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

[tatertop]

1. They don't call it The Apartheid Wall for nothing

[chimpymustgo]

4. Painful to draw the parallels. But they can't be ignored.

Why not just give Palestine a real state with fair boundaries? Why NOT?

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Yeah and the UN approved South Africa as a homeland

for Afrikaaners. What a bogus comparison ...

[ZapaPaine]

3. read the article before apologizing. you might learn something

[Fredda Weinberg]

5. There's a reason this topic has its own thread

It brings out the worst in DUers

[chimpymustgo]

6. Would any of us want to live this way (more from the article)?

-snip-

Four decades later, the increasingly complex world of Israel's system of classification deems Said Rhateb to be a resident of the West Bank - somewhere he has never lived - and an illegal alien for living in the home in which he was born, inside the Jerusalem boundary. Jerusalem's council forces Rhateb to pay substantial property taxes on his house but that does not give him the right to live in it, and he is periodically arrested for doing so. Rhateb's children have been thrown out of their Jerusalem school, he cannot register a car in his name - or rather he can, but only one with Palestinian number plates, which means he cannot drive it to his home because only Israeli-registered cars are allowed within Jerusalem - and he needs a pass to visit the centre of the city. The army grants him about four a year.

There is more. If Rhateb is not legally resident in his own home, then he is defined as an "absentee" who has abandoned his property. Under Israeli law, it now belongs to the state or, more particularly, its Jewish citizens. "They sent papers that said we cannot sell the land or develop it because we do not own the land. It belongs to the state," he says. "Any time they want to confiscate it, they can, because they say we are absentees even though we are living in the house. That's what forced my older brother and three sisters to live in the US. They couldn't bear the harassment."

-snip -

[Coastie for Truth]

24. No - it's started by Boobengrabber shills

to divert real progressives from the battle at hand --- www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x26750

and I want to see the Bay Area Californians out working on this

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Coastie for Truth]

26. I have enumerated the Apartheid Laws

in Wikipedia, and the UN Resolutions (both from the Web, and from Henkin's Cases and Materials On International Law) and I don't see the congruence you seem to see.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

44. Wikipedia ain't exactly the font of legal knowhow...

If that's some sort of attempt to argue that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories isn't reminiscent of South African apartheid, it's not very effective....

Violet...

[Violet_Crumble]

42. That it does...

It's pretty sickening watching people try to formulate clumsy arguments that there's nothing of an apartheid nature to what is done to the Palestinians...

Violet...

[mike_c]

7. not bogus at all....

Israel is a classic apartheid state.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

8. More on that particular bogosity

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,"

[greendeerslayer]

9. Yes it is...

...and it has been for a while.

[malaise]

10. Great article

I had a South African professor who discussed this with us two decades ago. People don't want to deal with the truth.

[applegrove]

11. Big difference is that South Africans were not attacked with bombs.

Isralis are. There is war going on. Two intifadas on top of the wars Israel has been involved with.

Nelson Mandela didn't touch a hair on anyone's head. Hamas & the PLO have.

Many more differences.

But yeah - unfortunately - too many similarities to ignore. War is health. Let's all wish for peace sooner rather than later.

[chimpymustgo]

12. Terra terra terra. Give the Palestinians a state and their dignity and

most of this would stop - if not all.

[Scurrilous]

13. ANC apologizes for deaths in anti-apartheid fight (May 12, 1997)

<snip>

"The African National Congress formally apologized Monday for the killing of civilians by its guerrilla forces during the ANC's three-decade struggle against apartheid.

"We regret the deaths and injuries to civilians arising from armed actions. We apologize to the next-of-kin for the suffering and hurt," said a statement from the ANC to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to investigate apartheid-era abuses and promote reconciliation among South Africans of all races.

The ANC, which was voted into power after white-minority rule ended in 1994, admitted to a campaign of bombings and assassinations, including the deaths of seven anti-apartheid activists killed for betraying the cause."

more

[mike_c]

15. all of those examples are of the struggle AGAINST Israel's apartheid...

...used fallaciously to JUSTIFY the very discrimination they were responses to. And besides, past events have the wonderful property-- as excuses for injustice-- of being unchanging. That's why "9/11 changed everything." Perhaps if the Zionists hadn't stolen arab land and homes, Israel wouldn't have been "attacked with bombs."

