MARIÂNGELA BERQUÓ enfoca a Geopolítica: Thou Shalt not Oppress II

Israel is an apartheid state. This obvious fact, of which millions of Palestinians living under Israeli rule have been painfully aware for decades, finally made headlines in the West last month thanks to a report by Israel’s leading human rights organisation, B’Tselem.

The report, titled “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid”, got the Western world talking about the real nature of the so-called “Israeli democracy” and paved the way for the many parallels between modern-day Israel and apartheid South Africa to be discussed in the mainstream.

Neither Edward Said nor Archbishop Desmond Tutu was able to do that. The UN special rapporteurs on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, such as Richard Falk and John Dugard, were not able to do that either. To be taken seriously, and find itself a place in the pages of Western newspapers, the statement that “Israel is an apartheid state” had to come from Israeli Jews themselves.

Israel’s apartheid has always been an open secret.

The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crimes of Apartheid (ICSPCA), Article 2, Part 3, defines apartheid as: “Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”

This definition, in its entirety, clearly applies not only to the situation of Palestinian people residing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – who are fully and permanently subject to Israel’s authority but do not hold any citizenship rights – but also that of those living in so-called “Israeli proper”.

Israel defines itself as a “Jewish state”. All Jews, regardless of where they were born, can assume Israeli citizenship and participate fully in Israel’s democracy. The land’s Indigenous inhabitants, the Palestinians, however, are openly denied most basic rights and freedoms in Israel. While some Palestinians do hold Israeli citizenship, even they are not considered equal to their Jewish compatriots in the eyes of the state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself accepted this fact a few years ago, stating “Israel is not a state of all its citizens … [it] is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it”.

ICSPCA, Article 2, Part 4, meanwhile, makes it crystal clear that the term “crime of apartheid” includes “[a]ny measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups … [and] the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof”.

It is, of course, impossible to deny that the Israeli regime is forcing Palestinians to live in “separate reserves and ghettos”. The Israeli state not only took Palestinian lands and gave them to Israeli Jews, but it also banned us from freely moving within our own homeland.

Despite all this, until recently, comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa were completely taboo – anyone who dared to talk about “the Israeli apartheid” was swiftly accused of being an anti-Semite and silenced. The guilt white Europeans felt about the Holocaust, during which nearly six million innocent Jews were slaughtered by white, European racists, kept the Israeli regime safe from any criticism coming from the Palestinians and their allies.

Now that some Israeli Jews themselves appear to openly accept that their state has enacted a regime of Jewish supremacy over all the territories it controls, there is hope that the Israeli apartheid can one day be fully exposed and demolished.

For the time being, it’s an ‘apartheid’ framed as a ‘conflict’. Which was not the case of South Africa.

These two apartheid regimes had different fates not because they were materially different, but because the international community chose to denounce one and support the other.

Apartheid South Africa considered itself a democracy. Its institutions were indeed somewhat democratic, but only for the white citizens of the country. The international community eventually denounced this “white democracy” as illegitimate, and put its support behind Black South Africans working to build a state under which all of the country’s citizens enjoy equal rights and freedoms.

Just like apartheid South Africa, Israel considers itself a democracy. Its institutions are democratic, but only for the Jewish citizens of the country.

Unlike apartheid South Africa, however, Israel’s so-called “democracy” is still accepted as legitimate by an overwhelming majority in the international community thanks to the efforts of the Israeli state and its powerful allies in the West. »

The same forces that are trying to convince the world that Israel is indeed a “democracy” are also working to whitewash Israel’s apartheid regime in Palestine by framing it as a “conflict” between two equal sides. Instead of calling a spade a spade, and Israel an apartheid regime, they talk about the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

Can anyone argue that in apartheid South Africa there were two equal parties, namely white and Black, with equal claims to the land and equal responsibility for the then-status quo?

No doubt, this would be a very bizarre and inaccurate interpretation of South African history. This is why we find it unacceptable, and infuriating, when our reality under Israeli apartheid is interpreted and framed in this way.

Israel and its supporters also try to whitewash the Israeli apartheid by focusing on the promise of a “two-state solution”. The two-state solution, as presented by the Israeli state and its Western allies, however, is nothing but an attempt to create “Bantustans” for the Palestinian people.

The South African Apartheid regime created several “Bantustans” to allegedly give Black citizens of the country a homeland of their own. In practice, however, Bantustans were regions that lack any real legitimacy or sovereignty, consisting of several unconnected enclaves. The “Palestinian state” imagined by Israel, which would similarly consist of several unconnected enclaves lacking any real sovereignty, therefore, would have no more legitimacy than South Africa’s racist and meaningless Bantustans.

The South Africans fighting against apartheid, and their allies across the world, had one goal: ending the racist system of apartheid for good. They made it clear that they would not accept any apartheid practices, including Bantustans, to survive. The system had to be dismantled in its entirety.

Today, the Palestinians are fighting against a similar apartheid regime. Like South African anti-apartheid activists, we are not willing to accept anything less than the complete dismantling of the racist system imposed on us.

B’tselem’s acknowledgement that Israel is indeed an apartheid state is a welcome development – we cannot defeat Israel’s regime of Jewish supremacy if the world continues to ignore its very existence.

However, merely accepting the true nature of Israel is not enough. It is time to hold the Israeli regime to account for its crime of apartheid, just like its ideological twin in South Africa was held to account many years ago.

The Palestinian civil society has long been calling for Israel to be sanctioned until it complies with international law and starts treating all human beings living under its rule equally. If B’tselem really wants to expose Israel’s crimes and hold it to account for its unacceptable and racist treatment of the Palestinians, its next step should be endorsing that call.

