WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Nearly two-thirds of American scholars and academics whose work focuses on the Middle East think that the current reality in occupied Palestinian society is akin to apartheid, a recent survey by the Middle East Scholar Barometer (MESB) has revealed.
The project is a joint initiative of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll and the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University.
The survey is said to be the only one of its kind. Among the academics polled were members of the American Political Science Association’s Middle East and North Africa Politics Section and the Middle East Studies Association. As many as 1,290 academics were identified to take part.
Asked to choose which of the following comes closest to describing the current reality in the occupied territories, the West Bank and Gaza, 65 percent of the scholars elected to describe the situation as a ‘one-state’ reality akin to apartheid. Just one percent said that it was a temporary occupation.
A separate question asked the scholars to describe the situation as they think it might be in ten years’ time if a two-state solution is not implemented. Eighty percent said that the reality would be akin to apartheid. The survey offered no explanation for why 15 percent of those polled think that the Zionist regime isn’t practicing apartheid now but believe that it would become an apartheid state in ten years.
Prominent human rights groups Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem have concluded that the Zionist regime meets the threshold for being designated as a regime that practices apartheid and crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile, the grandson of South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and philanthropist Nelson Mandela has joined a growing chorus of opposition to a recent decision by the African Union Commission to grant “apartheid Israel” observer status at the continental body, slamming the movie as “fatally flawed”.
“We cannot normalize relations with apartheid Israel while it continuously rides roughshod over the human rights of the Palestinians, incarcerates, tortures and maims innocent civilians, acts with impunity and violates international law as if it is a law unto itself,” Zwelivelile Mandela, who is a parliament member for the ruling African National Congress, said in a statement.
He said the decision was “fatally flawed” as AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat “acted unilaterally and without consulting member states or executive members of the African Union.”
Mandela urged the South African government to cut all diplomatic ties with the Zionist regime and expel its ambassador, stressing that “apartheid Israel” has repeatedly refused to be part of a “genuine peace process.”