[Tom Joad]

18. Not true. South African used armed resistance too. Mandala was

located by the CIA, and that info was given to the South African regime.

Washington and Jefferson used violence too. Sorry to ruin your fantasy.

[Englander]

47. No, that's not correct.

The military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), were revolutionaries, they used
armed struggle to fight against the SA form of Apartheid. The ANC didn't become the
governing party by asking nicely, they used sabotage, explosives, & 'terrorism'.
Mandela was a general, MK was his army.

'The Armed Struggle Spreads

A discussion article by Joe Slovo on the prospects for armed struggle in South Africa. First submitted to the National Student Conference held in Oxford in March 1968.

The whole of that part of Southern Africa which is controlled by racial minorities is experiencing either consistent and regular guerilla activity or is faced with advanced preparation for its commencement.

Angola was followed by Mozambique and they by South West Africa. For Portugal (already extended by the brilliantly successful operations PAIGC in its West African colony of Guinea Bissao) the problem of guerilla operations in its territories is beginning to assume the proportions of a major crisis. Early this year Salzar, speaking of Angloa and Mozambique, conceded that "if the troubles there continue very much longer, they will diminish and destroy our ability to carry on."

And now the guerilla front against foreign and minority rule has been extended to Rhodesia where since 13 August 1967, guerilla of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) and Rhodesia's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) have been involved in armed clashes with South African and Rhodesian military forces. The official admission of government losses of 8 dead and 14 wounded in these early engagements is disputed by the ANC and ZAPU, and appears to be an underestimation in the light of the reported number of casualties which filled Rhodesian hospitals. Despite early attempts to denigrate the calibre of the guerilla forces, the scale of the fighting, the tenacity of the guerillas in hand-to-hand combat, and the effectiveness and sophisticated quality of some of the ambushes even at this early stage where a pointer to future possibilities.

http://www.liberation.org.za/collections/sacp/slovo/astruggle.php

____________________________


'The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela

The Revolutionary

From Chapter 42 of Mandela's autobiography, 'Long Walk To Freedom';

I, who had never been a soldier, who had never fought in battle, who had never fired a gun at an enemy, had been given the task of starting an army. It would be a daunting task for a veteran general much less a military novice. The name of this new organization was Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation)--or MK for short. The symbol of the spear was chosen because with this simple weapon Africans had resisted the incursions of whites for centuries.

Although the executive of the ANC did not allow white members, MK was not thus constrained. I immediately recruited Joe Slovo, and along with Walter Sisulu, we formed the High Command with myself as chairman. Through Joe, I enlisted the efforts of white Communist Party members who had resolved on a course of violence and had already executed acts of sabotage like cutting government telephone and communication lines. We recruited Jack Hodgson, who had fought in World War II with the Springbok Legion, and Rusty Bernstein, both party members. Jack became our first demolitions expert. Our mandate was to wage acts of violence against the state--precisely what form those acts would take was yet to be decided. Our intention was to begin with what was least violent to individuals but most damaging to the state.

I began the only way I knew how, by reading and talking to experts. What I wanted to find out were the fundamental principles for starting a revolution. I discovered that there was a great deal of writing on this very subject, and I made my way though the available literature on armed warfare and in particular guerrilla warfare. I wanted to know what circumstances were appropriate for a guerrilla war; how one created, trained, and maintained a guerrilla force; how it should be armed; where it gets its supplies--all basic and fundamental questions.

Any and every source was of interest to me. I read the report of Blas Roca, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, about their years as an illegal organization during the Batista regime. In Commando by Deneys Reitz, I read of the unconventional guerrilla tactics of the Boer generals during the Anglo-Boer War. I read works by and about Che Guevara, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro. In Edgar Snow's brilliant Red Star Over China I saw that it was Mao's determination and nontraditional thinking that led him to victory. I read The Revolt by Menachem Begin and was encouraged by the fact that the Israeli leader had led a guerrilla force in a country with neither mountains nor forests, a situation similar to our own. I was eager to know more about the armed struggle of the people of Ethiopia against Mussolini, and of the guerrilla armies of Kenya, Algeria, and the Cameroons.

