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The Middle East's Real Apartheid

(Jerusalem Post) Efraim Karsh - Israel actually is the only apartheid-free state in the Middle East - a state whose Arab population enjoys full equality before the law and more prerogatives than most ethnic minorities in the free world, from the designation of Arabic as an official language to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal days of rest. By contrast, the Middle East's Arab and Muslim nations have continued to legally, politically and socially enforce discriminatory apartheid against their hapless minorities for over a millennium. Arab/Muslim apartheid includes religious intolerance, ethnic inequality, racism, gender discrimination, denial of citizenship, labor inequality, slavery, and political oppression. It is time to denounce these discriminatory practices and force Arab/Muslim regimes to abide by universally accepted principles of decency and accountability. Only when Arab and Muslim societies treat the "other" as equal will the Middle East, and the rest of the Islamic world, be able to transcend its malaise and look forward to a real political and social spring. The writer is research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, and director of the Middle East Forum (Philadelphia).
2012-03-09 00:00:00
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