had ever envisioned.

What we are seeing around the West is the leveraging of democracy in ways that endanger the broader freedoms that would otherwise be enjoyed by all, and the granting of rights that exceed what liberalism had ever envisioned.

Thomas Jefferson sent a fledgling American Navy to do battle against Barbary pirates. European nations fought off invading Muslim armies for nearly 1,000 years.

Meanwhile, duly elected lawmakers like Omar in Minnesota and Tlaib in Michigan (and the aspiring El-Sayed) slander the Jewish state with lies about “apartheid” and “genocide,” blame Jews for the world’s problems, preach anti-American propaganda, all without having to swing a sword or fire a shot.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is a contributing writer for White Rose magazine. His most recent book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”