>snip

I have chosen this course which is more difficult and which entails more risk and hardship than sitting in gaol. I have had to separate myself from my dear wife and children, from my mother and sisters to live as an outlaw in my own land. I have had to close my business, to abandon my profession, and live in poverty, as many of my people are doing.... I shall fight the Government side by side with you, inch by inch, and mile by mile, until victory is won. What are you going to do? Will you come along with us, or are you going to co-operate with the Government in its efforts to suppress the claims and aspirations of your own people? Are you going to remain silent and neutral in a matter of life and death to my people, to our people? For my own part I have made my choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/revolution/iwhohad.html

________________________________

[Englander]

48. From the archives;

'1983: Car bomb in South Africa kills 16

At least 16 people have been killed and more than 130 people injured in a car bomb explosion in South Africa's capital city, Pretoria.

The explosion happened outside the Nedbank Square building on Church Street at about 1630 hours - the height of the city's rush hour. More than 20 ambulances attended the scene and took the dead and injured to three hospitals in and around Pretoria.

>snip

In Context

The number of dead rose to 17 and 197 people were injured in the explosion.

Four days later the South African Air Force bombed ANC bases in Maputo, Mozambique, in retaliation for the Pretoria car bomb.

At least six people, including two children, were killed..

Following the Maputo attack the ANC formally admitted carrying out the Pretoria bombing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/20/newsid_4326000/4326975.stm

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mike_c]

16. many of us agree-- it's a decision taken to maintain peace...

...in the General Discussion forums, and has the unintended effect of making the I/P forum something of a slime pit. It's unfortunate, but after debating with the pro-Israel cabal here for years now, I'm afraid I have to agree that it's necessary. Some of the worst offenders are long banned now, but others always take their place.

[ZapaPaine]

17. I hear ya, Sure sucks, though... Doing exactly

what we are trying to fight against.

[sabbat hunter]

41. what do you mean

what do you mean by cabal?

[Tom Joad]

19. What's worse is that it will never be discussed in Congress....

or your local Dem Party.

[ZapaPaine]

21. At least the Israeli firsters and apologizers will see it..

The truth cannot be denied when it slaps you right in the face. How you can try and argue/defend/apologize this is beyond my scope as a human being.

[Tom Joad]

20. Any wonder that Israel was South Africa's bestest friend?

Israel and Apartheid South Africa made nukes together, even. It was not an alliance... it was true love.

[Coastie for Truth]

22. More Important Things to Do Then Bloviate On This

Links:

1. http://www.recall2006.com/
2. Mailto: [e-mail]

If you have time to rehash Israeli Apartheid - you have time to save your state - and your public university.

[Violet_Crumble]

45. I think I'm going to need my causes prioritised for me...

I'm one of those types that think it's possible to concentrate on more than one issue at a time. So, I'm wondering - which two issues should I summarily dismiss and tell others that they're bloviating on:

* the mandatory detention of asylum seekers?

* indigenous issues?

* my opposition to US foreign policy and the damage it's doing to this world?


Violet...

[MrPrax]

23. Apt Similarities...

I always was curious, being involved in the anti-apartheid movement at the time, why exactly Israel was the only country to not support the boycott.

I mean if there was ever a country and people that should be mindful of international support, then Israel surely must have been one. If there was ever a country to take the forefront of condemning aparthied, then Israel should have been one country that would show 'profound' leadership.

I researched it at the time and found:
1) Israel has been furnishing arms to kill Africans
2) Israel aided and abetted the nuclear weapons program in South Africa
3) Israel aided and abetted many South African companies by 're-exporting' their goods to evade the African and then world boycott

One reason given for this strong, while very quiet support, comes from a common racist ideology--both Afrikaaners and Zionists believe settlement in terms of divine mission and taking the land BACK from the evil.

A natural affinity grew between the military and trade components of both regimes in that they believed their 'outposts' were being seiged by the 'coloreds' and believed that, being former possessions of a corrupt British colonial system, they had to distrust the West. They felt that they were brothers in arms--former guerillas fighting the eternal war.

Also at the time, I thought it was odd that this warped racist worldview seemed to be also share by dozens of nativist-survivalist groups in the West, who quite frequently, seem to produce an astonishing amount of 'holocaust denial' crap.

Also was quite amazed that JDL people and SF cops were caught passing intel from the apartheid movement back to the South Africaners, so they could go after relatives of activists abroad. They were all found guilty I believe.

