Consensus At Last...

... in the Murdoch and Fairfax press!

Yes, Virginia, Israel is an apartheid state, whether it's in Israel (im)proper:

"In the never-ending conflict in the Middle East, Taiseer Khatib and his wife Lana are part of a new frontline... Born in Akko (Acre) in northern Israel where his family goes back more than 400 years, Khatib married Lana, whose family fled Haifa, in Israel, for Jenin in the West Bank in 1948, upon the formation of Israel. Under Israeli law, Palestinians from the West Bank are not permitted to migrate to Israel, even if they have a spouse there. Many Palestinians who live in Israel, officially known by Israel as 'Israeli Arabs', form relationships with Palestinians in the West Bank... [A]s 'a West Banker', Lana Khatib can only pass through Israeli checkpoints into Israel to visit her husband in Akko if she can get a temporary visitor's permit... 'We feel like half-humans', Taiseer Khatib told visiting journalists this week. 'Any immigrant who is coming to Israel from Ethiopia or Russia who is new to this city, the minute he puts his feet down at the airport, he has more rights than I have. I'm talking pure racism, which is beyond apartheid. Under apartheid, there were cases where people were allowed to have mixed marriages but she (Lana) is part of me and the state is interfering in my personal choices, getting into my bed, my own room'." (Living under the cloud of Israel's cruel apartheid, John Lyons, The Australian, 5/5/12)

Or in the occupied West Bank:

"The residents of the tiny Palestinian village of Sheb al-Buttum, built on the hard soil and rocks of the South Hebron Hills, are thankful for small mercies. The recent installation of 4 neat rows of solar panels has brought a steady supply of electricity to the village for the first time, allowing them to abandon the expensive and unreliable generator they could only run for 2 hours a day. They now have enough power to run a fridge (to store the butter they make from their sheep and goat's milk), an electric churn (to save hours of hand mixing every day) and when their children need to study after dark they can do so by a light brighter than a candle's flicker. But this clean energy project is now under threat - Israel's Civil Administration has put a demolition order on the panels.

"Since January more than 100 solar panels and 6 wind turbines - installed by Israeli group Community Electricity & Technology Middle East (COMET-ME), and funded by the German foreign ministry - have been marked for demolition. They cover 7 villages. The COMET-ME director, Noam Dotan, a retired Israeli tech executive and physicist, says Israel wants to move all Palestinians from the area. 'The fight here is a daily fight for every dunum [1000 square metres]'.

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"All the villages are in Area C, which covers 60% of the West Bank, and is under Israeli administrative control. It is home to 150,000 Palestinians and contains the bulk of Palestinian agricultural and grazing land... At the same time as it has refused to permit Palestinian construction in the area, Israel has allowed more than 300,000 settlers to develop more than 135 settlements and 100 outposts - areas that are off limits to Palestinians and yet often built on privately-owned Palestinian land, the settlement watch group Peace Now says.

"Israel also prevents Palestinian villages from connecting to the water and electricity grids for nearby settlements, says Alon Cohen-Lifshitz of Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights. 'Israel wants to clean this area of Palestinians', Mr Cohen-Lifshitz says. 'It is not occupation, it is apartheid'." ('They want to destroy our village': Israel plans solar panel demolition, Ruth Pollard, The Sun-Herald, 6/5/12)