http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359860111&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

...In an op-ed last week in The Australian, Muslim author Irshad Manji answers: "Would an apartheid state award its top literary prize to an Arab? ... Would an apartheid state encourage Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren to learn Arabic? Would road signs throughout the land appear in both languages? Even my country, the proudly bilingual Canada, doesn't meet that standard."

She continues: "Would a Hebrew newspaper in an apartheid state run an article by an Arab Israeli about why the Zionist adventure has been a total failure? Would it run that article on Israel's Independence Day? Would an apartheid state ensure conditions for the freest Arabic press in the Middle East?"

We would only add: What other state airlifted thousands of black Africans from Ethiopia to grant them instant and full citizenship?

...

Zahalka himself puts the lie to this claim. He and other Israeli Arab MKs are living proof that Arab citizens of Israel, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa, have full political and civil rights, can vote and be elected to their parliament, and can even freely (if immorally) support the enemies of the state they are sworn to represent.

Indeed, many Israeli Arabs do not vote for the Arab parties, which have become so radicalized that they ignore their constituencies, but for Jewish parties. An Arab member of the Labor Party, for example, has just become a minister in the Israeli government.

And that's just the beginning. Israelis, be they Arabs or Jews, are much freer than anywhere in the Arab world. This is relevant because the "apartheid" charge brands Israel as a human rights abuser. But what sense does it make to berate the only country in the region that does respect human rights, while ignoring the rampant abuses taking place throughout the Muslim world?

According to the American Anti-Slavery Group (www.iabolish.com): "Though slavery was legally abolished [in Mauritania] in 1980, today 90,000 slaves continue to serve the Muslim Berber ruling class. Similarly, in Sudan, Arab northerners are known to raid the villages in the South - killing all the men and taking the women and children to be auctioned off and sold into slavery."

Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries deny equal rights to women, Christians, Jews, Hindus and others. Where are the protests against Saudi apartheid?

Anyone who cares about human rights should support countries where they are respected and protest against those which don't.