Zionism and Apartheid South Africa; an obscene romance

"But the story of Zionism and boycotts would not end there. Zionism would stay true to its principles of supporting boycotts that promote racial apartheid and denouncing boycotts that oppose racial apartheid to the present. When the United Nations imposed mandatory sanctions against the racist settler-colony of Rhodesia in 1966, Israel supported the sanctions at the UN but in reality never abided by them. Israel would provide arms and helicopters to be used in counterinsurgency by the Rhodesian government against the anti-racist independence movement seeking to overthrow the regime (a tactic, as we saw, which it learned from French colonial forces in Algeria and which it was now imparting to Rhodesian white supremacist colonists). Indeed the Israelis, breaking the international boycott, would provide the racist Rhodesians in the 1970s with a 500-mile separation fence along the border with Mozambique and Zambia. The fall of the Rhodesian settler colony in 1980 and the rise of Zimbabwe did not bode well for the future of Israel. 
When the African National Congress (ANC) and progressive allies, who would also be joined by the United Nations, began to call for and effect different forms of boycott against apartheid South Africa beginning in the early1960s, Israel would be a central breaker of the boycott, becoming the apartheid state's major political and economic partner. Indeed Israel's strategic alliance with South Africa would be built in the late 1960s as the boycott campaign against the apartheid regime became more vociferous. " (thanks Michele)

Apartheid state

Basim sent me this:  "Desmond Tutu just penned an article entitled "Justice requires action to stop subjugation of Palestinians."

See the following paragraphs. The bold is my own:

Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which "describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians." This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable. And we are in desperate need of more rabbis joining the brave rabbis of Jewish Voice for Peace in speaking forthrightly about the corrupting decadeslong Israeli domination over Palestinians.

These are among the hardest words I have ever written. But they are vitally important. Not only is Israel harming Palestinians, but it is harming itself. The 1,200 rabbis may not like what I have to say, but it is long past time for them to remove the blinders from their eyes and grapple with the reality that Israel becoming an apartheid state or like South Africa in its denial of equal rights is not a future danger, as three former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and David Ben Gurion — have warned, but a present-day reality.

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Why is calling Israel an apartheid state -- from someone who has lived under apartheid and can easily recognize it -- the "among hardest words I have ever written" ? Shouldn't they be the easiest?

Why are three war criminals -- practionerrs of racism and upholders of the apartheid state themselves -- cited in a positive light?"

U.S. support for apartheid regime

"Palestinians must travel on separate roads, which are patrolled by Israeli soldiers. They often walk under enormous nets that look like cages, and settlers drop objects — and even urinate — on them from their windows above. Levy described Israel’s occupation simply as a form of apartheid. “It looks like apartheid, it walks like apartheid, it behaves like apartheid; it’s apartheid,” he said." (thanks Amir)

BDS at Wayne State University: 10th anniversary

The First Resolution for Total Divestment from Apartheid Israel - at Wayne State University

Students Movement for Justice

April 17, 2013

On this day ten years ago Wayne State University’s student council became the first in the US to pass a resolution calling on its school to divest from companies doing business in Israel. The resolution passed 9 to 7 following a year-long solidarity campaign on the Detroit campus, organized by Students Movement for Justice (SMJ), in the form of protests, mock refugee camps, mock apartheid walls, guest speakers and a “die-in.” Subsequently, similar resolutions were passed by student councils at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Hampshire College, Evergreen State College and more recently UC San Diego, UC Riverside, and UC Irvine.

The tenth year anniversary prompts us to reflect on the divestment resolution and make a few observations. First, the resolution’s language, like the discourse adopted by SMJ throughout its activism on campus, was unequivocal. It expressly referred to “violent ethnic cleansing,” the annihilation of “thousands of occupied Palestinians” and “apartheid.” The group had no interest in adopting a “strategy” of calling for the liberation of only 22% of historic Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. Its language clearly rejected the “strategy” of dialogue with Zionists. This uncompromising approach predictably resulted in verbal and physical hostility from Zionists on campus. These incidents were documented on the pages of The South End, the campus newspaper. But we were not deterred. Zionists’ sensibilities were not on our list of priorities.

