Israeli Arab lawmaker speaks at Israel Apartheid Week

An Israeli Arab lawmaker visiting a Canadian university said Israel is worse than apartheid-era South Africa. Jamal Zahalka made the remarks in a speech at Montreal’s Concordia University during Israel Apartheid Week — a series of events protesting Israel’s human rights record, CampusJ.com reported. Zahalka’s speech, “Debunking the Myth of Israel as a Democracy,” compared the situation in the West Bank with life under the apartheid regime in South Africa. He added that Israel is doing “much more worse” because while South African apartheid involved “internal colonization,” Israelis “want the land for more settlements… and as less as possible Arabs” there. Asked whether Jews expelled from Arab countries should receive compensation, the Balad Party member said, “I support the right of return of Jewish refugees to their homeland. If they came from Syria, they can return there if they want [and] if they came from Yemen, they have the right to return.”