South Africa's apartheid died in 1994, but the word is alive: Israel is accused of being "the new apartheid" while its founding ideology, Zionism, is attacked as "racism." How true are these accusations? Mere repetition, however frequent, widespread and fervent, does not in itself give them validity.
Describing Israel as an "emerging apartheid" gathered force in the run-up to the UN anti-racism conference in Durban in August 2001 and was given aggressive expression there. However, after pressure by democratic countries, the subsequent conference of governments expunged virtually every attack on Israel from its final document. The Sept. 11 destruction a few days later pushed the "new apartheid" campaign to the back burner. But in Chicago, Ramallah, Johannesburg, London, Cairo, Sydney, the phrase is increasingly heard.
If the apartheid label is appropriate, it provides a potent political weapon. If, however, the usage is wrong it reduces the vile system of racism perpetrated in South Africa to just another swear word. It also raises questions about the motivation of those who apply it. Clear purpose can indeed be discerned in the efforts to make the apartheid stigma stick: To have Israel viewed as, and declared, illegitimate. That is, to challenge its right to existence -- and to ensure that Israelis are made unwelcome abroad and that it becomes politically correct to boycott Israeli products and to discourage investment in the country.
The situations inside and outside the Green Line, the borders determined by the 1967 war, are intertwined but separate. First, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is the occupier and no occupation is benign. Everyone is suffering -- Palestinians as victims and Israelis as perpetrators. Everyone suffers deaths and maimings.
The word "Bantustan" is often used in an accusatory way to describe Israel's policy about a future Palestinian state. Bantustans were the tribal mini-states created as a means of depriving the black population of citizenship in "white" South Africa. The common element between Israel and the apartheid state is control, seen especially in restrictions on freedom of movement so too is the grabbing of land.
But the root causes are different. White South Africans invented the Bantustans to pen black people into defined reservoirs of labor, being allowed to leave only when working for white South Africa. The Israeli intention is the opposite: To keep out Palestinians, having as little to do with them as possible.
Second, Israel inside the Green Line. In South Africa pre-1994, skin color determined every single person's life: Where you were born, where you lived, which school you went to, which bus, train, beach, hospital, library, park bench and public toilet you used, with whom you could have sex, what you could study, which jobs you had and hence how much you could earn and ultimately, where you were buried.
In Israel, Arabs are approximately 20 percent of the population. In theory they have full citizenship rights but in practice they suffer extensive discrimination, ranging from land use, diminished job opportunities and lesser social benefits, to reports of a family ordered off a beach. None of this is acceptable, and particularly in a state that prides itself on its democracy. Discrimination occurs despite equality in law and is buttressed by custom -- but it is not remotely the South African panoply of discrimination enforced by parliamentary legislation. Anyone who says that Israel is apartheid does not appreciate what apartheid was.
RSS