Worlds Apart: Is Israel the New South Africa (apartheid)

[ZapaPaine]

Must read article in today's Guardian regarding the similarities in Israeli and South African apartheid. Take a moment and absorb this article. Make up your own mind. Your brain will thank you.

Worlds apart

There are few places in the world where governments construct a web of nationality and residency laws designed for use by one section of the population against another. Apartheid South Africa was one. So is Israel.

Comparisons between white rule in South Africa and Israel's system of control over the Arab peoples it governs are increasingly heard. Opponents of the vast steel and concrete barrier under construction through the West Bank and Jerusalem dubbed it the "apartheid wall" because it forces communities apart and grabs land. Critics of Ariel Sharon's plan to carve up the West Bank, apportioning blobs of territory to the Palestinians, draw comparisons with South Africa's "bantustans" - the nominally independent homelands into which millions of black men and women were herded.

An Israeli human rights organisation has described segregation of West Bank roads by the military as apartheid. Arab Israeli lawyers argue anti-discrimination cases before the supreme court by drawing out similarities between some Israeli legislation and white South Africa's oppressive laws. Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission, visited the occupied territories three years ago and described what he found as "much like what happened to us black people in South Africa".

As far back as 1961, Hendrik Verwoerd, the South African prime minister and architect of the "grand apartheid" vision of the bantustans, saw a parallel. "The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state," he said. It is a view that horrifies and infuriates many Israelis.

Read the article in its entirety:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1703245,00.html

[HereSince1628]

1. Well, Israel was plenty comfortable working with Apartheid S. Af.

in order to obtain military weapons...

IIRC Their co-operation is likely to have been in the fields of crowd/dissident control, high velocity/long range artillery design/construction, and nuclear weapons.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. How many threads do you need on this topic?

The last one has already been moved where it belongs.

[applegrove]

3. I agree. When there are multiple threads it seems so propagandaist.

[ZapaPaine]

5. This is the Editorials and other Articles section, right?

You don't see articles on a whole range of subjects getting tossed into their respective forums, do you? But we must do it to this one? Last time I checked this article is an "Article" and by definition belongs here. What's the matter, don't want to read truth? Afraid the "Article" might enlighten a few hundred souls?

[applegrove]

6. I think three threads in 5 minutes is too much.

[ZapaPaine]

8. Where did you get three?

Started one in General Discussion, it got sent to I/P by mod. Then another here. I count two.

[applegrove]

9. I meant three quick threads on the article - not all by you. Some issues

are better discussed in the forums. Like guns, religion, etc. Cause that way there is context.

I'm not saying it is bad to post a guardian article on whatever. I'm just saying that it is terribly frustrating when it is something important and boom - you have to all of a sudden reply to three separate threads? Why it is put in the I/P. So the discussion follows the ebb and flow of everyone here. Otherwise someone could just repost a new thread when the discussion takes a turn the OP doesn't like. And this is a discussion forum. Nobody is meant to have control.

[cali]

7. The value of the article is

not the point here. DU has rules regarding I/P issues. Why not just follow them? People can read the article from there just as easily as if it were posted under Editorials.

[cali]

4. What you're doing here

is just childishly provocative. Your original thread was moved to I/P. It's there for you and anyone else who wants to, to post on. Posting it inappropriately again, when you know the rules, is obnoxious

[papau]

10. Interesting- Mandela felt the Jews were key to freedom in South Africa!

"Mandela wrote in his autobiography how he turned to Goldreich as one of the few in the ANC's nascent guerrilla army who knew how to fight. "In the 1940s, Arthur had fought with the Palmach, the military wing of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine. He was knowledgeable about guerrilla warfare and helped fill in many gaps in my understanding." In July 1963, the police raided the farm and captured a slew of wanted men, including Walter Sisulu, the ANC leader, and Goldreich. Five of the 17 arrested at Rivonia were white, all of them Jewish. The captured men and Mandela, who was already in detention, were charged with sabotage and plotting violent revolution, which carried the death penalty.

AND THEN THE OTHER DETAILS:

Arab Israelis have the vote, although they were prevented from forming their own political parties until the 1980s. They are mostly equal under the law and these days the Israeli courts generally protect their rights. Jews are a majority in Israel; white South Africans were a minority. And Israel spent the first decades of its existence fighting for its life. ..."In the new masterplan, we have designated a wide area in eastern Jerusalem for construction for the Arab residents. There are more than 10 building plans, initiated by the municipality, currently in the works for eastern Jerusalem...."There's no basis for comparison with South Africa. We do not separate racially between the Jews and Arabs. We do, however, acknowledge the fact that different areas are populated by different groups, and we meet the needs of all groups. We keep the building and zoning laws completely separate from any political issues."...Arabs and Jews alike can be citizens, but each is assigned a separate "nationality" marked on identity cards (either spelled out or, more recently, in a numeric code), in effect determining where they are permitted to live, access to some government welfare programmes, and how they are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen. Ask Israelis why it is necessary to identify a citizen as a Jew or Arab on the card and the question is generally met with incomprehension: how can it be a Jewish state if we don't know who the Jews are?

SEEMS THE HEADLINE - which is "World's Apart" and not the headline of the thread - is on point - and indeed the "apartheid" result of South Africa is indeed a danger to Israel as it tries to do the right thing for all sides, but the article talks in terms of the number of building permits and the amount spent on education - and could have been written - in this sense - about the United States.

But an excellent article - thanks for posting.

[applegrove]

11. Yes - of course Jews were important in the struggle. They have been

important in just about every liberal/civil rights movement. But the academics studying Apartheid noticed that Israel was not acting like the jewish citizens of South Africa - re: fighting against apartheid. They had geopolitical worries that made them hesitate to want the end of Apartheid. And it was talked about and angrily discussed at the time.

The South Africans have since forgiven Israel (and all the apartheidists) and move into trade relationships and such with Israel.

[papau]

12. The US taught the world to value stability over human rights - and indeed

Israel followed our lead. I recall the conversations back then - and I recall how happy I was when I learned Patrice Lumumba had been taken into custody by our CIA and was safe - and how unhappy I was when I learned our CIA was under orders directly from Eisenhower to kill him (Our CIA fellow Larry Devlin confirmed this)in the name of stability.

Of course Ike's "Joe" ( CIA's chief technical officer, Dr Sidney Gottlieb who brought a special tube of poisoned toothpaste to Devlin to do the dirty deed) never did the deed as we gave him over/he escaped -and was recaptured - and directed by the Belgians to be given over to a local enemy (President Tschombe) of Katanga) to die by President Tschombe's firing squad on 17th January 1961.

Yes I do recall those days. The South African black's worry in those days was not Israel - it was the US and our Western allies - and "stability".

Curious that our latest human rights destruction - in Iraq and in the US - is based on rejecting "stability" in favor of planting "Democracy". Indeed that will be the G W Bush legacy.