‘If Not For Israel, I Probably Would Be Illiterate, Penniless, Herding Sheep’: Young Israeli Arab Woman Denounces Israel-Haters Who Call It An Apartheid State

A young Israeli Arab woman fiercely slammed the canard used by anti-Semites that Israel is an apartheid state, pointing out that Israel gave her an opportunity to become an electrical engineer with a master’s degree from Stanford University rather than remaining penniless and illiterate like her mother.

“Israel gave us everything that it could give us even though we were Arabs and they’re calling Israel an apartheid,” she noted of Israel’s critics. “They’re calling Israel, making ethnic genocide. And this point is actually like puzzling for me because 25% of the Israeli population is actually Arabs. Most of them are Muslims, more than 20% [of the population] are Muslims. I’m one of them, right?”

“And the Arabs in Israel are getting like equal rights, like they’re citizens for everything, getting welfare, education, health care, anything that a Jewish citizen would get,” she stated. “So how can you call this an apartheid or committing ethnical genocide?”

“I was born to a Bedouin family,” she said. “Bedouins are nomadic Arabs. My mother was and is penniless and illiterate. She doesn’t know reading and writing because her parents didn’t believe that women have the right to go to school; they should be on the fields and herd the sheep.”

Then she praised Israel: “Israel, after it was founded, forced all children to go to school. It’s like mandatory. And it couldn’t stand that there are girls who are not getting educated. If not for Israel, I probably would be illiterate, penniless, herding sheep somewhere in the [Galilee area of Israel].”

“But I have an electrical engineering degree; I have a masters from Stanford University and I have my rights to live my life the way that I wanted to live them,” she enthused. “Israel gave us everything that it could give us even though we were Arabs.”

“People are talking about apartheid and ethnical genocide,” she asserted. “It just doesn’t match the truth; it doesn’t match the reality. They need to go and read the facts. And it’s funny that sometimes it comes from intelligent students at elite universities saying this kind of nonsense.”

An Arab/Bedouin Israeli on the apartheid lie:

"If not for Israel I would probably be illiterate, penniless, herding sheep.
But I have an electrical engineering degree, I have a masters from Stanford University, and I have my rights to live my life the way I wanted to live it." pic.twitter.com/zANmmO23uy

— Daniel Schwammenthal (@DSchwammenthal) November 8, 2023