23 Aug 2010 08:48
Ran Greenstein:
Israel/Palestine and the apartheid analogy –
critics, apologists and strategic lessons
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By Ran Greenstein – 22 Aug 2010
IOA Editor: This article is the first part of a longer essay.
Ran Greenstein
Introduction
In the last decade, the notion that the Israeli system of political
and military control bears strong resemblance to the apartheid system in
South Africa has gained ground. It is invoked regularly by movements
and activists opposed to the 1967 occupation and to various other
aspects of Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian-Arab people. It is
denounced regularly by official Israeli spokespersons and unofficial
apologists. The more empirical and theoretical discussion of the nature
of the respective regimes and their historical trajectories has become
marginalized in the process. Only a few studies pursue such comparison
with any analytical rigour.[i]
There are three crucial distinctions we must make in order to address
the issue properly and avoid the usual conceptual and political muddle
that afflict the debate:
- We need to consider which Israel is our topic of concern: Israel as
it exists today, with boundaries extending from the Mediterranean to the
river Jordan, or Israel as it existed before 1967, along the Green
Line? Is it Israel as a state that encompasses all its citizens, within
the Green Line and beyond? Israel as it defines itself, or as it is
defined by others? And which definition is legitimate according to
international law? Are the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 part
of the definition or an element external to it? Which boundaries
(geographical, political, ideological and moral) are most relevant to
our discussion? What are their implications for our understanding of the
nature of the regime and its relation to various groups in the
population subject to it?
Each definition of the situation carries with it different consequences
for the analysis of the apartheid analogy. Perhaps the central question
in this respect is the relationship between three components: ‘Israel
proper’ (within its pre-1967 boundaries), ‘Greater Israel’ (within the
post-1967 boundaries), and ‘Greater Palestine’ (a demographic rather
than geographic concept, covering all Arabs who trace their origins to
pre-1948 Palestine). While discussion of the relationship between the
first two components is common, the third component – and its relevance
to the apartheid analogy – is usually ignored. - We need to distinguish between historical apartheid (the specific
system that prevailed in South Africa between 1948 and 1994), and the
generic notion of apartheid that stands for an oppressive system which
allocates political and social rights in a differentiated manner based
on people’s origins (including but not restricted to race). To
illustrate the point, pointing to different trends in the use made of
indigenous labour power in the two countries (exploitation in South
Africa, exclusion in Israel/Palestine) serves to distinguish between
historical apartheid and the Israeli ethnic-based class society. They
are indeed different in this respect. But, it cannot serve to refute the
claim that Israel is practicing apartheid in its generic sense of
exclusion and discrimination on grounds of origins. That claim has to be
tackled in its own terms, independently of our understanding of the
specific South African history. This is especially the case as some
features of apartheid in South Africa changed during the course of its
own historical evolution and thus cannot serve as a benchmark in
evaluating other political systems.
- We need to distinguish between the extent of similarity of South
African laws, structures and practices to their Israeli equivalents, and
consequent strategies of political change. Even if we conclude that
there is a great degree of structural similarity between the two states
it would not tell us much about how we can apply political strategies
used successfully in the former case to the latter case. Neither would
it tell us much about the direction in which the Israeli system of
control is heading. For that we need to undertake a concrete analysis of
Israeli/Palestinian societies, their local and international
allegiances, bases of support, vulnerabilities, and so on.
What is apartheid?
The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the
Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the UN General Assembly in November
1973, regards apartheid as “a crime against humanity” and a violation of
international law. Apartheid means “similar policies and practices of
racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa …
committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by
one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and
systematically oppressing them”. A long list of such practices ensues,
including “denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of
the right to life and liberty of person … by the infringement of their
freedom or dignity”, and legislative and other measures “calculated to
prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political,
social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate
creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group
or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or
groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the
right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the
right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a
nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right
to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of
peaceful assembly and association”. In addition, this includes measures
“designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of
separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or
groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various
racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a
racial group or groups or to members thereof”.[ii]
This is not an exhaustive list – and not all practices must be
present simultaneously to qualify as apartheid – but it is based on key
elements of historical apartheid. A point that stands out here is the
notion of race: if we stick to the common definition of race (indicating
biological origins, usually associated with physical appearance,
primarily skin colour), we can dismiss the case of applicability to
Israel immediately. The definition clearly is not relevant to the
relations between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Both groups are
racially diverse and cannot be distinguished on the basis of physical
appearance.
