Apartheid in the Middle East? Yes, but not in Israel.

It's easy to end up feeling a bit isolated when you're from a country that's in the news a lot. When your country is in the news, people are going to have an opinion about the events and think of you in relation to those events and wonder about your views on the matter. Chances are however that like the majority of people you have no strong feelings one way or the other and just wish people could get along with each other.

As a woman of Iranian origin I've had this attitude for a long time. I like my country and I'm proud of our long history, but when living as a minority among people of a different culture I don't want to let my origins define how I am perceived as a person. Similarly, I don't enjoy the validity of my opinions depending on my personal origin, but being from a country that is sadly perceived as Israel's prime nemesis makes people interested when my views don't align with those of our country's leadership.

When people ask how I can support Israel, I always like to start by pointing out this was in fact the Iranian government's position until the Ayatollahs took over. In 1950 Iran became the second Muslim majority country to recognize Israel, after Turkey. Iran's relations with Israel remained positive until the revolution of 1979 that turned our nation into a theocracy.

It can thus be said that at the root of the hostility between Iran and Israel lies not an ethnic conflict, but rather, a religious conflict. If, hopefully sooner than rather, Iran manages to escape from the yoke of the Ayatollahs, we may see a return to the previous state of relations. This may be difficult to understand for those not familiar with the doctrines of Islam.

Why would Islam have an inherently hostile outlook to the state of Israel? The reason is because Israel is located on land that was once controlled by Islam. Israel's independence in the heart of the Ummah runs contrary to the 1400 year long history of Islamic government spreading out over the globe. Within Islam it is in fact more important for a people to be subjected to rule by Islamic law, than to convert the subjected people to Islam. This is in contrast to Christianity, where spreading the gospel is of primary importance, while Christians are expected to be obedient to their government.

The religious nature of the conflict is exemplified in the integration of the Druze in Israel. The Druze, an Arab speaking minority, participate in Israeli military service and are highly represented in Israeli politics. In their position in Israeli society there is no evidence at all of the "apartheid" that critics perceive in Israeli society.

There is apartheid in the Middle East, but it's not in Israel. Anyone with an Israeli stamp in his passport who seeks to visit Iran will likely encounter the apartheid I am referring to. Similarly, anyone who seeks to sell Israeli goods to neighboring countries will discover apartheid. A number of neighboring countries try to exclude their people from entering business and tourist relations with Israel on equal footing.

This apartheid goes back many decades and began with the persecution and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from Arab countries, after a coalition of Arab nations failed at destroying the state of Israel in 1948. These Jewish refugees found refuge in Israel, after being treated by their own countries of birth as second class citizens.

Contrast this with Israel, which to this day is the most successful multicultural society in the Middle East, with cities home to Arabs, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Russians, Ethiopians, Armenians, and even some Black Hebrews, who are African American converts to Judaism. At no point during my visit to Israel did I feel as if I was not welcome.

For those concerned about genuine apartheid it might make more sense to look at the treatment of Kurds, particularly in Syria. A total of 120,000 Kurdish Syrians had their citizenship taken away from them by the Syrian government in the 1960's, a fact I learned after meeting a Syrian girl in the Netherlands whose family had their citizenship taken away from them. Those without citizenship are pariahs, forbidden from marrying and receiving education, and their land is taken away from them by Arab settlers.

But then, what about the Palestinian refugees and their right to return? Surely the ongoing plight of the Palestinian refugees is evidence of Israeli racism, as Jews are free to migrate to Israel, while Palestinians born in Israel can not return?

There are an number of things to note here. Israel after its foundation was a fragile state, already poorly equipped to handle the large influx of impoverished Mizrahi and Sephardic refugees. Nonetheless, Israel offered to absorb a significant number of Palestinian refugees, an offer that was rejected. The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries can be seen as a de facto population exchange, whereby Israel takes care of Jewish refugees, in exchange for Arab nations assimilating Palestinian refugees.

Finally it has to be noted that reintegration of refugees is only a realistic option when no state of hostility exists between the refugees and the host nation. Considering that 62% of Palestinians consider suicide bombings against Israel justified, I don't see the reintegration of Palestinian refugees as a desirable option, especially as it would make Arab citizens of Israel the majority, which would make Israel a non-Jewish country.

Most of these issues are known to Israeli's and people who have been to Israel, but people outside of Israel have not heard of many of these issues. The main road I see to peace in our time is through secularism. It may be naive, but I believe that people are born good. It requires years of indoctrination with hate to reach the kind of state where 73% of Palestinians support a genocidal Hadith about killing Jews who hide behind rocks and trees. When this type of indoctrination from an early age with religious hatred falls away, the main source of conflict falls away with it and peace in the Middle East becomes imaginable.