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
INTERACTIVE: Palestinian Remix
Palestinian
Center for Human Rights
International
Solidarity Movement – Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom
Defense for Children
Breaking the Silence
BRASIL
AOS FATOS: As
declarações de Bolsonaro, checadas
