Ministry Of Apartheid Disbanded Amid Complete Ineffectiveness

Not even the ascension of the right wing under Menachem Begin in 1977 could get the Ministry of Apartheid to perform properly.

Prominent Arab citizens of Israel, whose continued existence demonstrated the Ministry of Apartheid’s ineptitude.

Jerusalem, August 6 – The government body in charge of developing and implementing ways to disenfranchise and institutionalize discrimination against Israel’s Arab population is being dismantled under the state’s 2015-2016 budget after oversight revealed it has never come close to achieving its mandated objectives.

Government ministers voted 17-0, with two abstaining, to disband the Ministry of Apartheid, following a short discussion on the findings of an audit to the effect that not only are Arab citizens still accorded full political rights, they serve in elected positions and hold judicial office – including on the High Court. Despite nearly seventy years of activity, the Ministry of Apartheid has failed in every respect to deny voting rights, bar Arabs as a class from civic roles, or in any other way impinge on their citizenship in the State or a place in the public sphere. The vote took place as part of deliberations over the terms of the budget, and is expected to help ease the belt-tightening taking place across all other ministries, though some functions of the defunct ministry may be adopted by other entities.

Minister of Apartheid Aflaya Gizani, whose was required to abstain under deliberation rules, made an impassioned plea prior to the vote to spare his ministry, giving an array of explanations for the body’s having little to show for its decades of work, and promising to put new effort into its mission. The other ministers, however, remained unconvinced, primarily, experts say, because the audit in question is the fifth in the last twenty years to find that the Ministry of Apartheid was having little to no effect.

“It’s not really a surprise, and no one, not even the most right-wing members of the cabinet, was going to fight this decision,” said political analyst Don Botha. “The consistent dismal failures of that ministry to legally deny Arabs any of the most basic civil rights far outweigh any ideological position these ministers may have. It’s been an embarrassment to them for a very long time.”

The Ministry of Apartheid was established under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in 1949 as part of the newborn State of Israel’s governmental system. For more than fifteen years it was barely active, as economic survival and a severe regime of austerity deprived the ministry of the funds necessary to function properly. Only in the mid-to-late-sixties did its activity begin in earnest, but not even the ascension of the right wing under Menachem Begin in 1977 could get the Ministry of Apartheid to perform properly, and Arab citizens continued to vote, run for office, and enjoy the same legal protections and rights as their Jewish countrymen. The most the ministry could manage, in all that time, was to fan flames of racism that sometimes led individual enforcement officials to treat Arab protesters or suspects with unwarranted brutality – and those officials, who were under the aegis of other ministries, consistently denied that the Ministry of Apartheid contributed to those episodes.

Minister Gizani will be forced to resign effective December, when the ministry will officially close. This marks the second time in as many years that a high-ranking Israeli official has been dismissed for ineffectiveness. Last year the Minister of Genocide was similarly forced out of office after it was discovered that the Palestinian population has actually increased at a significant rate.