Fighting Apartheid in Palestine: South
Africa's Unfinished Business
26 August 2012
By Ramzy Baroud
The recent approval by South Africa's cabinet to
distinguish between products made in Israel and those
made in illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank
was both politically sound and morally consistent with
the country's anti-Apartheid legacy.
It was also a natural progression of South Africa's
policies, which have reflected impatience with Israel
through the years. Israel's policies have long been
geared towards decimating Palestinian society, along
with any chances for a just peace. It was clear that
Israel has chosen the Apartheid option, not just as a
de facto outcome of its policies, but through a
decided legal and political pattern. For South Africa
to have remained silent about these dangerous policies
would have endangered the very essence of the
country's anti-Apartheid reputation.
South Africa's decision, however, was not just
motivated by political necessity. Veterans of the
anti-Apartheid struggle have had numerous influences
on the country's civil society. Even the new
generation is intoned with a freedom discourse that
unites most sectors of society. ‘Freedom for
Palestine' was a natural fit in that powerful
discourse, and no amount of Israeli propaganda has
been enough to deter South Africans from standing in
solidarity with Palestinians. The feelings are, of
course, mutual.
Growing up in a refugee camp in Gaza, there was no
debate as to what the anti-Apartheid struggle meant
for Palestinians. There was a strong affinity that
preceded the current academic and political debates
about what constitutes Apartheid – well before
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu likened the treatment
of Palestinians to Apartheid in 2010, or the release
of Jimmy Carter‘s 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not
Apartheid.
To be a Palestinian, especially a Palestinian refugee,
was in many ways to be a black South African. Later
on, through my visits to South Africa, I learned that
the opposite was also true. "We South Africans cannot
feel free until the Palestinians are free," were the
memorable words of the great Nelson Mandela himself.
Many decades of brutal regimes, coupled with inspiring
global struggles to obtain long-denied rights made
Mandela's assertion particularly heartening to many
Palestinians. Unlike South Africa, Palestine is yet to
obtain its freedom. In fact, the tentacles of
Apartheid are being institutionalized like never
before through the Israeli Knesset, with the aim of
controlling every aspect of their lives. The bloody
military occupation, coupled with the reality of
occupation, has made life beyond unbearable for
Palestinians. Because of Israel's obsession with
demographics - as in fearing that Palestinian Muslims
and Christians are multiplying at a greater rate than
Israeli Jews - the very existence of Palestinians is
now a hot topic of debate among Israeli politicians.
It is a ‘problem' - labelled as the ‘demographic bomb'
- that must be resolved.
The motivation behind South Africa's cabinet decision
was clear and hardly removed from this reality. The
response underway by Israeli officials, Zionists
leaders and Jewish organizations in South Africa were
predictably angry.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor,
accused the South African government of ‘exclusion and
discrimination.' The Israeli government clarified the
notion of that ‘blatant discrimination,' saying it was
‘based on national and political distinction.' The
South African Jewish Board of Deputies went further.
"At bottom, they are believed to be motivated not by
technical trade concerns but by political bias against
the state of Israel. All attempts to discuss these
concerns…have come to nothing."
South Africa also did not in any way try to hide the
political and ethical nature of that decision.
Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi told a press briefing
on August 22 that the decision was "in line with South
Africa's stance that recognizes the 1948 borders
delineated by the United Nations and does not
recognize occupied territories beyond these borders as
being part of the state of Israel."
In fact, even before the decision was made, South
African officials have been clear on their rejection
of Israel's policies. That attitude was unmistakable
when South Africa withdrew its ambassador from Israel
in protest of the deadly raid in international water
on pro-Palestinian civil society activists abroad the
Turkish Mavi Marmara in May 31, 2011.
More, just recently, South Africa's deputy foreign
minister, Ebrahim Ebrahim, called on his country's
citizens to avoid visiting Israel. "Israel is an
occupier country which is oppressing Palestine, so
it's not proper for South Africans to associate with
Israel," he told City Press newspaper.
Failing to reverse the South Africa government's clear
policies - which are likely to evolve into a complete
boycott similar to the international boycott of South
Africa's Apartheid government in the past - Israeli
officials are shedding diplomatic language altogether.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is accusing South
Africa of exactly that which has been accused of
Israel. "Unfortunately it turns out that the changes
that took place in South Africa over the years have
not brought about basic changes in the country, and it
remains an Apartheid state," Ayalon said (Jerusalem
Post, August 23).
Interestingly, Israel was one of very few countries
that provided a lifeline of support to the Apartheid
government of South Africa. There are numerous volumes
on this topic, but most revealing was Sasha
Polakow-Suransky's, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's
Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. The
author provided first-hand evidence of an offer of
nuclear warheads made by Israel's current President
Shimon Peres to then South Africa's defense minister
P. W. Botha in 1975.
Since then, South Africa - and much of the world - has
changed. Israel, however, is digressing into a dark
corner where racism and Apartheid are still applied
with impunity. Many Israelis are refusing to attest to
their country's fall into the abyss. A wakeup call can
only arrive when the world treats the Israeli
government in the same way the pariah state South
Africa's Apartheid regime was treated. The fact that
South Africa is leading the charge against Israeli
Apartheid in Palestine is not an irony, but actually
an early sign of international justice.
- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net)
is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the
editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold
Story (Pluto Press, London.)
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