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?
Describing Israel as an ”emerging apartheid” state gathered force in the run-up to the United Nations anti-racism conference in Durban in 2001 and was given expression there. However, after pressure by democratic countries, the subsequent conference of governments expunged virtually every attack on Israel from its final document. 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 system of racism perpetrated in South Africa to just another swear word. It also raises questions about the motives of those who apply it. Clear purpose can 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.
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. Both sides are brutalised and corrupted. But however ugly it is, it is not apartheid. Palestinians are not oppressed on racial grounds but are, rather, the competitors in a conflict for land. One group imposes harsh control over another, but this applies to any situation of conflict and conquest anywhere. To call it apartheid stretches meaning to illogical lengths.
The word ”Bantustan” is often used to describe Israel’s policy about a future Palestinian state. Bantustans were created as a means of depriving the black population of citizenship. 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 reservoirs of labour. The Israeli intention is the opposite: to keep out Palestinians.
Second, Israel inside the Green Line. In South Africa pre-1994, skin colour determined everyone’s life: where you were born and lived, which school you went to, which bus, train, beach, hospital, library and public toilet you used, with whom you could have sex, which jobs you had and how much you could earn and, ultimately, where you were buried.
In Israel, Arabs are about 20% of the population. In theory they have full citizenship rights, in practice they suffer extensive discrimination. 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 legislation. Anyone who says that Israel is apartheid does not appreciate what apartheid was.
Nor does ”Zionism is racism” stand up to scrutiny. Israel has a Jewish majority and it has the right to decide how to order the society, including defining citizenship. If the majority wish to restrict citizenship to Jews, it is their right, just as it is the right of Saudi Arabia not to allow Christians as citizens. Yet it is also unfair to give automatic entry to Jews while denying the ”right of return” to Palestinians who fled or were expelled. This is a tragic consequence of war, which is anything but unique to Israel.
The Jewish state was born in pain: it was attacked and Arabs suffered mass dispossession in the war for survival. The Arabs who remained in Israel now constitute a sizeable minority. Most countries have minorities; the question is how they deal with them.
Some, such as Burundi and Rwanda, or India in 1947, erupt into violence. Greece has about 200 000 Roma who enjoy almost none of the benefits that other Greeks take for granted. Christians are targeted for attack in Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia and China.
A crucial indicator of the status of Israel’s minority is that Arabs have the vote — black South Africans did not. Certainly, Arab citizens lack full power as a minority community, but they have the right to unite among themselves and to ally themselves with others. Change is possible in Israel, and is happening. For example: Mosawa (The Centre for Equal Rights for the Arab Population in Israel), acting on a law banning discrimination, has launched court action against a website offering jobs to Jews only.
Critics dub the separation barrier that Israel is building the Apartheid Wall. The barrier, supported by most Israelis in the hope of gaining security against suicide bombers, is being used as a cover to seize land from Palestinians — it is the cause of immeasurable suffering. Machiavellian, a land grab, misperceived or thieving the barrier might be, but it’s not apartheid.
Underlying everything is the nature of Israeli democracy. That in turn depends on the conception of the Jewish state. Which in turn depends on the definition of who is a Jew. Each is evolving. Meanwhile, visionary leadership is lacking. Palestinians undermined the Oslo accords by continuing violent attacks. Israel undermined the accords by continuing to build on the West Bank and Gaza.
The ”apartheid” and ”Zionism is racism” accusations confuse and distract. Instead, South Africa’s experience should be put to positive use. What can be learned? For Israel, that armed might and oppression cannot crush a people’s spirit. For Palestinians, there is the African National Congress’s switch to armed struggle in 1961, with the decision not to kill civilians: this proved crucial in persuading white people that they had nothing to fear from the ANC. And the most basic lesson of all, contact across the lines of division: to create trust so that a future can be forged between Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis, and between Israelis and Palestinians. — Â