As certain myths arise repeatedly, I will post a thread that notes some of the more common myths and then debunks them. Hopefully, as reasonable people compare the myths with the evidence, they will recognize such myths and avoid disseminating or repeating them.

Periodically, as needed, I will add to this thread.

Myth: Israel engages in Apartheid:
Israel does not engage in Apartheid. The Library of Congress' Country Study on South Africa details South Africa’s Apartheid era laws.

The relevant section follows:

The Population Registration Act (No. 30) of 1950 provided the basis for separating the population of South Africa into different races. Under the terms of this act, all residents of South Africa were to be classified as white, coloured, or native (later called Bantu) people. Indians, whom the HNP in 1948 had refused to recognize as permanent inhabitants of South Africa, were included under the category "Asian" in 1959. The act required that people be classified primarily on the basis of their "community acceptability"; later amendments placed greater stress on "appearance" in order to deal with the practice of light-colored blacks "passing" as whites. The act also provided for the compilation of a population register for the whole country and for the issuing of identity cards.

Other laws provided for geographic, social, and political separation. The Group Areas Act (No. 41) of 1950 extended the provisions of the Natives Land Act (No. 27) of 1913, and later laws divided South Africa into separate areas for whites and blacks (including coloureds), and gave the government the power to forcibly remove people from areas not designated for their particular racial group. The Tomlinson Commission in 1954 officially concluded that the areas set aside for Africans would support no more than two-thirds of the African population even under the best of conditions, but the government ignored its recommendation that more land be allocated to the reserves and began removing Africans from white areas.

The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (No. 55) of 1949 made marriages between whites and members of other racial groups illegal. The Immorality Act (No. 21) of 1950 extended an earlier ban on sexual relations between whites and blacks (the Immorality Act [No. 5] of 1927) to a ban on sexual relations between whites and any non-whites. The Bantu Authorities Act (No. 68) of 1951 established Bantu tribal, regional, and territorial authorities in the regions set out for Africans under the Group Areas Act, and it abolished the Natives Representative Council. The Bantu authorities were to be dominated by chiefs and headmen appointed by the government. The government also sought in 1951 to remove coloured voters in the Cape from the common roll onto a separate roll and to require that they elect white representatives only (Separate Representation of Voters Act [No. 46] of 1951). The Supreme Court immediately declared the act invalid on constitutional grounds, but after a long struggle it was successfully reenacted (the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act [No. 30] of 1956).

By no reasonable criteria does Israel even begin to approach policies along those lines. Israel has never embraced any of South Africa’s Apartheid policies.

Myth: Israel has placed Palestinians into concentration camps:
According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, a concentration camp is "a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents..." Israel maintains no such camps. Prisons do not qualify as such camps, as prisons are not constructed for such purposes of detaining people solely on grounds of their ethnicity or political opposition.

Myth: Israel’s security fence is like the Berlin Wall:
The Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany in order to divide East Berlin from West Berlin. This wall was designed to keep East German citizens from crossing into West Berlin and freedom from communist rule. The Berlin Wall was a tool for oppressing East Germany’s people.

Israel’s security fence is being constructed to keep terrorists from entering Israel. The security fence is designed to save lives by reducing the exposure of Israel’s civilians to terrorist attacks.

Myth: Israel is not permitted to defend itself against terrorist attacks:
Under international law, a state’s right of self-defense is universally recognized. That right is reaffirmed in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Article 51 declares, "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations…"

Myth: Any civilian casualties resulting from military strikes/operations have the moral equivalence of those resulting from terrorist strikes:
Article 51 of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions declares, "The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." It also adds:

Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

Terrorist attacks specifically target civilians. Under Article 2 of the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bomb Attacks, a terrorist is any person who:

…unlawfully and intentionally delivers, places, discharges or detonates an explosive or other lethal device in, into or against a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system or an infrastructure facility:
a) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or
b) With the intent to cause extensive destruction of such a place, facility or system, where such destruction results in or is likely to result in major economic loss.

Palestinian suicide bombers detonate such devices in the midst of civilians.

Palestinian rocket attacks are also specifically barred as they constitute prohibited "indiscriminate attacks."

On the other hand, military operations that target military objectives are not barred even when civilian casualties result. The threshold is that expected civilian casualties must not be excessive relative to the military advantage obtained. Article 51 of Protocol I bars, "An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."

Therefore, the argument of moral equivalence is inconsistent with international law.

Myth: Israel engages in genocide or genocidal behavior:
According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Israel has never engaged in such acts, much less with the intent "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious group."

Originally Posted by donsutherland1 Myth: Israel’s security fence is like the Berlin Wall: The Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany in order to divide East Berlin from West Berlin. This wall was designed to keep East German citizens from crossing into West Berlin and freedom from communist rule. The Berlin Wall was a tool for oppressing East Germany’s people.

Originally Posted by Volker I think, the Berlin Wall was built to stabilize the economy in East Germany. It worked.

Originally Posted by donsutherland1 Here's a source on the history of the Berlin Wall: NEWSEUM: Berlin Wall Excerpts: The Great Wall of China was built to keep foreign enemies out. Walls were built around castles in the Middle Ages with a similar purpose, to protect those inside. But the Berlin Wall was the first wall of its kind. It trapped people in their own country. Communist propaganda said the wall was built to shield East Berliners from capitalist philosophies. But the Berlin Wall cut through the city's heart – separating families and friends, and preventing people from getting to their jobs.

