CAIRO: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared that if a Palestinian state is not created soon it will cause a “South African-style apartheid struggle that would spell the end of the State of Israel and its Jewish identity.
Speaking to Haaretz newspaper on Wednesday after the Annapolis peace conference had wrapped up, Olmert said, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights . then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.
“The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us, Olmert added, “because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.
Although this is not the first time Olmert had made such comments, it is the first time he publicly declares them in his capacity as Prime Minister, although it was reported that he had made a similar argument in a closed meeting recently.
The comments are particularly disconcerting for Israelis who reject the notion that their political system holds similarities to the racially prejudiced former South African one.
Israel is considered by the West to be the sole democracy in the region, but many human rights groups have for years spoken out against the unfair treatment meted out to its non-Jewish residents.
This is the first political acknowledgement of the disparity between the Jewish population and others, who by law do not possess the same rights, including voting rights.
Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens do have voting rights, but the 4 million people living in Gaza and the West Bank do not have this right. If they are brought into the fold then Arabs will constitute more than half the Israeli population, which is something that threatens the inherent “Jewishness of the country’s self-professed identity.
Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had reached an agreement in Annapolis to resume negotiations leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2008.
Speaking to Haaretz about Abbas, Olmert said, “We now have a partner.
He is a weak partner, who is not capable, and as [Quartet Envoy for Middle East Peace] Tony Blair says, has yet to formulate the tools and may not manage to do so. But it is my job to do everything so that he receives the tools, and to reach an understanding on the guidelines for an agreement. Annapolis is not a historic turning point, but it is a point that can be of assistance.