Also at the time I thought, rather odd, that the JDL would be more interested in peaceniks fighting racist discrimination, oppression, and murder instead of going after--say Nazis or anti-semitites when folks like Sara Diamond had no problem routing them out and writing about it.

Then I started researching again and reading about Israeli intelligence...and then well....

My whole perspective about Israel changed from that point...

[chimpymustgo]

29. Collective punishment.Seems fair to leave the threads in GD until

- or if they devolve. It might help generate some civility.

[Behind the Aegis]

27. Gerald Steinberg

"As you are undoubtedly aware, the pro-Palestinian and anti-semitic campaign to demonise Israel focuses on the entirely false and abusive analogy with South Africa. Using the term 'apartheid' to apply to Israel's legitimate responses to terror and the threat of annihilation both demeans the South African experience, and is the most immoral of charges against the right of the Jewish people to self-determination," he replied.

[Tom Joad]

30. Leaders of the Anti-apartheid movement beg to differ.

The man you were quoting does not even believe in a Palestinian state.
He believes in the right of the Israeli govt to demolish homes and crops and dispossess people of their land.
He conflates "pro-Palestinian" with anti-semitism. Shouldn't everyone support Palestinians? It is NOT a matter of supporting the rights of Jewish people OR Palestinians, one can do both.

One cannot support a system of oppression for one, and pretend to support human rights.

I happen to think folks like Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandala have more credibility, than this fool from fool from Bar Ilan University.

[number6]

31. the pro-Palestinian and anti-semitic campaign ???

pro-Palestinian ...Palestinians are semites :shrug:

is being pro-Palestinian -- anti-semitic ??

[Behind the Aegis]

32. thus the word "and"

Do you really not know the meaning of anti-Semitic?

[number6]

33. semite:

random house college dictionary

semite: 1. a member of various ancient AND modern peoples originating in SW asia , among whom are Hebrews AND Arabs .......

anti : to be against

[Behind the Aegis]

35. Then, there is this....

2 entries found for anti-Semitism.
an·ti-Sem·i·tism (nt-sm-tzm, nt-)
n.
Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
Discrimination against Jews.



Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


anti-Semitism

n : the intense dislike for and prejudice against Jewish people


Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

Despite the use of the prefix "anti," the terms Semitic and Anti-Semitic are not antonyms. To avoid the confusion of the misnomer, many scholars on the subject (such as Emil Fackenheim of the Hebrew University) now favor the unhyphenated term antisemitism. Yehuda Bauer articulated this view in his writings and lectures: (the term) "Antisemitism, especially in its hyphenated spelling, is inane nonsense, because there is no Semitism that you can be anti to." <1>, also in his A History of the Holocaust, p.52)

The term anti-Semitism has historically referred to prejudice towards Jews alone, and this was the only use of this word for more than a century. It does not traditionally refer to prejudice toward other people who speak Semitic languages (e.g. Arabs or Syriacs). Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University, says that "Anti-Semitism has never anywhere been concerned with anyone but Jews."<2> source

[Tom Joad]

36. To conflate anti-Jewish bigotry with the struggle for a free Palestine

denigrates all those who are victims of bigotry and racism.

I have been appalled at the vindictiveness shown towards Jewish people who have spoken in dissent of Iraeli policies. The hatred, even here at DU at times, goes way beyond the pale.

[Behind the Aegis]

37. I think you missed the point.

Had he written "the anti-Semitic Pro-Palestinian..." you would have a point. As writing it that way implies being Pro-Palestinian is anti-Semitic. However, he used the conjunction word "and;" thus implying there are TWO issues at hand.

Personally, I don't think all Pro-Palestinians are anti-Semitic, or even resort to anti-Semitic rhetoric. However, I have seen it. I also don't think that all pro-Palestinians are anti-Israeli, but some certainly are. The same could be said in reverse, no?

[Coastie for Truth]

39. So, you support Jewish people who have spoken in dissent of Israeli polici

What about Jewish people who have been denied employment in Fortune 50 companies - because they are nominally Jewish - and the Fortune 50 companies' trading partners don't want the particular Fortune 50 companies to employ technical, professional, scientific, or management people of Jewish heritage (include those who follow the Unitarian Universalist faith). It's called dhimmi.