Second, until it was actually passed, SMJ’s members had no way of guessing how the Wayne State student council would vote on the resolution. Regardless, there was no reason to postpone presenting the resolution pending our certainty that it would pass. Had the resolution failed, it would have been to the university’s historical discredit. At least the divestment resolution would speed the day when the university finally bent to the unpopularity of investment in land theft, just as apartheid South Africa became an increasingly unpopular investment throughout the 1980’s.    Third, SMJ was an egalitarian grassroots movement, not a hierarchical organization. It believed in all students’ right to participate in political activism equally. For example, no one person had a monopoly on chants at on-campus protests. Instead, a platform was offered to everyone who wanted to address the protesters. This empowered students to participate. Decision-making at meetings was democratic. The group wasn’t concerned with titles or electing officers to executive positions.  Fourth, SMJ refused to sever Palestine from the other causes it stood for, even if that resulted in a slightly smaller number of members. SMJ chanted for Palestine’s freedom at the on-campus antiwar protest it held on the first day of the invasion of Iraq. It worked with Black leaders on campus and supported their fight for affirmative action.  The Black students were among Palestine’s staunchest allies on campus. This is no surprise considering the anti-Zionist legacy of Malcolm X, of the Black Panthers and of SNCC starting in 1967. This also enabled us to connect Detroit to Palestine.  

The tight Israeli alliance to apartheid South Africa is not forgotten in Detroit. We pointed out the bitter irony of living in a forcibly impoverished U.S. inner city while the U.S. government spent billions of dollars to prop up apartheid Israel and its Klan-style occupation forces.  A decade later, we are optimistic about the future of Palestine activism on US campuses. Pro-Palestine activists can connect more easily now; social networking didn’t exist when the Wayne State resolution passed in 2003.  Now in 2013, a string of campus divestment resolutions are shattering the illusion of Zionists’ invincibility, and are building the self-confidence of pro-Palestine activists. 

We wish to thank the Palestinian people, who were waging the second intifada ten years ago, for inspiring us to deliver their message to our fellow students. Their brave example guided our political activism culminating in a victory we will remember for a long time."

Zionist apartheid

"Burston is by no means the only well-known figure to describe Israel’s policies toward the indigenous Palestinians as a system of apartheid. South African anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu insisted in no certain terms “I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed.” Prominent indigenous and women of color feminists, including acclaimed scholars Angela Davis and Barbara Ransby, visited Israel in 2011 and recalled “see[ing] for ourselves the conditions under which Palestinian people live and struggle against what we can now confidently name as the Israeli project of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.” Several members of the delegation grew up in apartheid South Africa, in the Jim Crow South, or on US Indian reservations and witnessed striking parallels to their own experiences."

Apartheid and Zionist Apartheid

"Let's start with the most obvious. This is a cynical ploy by the Israeli government to divert attention from the findings of the UN report. Government officials have almost said as much. A foreign ministry official described the investigation by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth as "explosive PR material". Hasson claims: "Had [the Israeli foreign ministry discovered this earlier], it would have greatly helped us in our activity against the report." But the report is about Gaza, not Goldstone. Having lost control of the message, Israel is now trying to shoot the messenger. That Israel would try to do so on the backs of black South Africans is a laughable indication of its desperation. For if Goldstone was complicit in apartheid's crimes, then Israel was far more so. Israel was South Africa's principal and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons. "Throughout the 70s and 80s Israel had a deep, intimate and lucrative relationship with South Africa," explains Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa. "Israel's arms supplies helped to prolong the apartheid regime's rule and to survive international sanctions." No criticism of Goldstone's complicity from representatives of the Israeli state can be taken seriously that does not acknowledge and condemn Israel's even greater support of the self-same system." (thanks Laleh)

Israeli is an apartheid state

"But reality is reality, and a duck is a duck. As the late Yossi Sarid, longtime leader of Israel's Meretz party and former education minister once put it: "What acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck — it is apartheid." "

Israel and apartheid South Africa

"Wasn't Israel one of the most powerful friends of Apartheid South Africa? Was Mandela "a man of vision," "the father of his nation," "a humble man," "a freedom fighter," and "a man of vision" when the State of Israel solidly supported Apartheid South Africa? Did Ronald Reagan, America, and the West, in general, see Mandela as "a freedom fighter"? Directly or indirectly, didn't Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" speak to this closet relationship between Apartheid South Africa and the State of Israel?"

