Pasko

That's right you read it right, treat Israel like South Africa.

For years, leftists and Arabs, and all kind of anti-Semites compared Israel to South Africa. Lately they've even begun urging investors to divest from Israel as was done against South Africa. Many Jews shrug off the comparison, or hide from it. And most decent people of all persuasions argue, "No it's not true, Israel is a democracy, and South Africa had apartheid."

But it dawned on me tonight that the comparison makes some sense. Not between Israel, the embattled victim of morally degenerate suicide bombings, and the once racially segregated South Africa. Not between Israel, the victor in a defensive war that pitted several enemies against it, and a cruel divisive South African regime that pitted one group against another for racial supremacy.

I want to compare Israel — the country that, since 1948, has wanted to live peacefully with its neighbors, that has won all the wars that were forced upon it and still made agreements to return territory captured in return for promises written on paper — and the new, racially diverse South Africa of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the current president, Thabo Mbeki.

You see Mandela — winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize — and Tutu — winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize — called for reconciliation between groups in South Africa. After Mandela's release from 28 years of imprisonment in 1990, the first thing he didn't do was call for killing whites. Elected president in the first multiracial election in South Africa in 1994, Mandela also knew how to step down after five years in office, unlike Yasser Arafat — the infamous Nobel Peace Prize winner — who recently appointed puppet Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Tutu has set up the Desmond Tutu Peace Center, as opposed to what one envisions Arafat doing upon retirement — opening "The Yasser School of Safe Explosives Use," maybe?

Here's the issue: Current plans put forward by the Quartet — the United States, the European Union, United Nations and Russia — the so-called "road map" to Middle East peace, envision the first case of "ethnic cleansing" of the 21st century, this time internationally legitimated. I understand that if most countries would have favored the Nazi attempt to commit genocide against the Jews, or most of the world supported South Africa, that would have made them acceptable. You don't agree? So why is it OK to close Jewish "settlements," uproot several hundred thousand Jews from the West Bank and Gaza, in the name of "peace," when the world is being promised an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a democratic Palestinian State? Forget apartheid, they're planning a racially and ethnically pure Arab state — free of Jews!

"Palestine" won't be an apartheid state, but a Nazi state, not racially supremacist, but racially pure. And that's a far cry from the vision being presented to us by all those nice people who say, "We have to solve the Palestinian problem" or "The solution is two states living side by side in peace." The Palestinian Authority till now has done little — some say nothing — to stop the Oslo terror war for close to three years. Plentiful evidence indicates the Palestinian Authority actually helped carry it out. The expressed purpose of the terror groups is to drive Jews out of their homes. But Jews have a longer history — almost 4,000 years — with these ancient holy places — Hebron, Shechem, Bethlehem, Shilo, Tekoa, Elon More — than the Arabs do. Why should the Jews have to leave? If Arabs can be equal citizens in Israel, electable to the Knesset, why can't Jews be equal citizens?

The comparison between Israel and the old South Africa doesn't fly, but the comparison between the state that Palestinians are trying to sell us and the old racist South Africa fits quite accurately.

So, I challenge you, Desmond. I dare you, Nelson. Stand up for those high morals everyone has attributed to the two of you. Don't just sit back and watch as thousands of Jews get "ethnically cleansed" from their ancient homeland. Remember, Desmond, the land of Israel, Canaan or Judea, that place described in your Bible? Certainly men of such high moral fiber as yourselves, and all the others like you, will call out for "understanding," "tolerance" and "peace" between Arab and Jew in a democratic Palestine. And certainly, you will all oppose expelling people from their homes, even if they are only Jews!