I have had LTTE's published in the about this, and I have discussed this very point with faculty members in the UC and CS Systems.

But it doesn't capture the imagination of vocal young progressives. :shrug:

Please convince me why I should whole heartedly support the Palestinian cause (which I do support within the context of a "win-win" two state solution) when the most outspoken supporters of the Palestinian cause are strangely silent when Jews are the victims of discrimination.

[Tom Joad]

34. Why Palestine? Because it is a just cause,

a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights. - Edward Said, who is sorely missed. A great humanist.

[pelsar]

38. unless of course

it also destroys israel......or terrorizes israel....... as been the habit of israels neighbors since even before its independance...

and we can always look at gaza for a sneak preview of the palestenain state......

[Coastie for Truth]

40. What about the Kurds? The Ohlone?

I believe that the Ohlone should be treated at least as well as the Menominee nation.

[Violet_Crumble]

43. Quick!!!! Look Over There!!!! Not Over Here!!!!

n/t

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Englander]

50. No, because it's completely irrelevant. n/t

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pelsar]

53. it got deleted...so we try again....

there is no "look over there"...to avoid seeing the middle east conflict. There is a "look over there" to see how others are handleing other conflicts.

israel has no magic in stopping people from entering israel and blowing them up....the IDF and security servcies try a variety of ways of keeping the tunnlers, missles, mortors away from its civilians: some good some less

if one claims that the methods used consist of "genocide, war crimes" indiscriminate killing, then its reasonable to verify such claims:

is israel so evil or not?...to discover such, one would have to look and see what others do in similar circumstances:

russia? dfur, US. etc why is comparison such a horrible thing...maybe the limitations of technology has some answers?

[Violet_Crumble]

54. It's most definately 'Look Over There!!!'

Read Coastie's post. There was no attempt to compare anything. The post (and others in this thread) have gone along the lines of saying 'don't waste yr time talking about this - let's talk about Arnie! let's talk about Darfur! let's talk about anything but this issue which we will term as bloviating'.

Here's a question for you, pelsar. Is there some reason why Israel can't handle the I/P conflict without resorting to using apartheid-style tactics against the Palestinians? I'm not really getting how destroying Palestinian homes, taking Palestinian land, and making discriminatory laws against Palestinians (eg the one where Palestinian spouses of Israelis are denied Israeli citizenship) contributes to Israel's security....

btw, war crimes and indiscriminate killings have been well and truly verified. Are you disputing what human rights groups have documented?

Violet...

[pelsar]

55. the seperation of the peoples....

what your referring to as "apartheid-style tactics" is the seperating of the palestenains from the israelis......

it didnt exist from 1967 up until intifada II....so its obviously not a case of "hating the palestenian" or discrimination against the "lighter brown, natives who came after the jews)

what did change was the suicide bomber.....it wasnt the occastional "gunman" that would sneak in to israel and massacre a family that caused the change, it was the sucide bomber and helpers:

the terrorist of past had a profile, the IDF searched and found them without too much interference with the local palestenians who traveled all around israel and the westbank and gaza without any problem.... the suicide bomber doesnt have a profile: they are women, kids adults, their suppliers are in taxis, ambulances etc, and no one wears uniforms....hence we cant even find many of them, so a partial solution is the separation of the populations.

now i'm as open as anyone to suggestions as to a better method of finding these sucicde bombers, their suppliers etc (many times the bomb is first sent to a location and picked up by the bomber)....got any?.

as far as war crimes and indiscriminate killings go...of course there have been some, 18yr old kids with heavy machineguns and pressures of life and death dont always respond well to pressures, its not something i recommned. However nor Is it policy of the IDF (as lets say russias army in chechnyia?.....) I dont have to excuse it, when they happen its wrong and there should be a trial. I, but i do believe it should be place in its perspective. When the palestenanans shoot from civilian areas, refuse to wear uniforms, use kids (12-17) as look outs, carriers etc, they are part of the combat zone...and will get killed, the onus for a lot of their deaths belongs to those who place them intentionally in a war zone. How many were killed by accident? or, intentionally, knowing they werent involved?...i dont know, nobody does, since the reports dont ask the solider what he saw in the shadows while he was protecting other soldiers...thats the reality of it, hence the stats dont tell the real story.


