Pretty weak of The Independent to recycle a 2013 commentary by Matt Hill on whether Israel’s an apartheid state. An editor’s note at the bottom of the commentary acknowledges this, without explaining why. I’ll get to my theory in a moment.
It’s Israel Apartheid Week in the UK, and Hill’s dusted-off argument is that the apartheid libel is true, but only in the West Bank. The A-word, he acknowledges, doesn’t apply to Israel’s treatment of its own Arab citizens.
How kind.
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Of course, if there were no Palestinian terror, unpleasant security measures wouldn’t be necessary, and if the Palestinian leadership would negotiate in good-faith, they might actually get a state.
If Hill expects a unilateral end of the “apartheid regime,” we could theoretically offer Israeli citizenship to the West Bank Palestinians, but that would amount to annexation, which is another dirty A-word.
So why did The Independent recycle this op-ed?
My guess is that the editors felt a need to balance out a nastier Israel “Apartheid” screed by Ben White, but couldn’t or wouldn’t find someone willing to write a fresh commentary.
Real balance, real dialogue, and real debate would’ve meant a fresh commentary that doesn’t try to split the differences and have it both ways. There’s no “apartheid” in the West Bank.
Transparency, please.
If editorial balance wasn’t the reason for rehashing Hill, what were the editors thinking?