Look up some of history's other walls at the library or on the Internet. Why were they built? If you lived in East Berlin, how would you feel about the wall getting progressively bigger and more impassable? Would you feel safer? Or would you feel more trapped?

Volker,

The Newseum was prepared with educators in mind. Here's what the Library of Congress' Country Study on East Germany says: "The regime erected the Berlin Wall in August 1961 to halt illegal emigration after 2.5 million people had escaped to the West."

In any case, the Berlin Wall was intended to keep people in East Germany. The security fence is intended to keep terrorists out of Israel.

Originally Posted by Billo_Really First off, Israel are the aggressors in the OPT. Any indigenous people anywhere in the world have the basic human right to resist occupation by a foreign force. Israel, is that foreign force in the OPT. Thirdly, that wall is worse than the Berlin Wall. At least the Berlin Wall was built in eastern Europe. Not on western land as the Israeli's have done to protect their illegal colonialization of that area.

Originally Posted by mpg Israel captured that land in a defensive war. Should they've given it back the same day? They should give it back when the war ends. The war won't end until Israel's existence (west of the Jordan River) is accepted by its enemies. You never heard of West Berlin?

Originally Posted by donsutherland1 Myth: Israel engages in Apartheid: Israel does not engage in Apartheid. The Library of Congress' Country Study on South Africa details South Africa’s Apartheid era laws. The relevant section follows: The Population Registration Act (No. 30) of 1950 provided the basis for separating the population of South Africa into different races. Under the terms of this act, all residents of South Africa were to be classified as white, coloured, or native (later called Bantu) people. Indians, whom the HNP in 1948 had refused to recognize as permanent inhabitants of South Africa, were included under the category "Asian" in 1959. The act required that people be classified primarily on the basis of their "community acceptability"; later amendments placed greater stress on "appearance" in order to deal with the practice of light-colored blacks "passing" as whites. The act also provided for the compilation of a population register for the whole country and for the issuing of identity cards. Other laws provided for geographic, social, and political separation. The Group Areas Act (No. 41) of 1950 extended the provisions of the Natives Land Act (No. 27) of 1913, and later laws divided South Africa into separate areas for whites and blacks (including coloureds), and gave the government the power to forcibly remove people from areas not designated for their particular racial group. The Tomlinson Commission in 1954 officially concluded that the areas set aside for Africans would support no more than two-thirds of the African population even under the best of conditions, but the government ignored its recommendation that more land be allocated to the reserves and began removing Africans from white areas. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (No. 55) of 1949 made marriages between whites and members of other racial groups illegal. The Immorality Act (No. 21) of 1950 extended an earlier ban on sexual relations between whites and blacks (the Immorality Act [No. 5] of 1927) to a ban on sexual relations between whites and any non-whites. The Bantu Authorities Act (No. 68) of 1951 established Bantu tribal, regional, and territorial authorities in the regions set out for Africans under the Group Areas Act, and it abolished the Natives Representative Council. The Bantu authorities were to be dominated by chiefs and headmen appointed by the government. The government also sought in 1951 to remove coloured voters in the Cape from the common roll onto a separate roll and to require that they elect white representatives only (Separate Representation of Voters Act [No. 46] of 1951). The Supreme Court immediately declared the act invalid on constitutional grounds, but after a long struggle it was successfully reenacted (the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act [No. 30] of 1956). By no reasonable criteria does Israel even begin to approach policies along those lines. Israel has never embraced any of South Africa’s Apartheid policies.

Well thats a nice attempt to debunk that accusation. However you are taking South Africas racial policies and carbon copying it onto Israel. Not exactly what most people have been complaining about. Israel discriminates against palestinians and that is the issue. When an isreali farm has access to water, but a palestinian farm is refused access.. thats discrimination bordering on aparthid "LIKE" rules. When there are jew roads only on lands mostly palestinian, then that stinks of aparthid like rules. When Israel controls where and when palestinians can go, that is aparthid like rules.

I agree, Isreal does not have any concentration camps per say. It does however have plenty of "Warsaw ghettos", where palestinians are blocked into small towns and cities by high walls and the only way out is through an Israeli checkpoints.

While the motive of the wall might be to keep terrorists out, the reality is that the wall is on palestinians lands (often confiscated or outright stolen), and several cities and towns have been all but totaly blocked in by said wall.

http://www.btselem.org/Download/Sepa...er_Map_Eng.pdf

Here you can clearly see where the wall has cut off whole palestinians towns and cities from the rest of the west bank.

No one but radical wackos have every promoted this. What people have been saying is that, Israel does not have a right to invade other countries, which is an agreesive act.

I dont think anyone has ever claimed that a terrorist attack is equivilant to an attack by the IDF (with maybe the exception of the radicals). What many have stated is that the IDF attacks are the reasons terrorists attack Israel. Also bombing civilian areas in cities can only be seen as an act of terror on the populance, regardless of who does it. If missiles coming from Gaza into Israeli towns is terror, then rockets and shells going into populated areas of Gaza has to be the same.