More so, when writing about 'war crimes"..its a case of "crying wolf to many times....there have been, but again, if your shooting from a school or hiding behind civilians your not leaving much choice now are you?, i dont agree that the return fire is a war crime. Nor is artillary in the gaza..where their shooting kassams from...

[Englander]

49. Review of a book mentioned in the article;

'Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem, by Amir S. Chesin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999

The authors of this book were themselves involved in the events which they chronicle. They also had access to relevant archives, particularly the papers of Teddy Kollek, the internationally revered mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 (two years before the city was reunited) until 1993, almost 30 years. There are three interwoven themes. First, a detailed dissection (perhaps "vivisection" would be more appropriate) of the Israeli government's systematic discrimination against the Arab citizens of East Jerusalem, a process which began immediately in June 1967 and (notwithstanding an elaborate public relations campaign to the contrary) continues to the present day. Second, an iconoclastic analysis of the historic role played by Teddy Kollek, an analysis which is hard-edged yet not unsympathetic, a psychological study of a larger-than-life politician who was disingenuous despite himself. Third, written more in sorrow than in anger, a discussion of the great harm Israeli policy has done to Israel's own interests, along with speculation as to how an honest attempt to incorporate the Arab population into Israeli Jerusalem might have eased the difficult passage toward a settlement.

Of the three authors, Amir Chesin, was Mayor Kollek's adviser on Arab affairs from 1984 to 1993 and then stayed on for a year under Kollek's successor, the conservative Likud politician Ehud Olmert. Bill Hutman was a senior reporter for The Jerusalem Post specializing in coverage of the city. Avi Melamed was deputy adviser to the mayor on Arab affairs from 1991 to 1994 and principal adviser from 1994 to 1996.

Israeli policy ever since 1967, say the authors, has had four objectives: (1) rapidly expand Jewish population in East Jerusalem, (2) hinder the growth of the Arab population, (3) induce Arab residents to move out of the city into the West Bank, and (4) surround East Jerusalem with a barrier of Jewish settlements separating it from the Palestinian population of the West Bank.

>snip

The authors believe that Israel has tragically mismanaged the governance of Jerusalem and, by demeaning the lives of its Arab citizens, has made a lasting resolution of the conflict between Arabs and Jews far more difficult. They say they have written this book, which certainly hangs Israel's dirty laundry out to dry, so that “lessons learned from past mistakes can help build a better future.” Although somewhat uneven in style, the book tells a fascinating, if at times repugnant, story with complete candor. It should be read by anyone interested in the future of Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine. The intensity and passion of the three Israeli Jewish authors, and perhaps also their chagrin at their own role in the story, waves like a flag in the final paragraph:

Do not believe the propaganda – the rosy picture Israel tries to show the world of life in Jerusalem since the 1967 reunification. Israel has treated the Palestinians of Jerusalem terribly. As a matter of policy, it has forced many of them from their homes and stripped them of their land, all the while lying to them and deceiving them and the world about its honorable intentions. And what makes all this so much more inexcusable is that there was no reason for it. Governing Jerusalem properly would not have jeopardized Israel's claim to the city. Indeed, it likely would have eased the growing conflict over Jerusalem's future. That massive error in judgement, we believe, is the tragedy of Israel's rule in East Jerusalem since 1967.

http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol7/0006_harrop.asp

[Scurrilous]

52. Guardian: Israeli regime resembles apartheid

Journalist who resided both in Israel, South Africa publishes 14-page-long report in distinguished British newspaper, describing how Israel discriminates against Palestinians

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3212282,00.html

<snip>

"Israel's policy toward the Palestinians bears a resemblance to the apartheid policy in South Africa, according to a special comprehensive report published by the British Guardian newspaper Monday.

Journalist Chris McGreal resided in Israel four for years, after working as a journalist in South Africa. His report is accompanied by photographs comparing the two countries."

<snip>

"The report also presents examples of Jews who used to live in South Africa, Holocaust survivors and even Israelis who lived during the apartheid and describe aspects in modern Israel that are reminiscent of the racial discrimination policy.

Former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Alon Liel is quoted as saying that "if we take the magnitude of the injustice done to the Palestinians by the State of Israel, there is a basis for comparison with apartheid."

"Of course apartheid was a very different philosophy from what we do, most of which stems from security considerations. But from the point of view of outcome, we are in the same league," Liel says."