We often forget our government supported apartheid in South Africa for decades.

Student groups such as the College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom even organized rallies in support of it.

Thankfully, they failed and South Africa is now free.

The system of racist segregation however, still exists in another place – Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Jimmy Carter writes in the Guardian, “[There is] abominable oppression and persecution in the … Palestinian territories … this is more oppressive than what black people lived under in South Africa during apartheid.”

He notes in his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid that this isn’t just his observation; Nelson Mandela, too, after visiting the occupied territories noted that the network of Israeli settlements, barriers and checkpoints is similar to apartheid.

Unfortunately, American politicians – fearing a network of far-right Israeli lobbies lead by the American Israeli Political Action Committee, which has been called the second most powerful lobby in the country by Fortune Magazine – are completely uncritical of Israeli actions or the billions of dollars in military aid we give them.

You can count the number of Congressmen who criticize Israeli policies on one hand.

Yes, Palestinian terrorism that targets civilians is reprehensible.

But can we really have peace if only one side’s violence is condemned?

We’ll never be able to resolve the conflict if we condemn suicide bombings but not Israel’s housing demolitions, mass arrests and torture, embargoes of food and medicines to desperate populations and bombings of population centers.

Just as South African apartheid had its student defenders, so does this modern day version.

Recently, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) spoke at a town hall meeting sponsored by the Student Government Association, the Dawgs for Israel and the College Republicans.

During the town hall meeting, he told the audience that God tells us we must uncritically support every Israeli policy, that the Palestinians are home burglars, that the Kurds are “devil worshippers,” that Israel “gave up the Golan Heights, Gaza and the West Bank” (false), and that we are in “World War III” with the Muslim world.

Not a single member of the sponsoring groups condemned Broun’s bigotry and hatred toward Arabs.

A SGA senator later told me that they didn’t at all expect the town hall to turn into a far-right pep rally, so I’ll exempt them from blame.

I will say that it is deplorable that the College Republicans and Dawgs for Israel would take part in dehumanizing the Palestinian people.

History will look at them just as dishonorably as their predecessors that supported South African apartheid.

I’m sure that members of both groups are smiling as they read this.

They know the Palestinians have zero influence in American politics.

I am reminded of the command given by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin during the first Palestinian Intifada (Arabic for uprising) to Israeli soldiers dealing with demonstrators: “Break their bones.”

Many Palestinians were beaten and tortured, and they have been fiercely persecuted for the last 60 years.

Yet they continue to persist in the hope that they, like the black South Africans, will one day be free.

You can break the Palestinians’ bones, but you’ll never break their spirit.

And one day they will be free, whether Broun and the student groups who suck up to him like it or not.

- Zaid Jilani is a junior from Kennesaw majoring in international affairs.