PALESTINA

In the U.S.A., Republicans and Democrats alike are so ignorant about Palestinian History or/and so indebted towards the Zionist lobby in New York that they are not able to see or to face the reality of the situation.

For example, claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, in a recent op-ed in the Jewish weekly, ‘The Forward’, point to the prevailing ignorance that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel.

Yang, a former Democratic Presidential candidate, is vying for the Jewish vote in New York City. According to the reductionist assumption that all Jews must naturally support Israel and Zionism, Yan constructed an argument that is entirely based on a tired and false mantra equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

Yang’s pro-Israel logic is not only unfounded, but confused as well. “A Yang administration will push back against the BDS movement which singles out Israel for unfair economic punishment,” he wrote, referring to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Yang compared the BDS movement to the “fascist boycotts of Jewish businesses”, most likely a reference to the infamous Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany of 1933.

Not only does Yang fail to construct his argument in any historically defensible fashion, he claims that BDS is “rooted in anti-Semitic thought and history.”

BDS is, in fact, rooted in history, not that of Nazi Germany, but of the Palestinian General Strike of 1936, when the Palestinian Arab population took collective action to hold colonial Britain accountable for its unfair and violent treatment of Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Instead of helping Palestine achieve full sovereignty, colonial Britain backed the political aspirations of White European Zionists who aimed to establish a ‘Jewish homeland’ in Palestine.

Sadly, the efforts of the Palestinian natives failed, and the new State of Israel became a reality in 1948, after nearly one million Palestinian refugees were uprooted and ethnically cleansed as a result of a decidedly violent campaign, the aftershocks of which continue to this day. Indeed, today’s ongoing military occupation and apartheid are all rooted in that tragic history.

This is the reality that the boycott movement is fighting to change. No anti-Semitic, Nazi – or, according to Yang’s ahistorical account, ‘fascist’ – love affair is at work here; just a beleaguered and oppressed nation fighting for its most basic human rights.

Yang’s ignorant and self-serving comments were duly answered most appropriately, including by many anti-Zionist Jewish intellectuals and activists throughout the US and the world. Alex Kane, a writer in ‘Jewish Currents’ tweeted that Yang made “a messed up, wrong comparison”, and that the politician “comes across as deeply ignorant about Palestine, Palestinians and BDS”. US Muslim Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) added their voices to numerous others, all pointing to Yang’s opportunism, lack of understanding of history and distorted logic.

But this goes beyond Yang, as the debate over BDS in the US is almost entirely rooted in fallacious comparisons and ignorance of history.

Those who had hoped that the unceremonious end of the Donald Trump Administration would bring about a measure of justice for the Palestinian people will surely be disappointed, as the American discourse on Palestine and Israel rarely changes, regardless which President resides in the White House and what political party dominates the Congress.

So, reducing the boycott debate to Yang’s confused account of history and reality is, itself, a reductionist understanding of US politics. Indeed, similar language is regularly infused, like that used by President Joe Biden’s nominee for United Nations envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield while addressing her confirmation hearing at the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on January 27. Like Yang, Thomas-Greenfield also found boycotting Israel an “unacceptable” act that “verges on anti-Semitism.”

While the presumptive envoy supported the return of the US to the Human Rights Council, UNESCO and other UN-affiliated organizations, her reasoning for such a move is merely to ensure the US has a place “at the table” so that Washington may monitor and discourage any criticism of Israel.

Yang, Thomas-Greenfield and others perpetuate such inaccurate comparisons with full confidence that they have strong support among the country’s ruling elites from the two dominant political parties. Indeed, according to the latest count produced by the pro-Israel Jewish Virtual Library website, “32 states have adopted laws, executive orders or resolutions that are designed to discourage boycotts against Israel.”

In fact, the criminalization of the boycott movement has taken center stage of the federal government in Washington DC. Anti-boycott legislation was passed with overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in recent years and more are expected to follow.

The popularity of such measures prompted former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to declare the Israel boycott movement to be anti-Semitic, describing it at as ‘a cancer’ at a press conference in November, alongside Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while in the illegal settlement of Psagot.

While Pompeo’s position is unsurprising, it behooves Yang and Thomas-Greenfield, both members of minority groups that suffered immense historical racism and discrimination, to brush up on the history of popular boycott movements in their own country. The weapon of boycott was, indeed, a most effective platform to translate political dissent into tangible achievements for oppressed Black people in the US during the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century. Most memorable, and consequential of these boycotts was the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955.

Moreover, outside the US, numerous volumes have been written about how the boycott of the White supremacist apartheid government in South Africa (of which I spoke above) ignited a global movement which, combined with the sacrifices of Black South Africans, brought apartheid to an end in the early 1990s.

The Palestinian people do not learn history from Yang and others, but from the collective experiences of oppressed peoples and nations throughout the world. They are guided by the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr., who once said that “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

The boycott movement aims at pacifically holding the oppressor accountable as it places a price tag on military occupation and apartheid. Not only is the Palestinian boycott movement not racist, it is essentially a rallying cry against racism and oppression.

I boycott Israel as I boycotted South Africa in the 80s and 90s.

I don’t buy anything that comes from Israel or its illegal colonies in the West Bank, that is, “from the Jordan Valley», a covert attempt to misguide foreign buyers. I do my part following the guidelines of the BDS Movement - Boycott Divest Sanction Israel.

What about you ?

To speak is good. But to act through boycott and divestment is even better ; and utmost important, and effective.

PALESTINA