U.S. is the most aggressive & consistent enabler of Israeli apartheid regime

"So Israel — in the words of its most loyal benefactor — is moving inexorably “towards cementing a one-state reality of perpetual occupation” that is anti-democratic: i.e., the equivalent of apartheid. And the leading protector and enabler of this apartheid regime is the U.S. — just as was true of the apartheid regime of the 1980s in South Africa." "Worst of all is that U.S. political orthodoxy has not only funded, fueled, and protected this apartheid state, but has attempted to render illegitimate all forms of resistance to it. Just as it did with the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela, the U.S. denounces as “terrorism” all groups and individuals that use force against Israel’s occupying armies."

Boycott HP: Technology of Israeli apartheid

"There are clear parallels between HP’s biometric access control system as currently employed to confine and control Palestinian movement in Israel/ Palestine and the racist passbook ID system used by South Africa’s apartheid government, for which the U.S.-based Polaroid Corporation provided imaging services.  In the 1970s, there was a boycott and divestment campaign targeting Polaroid for its complicity in South African apartheid.  The campaign was eventually successful, andPolaroid’s dramatic 1977 withdrawal from South Africa increased pressure on other complicit companies across the globe, accelerating international efforts to end South African apartheid.  Leaders of the Polaroid boycott and divestment campaign, such as Caroline Hunter, the Polaroid employee who discovered her company’s role in South Africa and helped launch the boycott campaign, are today calling for a boycott of HP companies." (thanks Ami)

Hirsh Goodman on South African Apartheid

"I loved South Africa, but I loathed the apartheid system."  I have been reading this man for years, and read him when he wrote for the Jerusalem Post before the fall of South African apartheid. I don't recall that he once criticized the white minority regime. In fact, the Israeli press (liberal, centrist and rightist) pretty much praised South Africa and its alliance with Israel.  People should read Jane Hunter's body of work about the evil alliance between the two apartheid regime.

Israel's crimes are "infinitely worse" than in Apartheid South Africa

"As Palestine joins the International Criminal Court, former U.N. Special Rapporteur John Dugard talks about how an apartheid case could be brought against Israel in the ICC. "I’m a South African who lived through apartheid," Dugard said. "I have no hesitation in saying that Israel’s crimes are infinitely worse than those committed by the apartheid regime of South Africa." " (thanks Amir)

Israel and apartheid South Africa

"White reminds readers that Israel's association with apartheid South Africa was longstanding. Both emerged in 1948, and the South African Jewish community heavily funded the Hebrew state in its infancy. In 1961, then South African prime minister and architect of apartheid, Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, observed that "Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state". The two states maintained a close political and military relationship, with Israel enabling South Africa to become a nuclear power following a secret 1975 military co-operation agreement signed by Shimon Peres and P.W. Botha."

Apartheid, for sure

"Cohen, for whatever reasons, focuses on Jimmy Carter's use of the word in his book from four years ago, and takes the standard, predictable position: the term is false, deliberately inflammatory, and often the by-product of anti-semitism, etc. etc. But in dredging up this debate, Cohen completely omits a very recent, highly significant event: the use of the term by Israel's own hawkish Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, just four weeks ago:

Israel's defense minister warned Tuesday that if Israel does not achieve a peace deal with the Palestinians, it will be either a binational state or an undemocratic apartheid state. . . .

"The simple truth is, if there is one state" including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, "it will have to be either binational or undemocratic. . . . if this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

Writing about the Israel/apartheid controversy without mentioning Barak's recent statement would be like writing a column about the Senate reconciliation process without mentioning health care, or writing about the U.S. military's counter-insurgency doctrine without mentioning Afghanistan. " (thanks Dina)

Cuban Foreign Policy changed history in southern Africa

"In the Cuban Drumbeat your main message is that the Cuban foreign policy under Fidel Castro is unparalleled. Why is it so?

