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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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In South Africa, you had a situation where after several centuries you had blacks and whites living cheek-by-jowel in one sense and very formally separated in another sense. For various reasons, the blacks hated the whites and the whites hated and feared the blacks. The whites built a system that was designed to allow them to have absolute power over the blacks, partly because they were afraid of what the blacks would do if they ever managed to get the whip hand, partly because having a captive population of workers over whom you had absolute power was very useful. This system involved separating the blacks into enclaves over which the whites had control, and preventing the blacks from getting any formal or informal power over the whites.

To my mind this resonates with what is happening in Israel: a system of formalised segregation based on fear of uprising, a formation of enclaves over which the overlord retains (or attempts to retain) complete control, a strong element of racial hatred on both sides.

it suggests that you are stretching the definition of a nasty word for political goals

Your suggestion is incorrect. I don't give a damn about Israel or Palestine, I think they're both nasty as hell and my main wish is that they keep their torrid little ethnic hatreds out of my country. I'm discussing it here only because, if asked straight, apartheid seems like a totally valid description to me and I considered you to be making a poor argument otherwise.

I'm discussing it here only because, if asked straight, apartheid seems like a totally valid description to me and I considered you to be making a poor argument otherwise.

Ok, then I would ask that you lay out your precise definition of the word "apartheid."