Well, because of its generosity. Because Cuba and Fidel Castro, for instance played a decisive role in changing the course of history in Southern Africa, in the struggle against apartheid. They saved Angola from the attack of apartheid South Africa, they helped the Namibian guerrillas, they helped the South Africans, asking for nothing in return. And when I say for nothing I really mean absolutely nothing. Not only this, but Cuba paid a high price to help the Africans, because that meant increasing the enmity of the United States. There had been secret negotiations to normalize relations between Cuba and the Ford administration. Obviously by sending troops to defend Angola from a South African aggression, that had actually been encouraged by the U.S., destroyed these negotiations. At the same time, Fidel Castro defied the Soviet Union, because USSR secretary-general Brezhnev was opposed to the dispatch of Cuban troops to Angola in 1975. He was obsessed by détente with the US far more than the Ford administration, and didn’t want to do anything that might affect it. On the other hand, the relations of the Soviet Union with the MPLA government in Angola were strained, they were not particularly good. And the same happened in 1987-88, when Fidel Castro sent important reinforcements to Southern Angola to chase the South Africans out of Angola once and for all and force them to agree to the independence of Namibia. But if I may add one thing, one focus is on the military contribution of Cuba, and it’s important, it was really decisive. But there is also another important component, which is the humanitarian assistance, that we can discuss later…" This is when Western governments and apartheid Israel were aligned with apartheid South Africa. (thanks Ricardo)

Zionism, as a war crime

"The very idea that Israel is guilty of the crime of Apartheid, one of the two gravest crimes against humanity (second only to Genocide), is, in itself, one that should give everyone pause. But there is another explosion in the report. Israel and its patrons have desperately sought to shelve a discussion about Zionism as a racist ideology. The Apartheid report brings it back to the front. The report renders invalid all those apologetic ‘warnings’ of Apartheid that have been part of mainstream Israeli and American leadership rhetoric for years now (for instance, John Kerry, 2014). The report’s implication is that Apartheid is not something that is soon to arrive or has just arrived; it is something that has been there all along, from the very birth of the state — in the “State’s essentially racist character.” "The discussion is bound to roll back to another shelved document – the UN Resolution 3379 (1975), which equates Zionism with racism."

apartheid it is

"A former South African ambassador to Israel has invited the fury of the Israeli government by describing its treatment of the country's Palestinian Bedouin community as akin to apartheid." "I have supported the struggle against Apartheid South Africa and now I cannot be a proponent of what I have witnessed in Israel, and that is, a replication of Apartheid!" "

Israel's fear of BDS

"The Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in South Africa particularly rankles Israel and its intelligence service. Historically, Israel understands the international role a similar movement played in the toppling of the Apartheid government. This troubling precedent makes Israel especially vigilant to counter what it perceives as the growing momentum inside SA against Occupation and Israeli Apartheid." "Israel fears that if left unchecked, pro-Palestine activism will develop unstoppable momentum, leading SA to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. This could be the beginning of the precisely the sort of domino effect that eventually brought down the Apartheid-era government."

Israel is an apartheid state--and I don't need a ruling to know that

"In an official complaint to the ASA, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) attacked the radio advert and alleged that the view expressed that Israel is an Apartheid State is "untrue, not supported by any evidence... and contains a lie which amounts to false propaganda". The Board sought an order requesting the SABC to apologise for broadcasting the advert.   The ASA dismissed each and every complaint made by the SAJBD against the advert and instead ruled in favour of the submissions made by SA Artists Against Apartheid, who were represented by Webber Wentzel Attorneys. The ASA also refused to provide any sanctions in favour of the SAJBD."

Sanctions against Apartheid South Africa

When the US was being pressured by public around the world to impose sanctions on Apartheid South Africa, many (Democrats and Republicans) in the US Congress demurred and protested and argued that we can't impose sanctions on Apartheid South Africa because that would "hurt the people that we want to help" in South Africa.  How come not a single Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative in the US media, argued that sanctions against Iran (which punished a company for mailing a printer's cartridge to Iran) would hurt the people of Iran? Not one.