Having said that, we must consider that race – just like apartheid –
is a term that can apply beyond its conceptual and geographical origins.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1965,
applies the term racial discrimination to “any distinction, exclusion,
restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or
ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or
impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing,
of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic,
social, cultural or any other field of public life.” This does not
apply, however, to “distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or
preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens
and non-citizens”, and it does not affect “the legal provisions of
States Parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization”.[iii]
These qualifications may exclude some practices common to apartheid
South Africa and Israel, revolving around the boundaries of citizenship,
but there are no similar loopholes in the 1973 convention on apartheid.
Putting together the two conventions, we end up with a definition of
apartheid as a set of policies and practices of legal discrimination,
political exclusion, and social marginalization, based on racial,
national or ethnic origins. This definition obviously draws on
historical apartheid but cannot be reduced to it. The focus of attention
should be on the actual practices of the state, and the extent to which
they are exclusionary or discriminatory, rather than on the degree of
similarity to or difference from the historical case of apartheid South
Africa. For example, whether the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank
is really a ‘Bantustan’ is not an important or interesting question.
Whether it practices pseudo-independent rule that disguises the
effective control by Israel is the real focus of concern. We should be
interested in the substance of the political arrangements rather than in
the convenient labels we can stick on them. How this definition, then,
applies to Israel in substantive terms is a key theme to be addressed
here.
What is Israel? Perspectives from the Left
But first, what (or rather where) is Israel? In a recent book, The Time of the Green Line,
Professor Yehouda Shenhav of Tel Aviv University argues against the
notion that there is still any meaningful distinction between ‘Israel
itself’ (in its pre-1967 boundaries) and the occupied Palestinian
territories.[iv]
He criticizes what he terms the 1967 Green Line paradigm, for which
Israel, a democratic nation-state of the Jewish people, with a minority
of Palestinian citizens, is separate from the territories. According to
that paradigm, the 1967 occupation is an anomaly that introduced a large
number of Palestinian non-citizens into the system. As long as no final
decision is made on the future of the territories they remain under
temporary occupation. The suspension of democracy and of political
rights affecting their residents is a result of the unresolved conflict,
but it does not affect the democratic nature of Israel itself. The
conflict can be resolved through the creation of an independent
Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, alongside Israel.
This arrangement has become known as the two-state solution: it will
restore Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and give Palestinians
their own nation-state.
What is the problem with this paradigm? Shenhav identifies four
‘political anomalies’ that make the distinction between democratic
pre-1967 Israel and the occupied territories difficult to sustain. These
anomalies reflect the interests and concerns of specific groups in the
population:
- Palestinian refugees who trace the origin of their situation to
1948. For those of them residing in the occupied territories, 1967
was a moment of liberation, in the sense that their ability to
move within their homeland was enhanced as a result.
- Jewish religious-nationalist settlers, for whom the Green Line
is not morally or politically meaningful, and Israel as a
Jewish state extends beyond it, all the way to the Jordan River
(and possibly beyond it).
- The people of the ‘third Israel’, who feel marginalized by the
dominant political system, and for whom the occupation has provided
substantial benefits. They include settlers driven by
socio-economic reasons rather than religious-nationalist motivations:
primarily Mizrahim, orthodox Jews, and Russian immigrants.
- The 1948 Palestinians, who remained within the State of Israel
and became its citizens; for them 1967 represented an opportunity
to reunite with their people and the Arab world from which they
were forcibly separated when Israel was established.
For all these groups, pre-1967 Israel (regarded nostalgically as a
democratic haven by adherents of the Green Line paradigm) was an
oppressive social and political space. A return to it would not improve
their situation and might even make it worse. Although they come from
different religious, political and social backgrounds, they are united
in rejecting the notion that the two-state solution would lead to a
sustainable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The refugees
would not benefit from the reconstitution of a Jewish Israel from which
they would remain excluded; the settlers would oppose their removal
from what they see as a God-given homeland; the people of ‘third Israel’
would resent being relegated to a position of marginality from which
the occupation extricated them; the 1948 Palestinians would be separated
again from the Arab world, and be subjected to the same exclusion and
oppression from which they suffered before 1967.
And who would benefit from the two-state solution? The answer,
Shenhav says, is secular Ashkenazi-Jewish elites, who had been in
political and social control before the 1967 war, but have lost their
dominant position since then. The rise of new Mizrahi, religious,
immigrant and Arab voices has undermined the dominance of those elites. A
return to small, ‘enlightened’ pre-1967 Israel, in which their power
was unchallenged, would allow them to re-assert their position at the
expense of other groups. That is why they are the main advocates for the
Green Line paradigm. They have managed to make it the dominant
perspective in public discourse, but underlying social and cultural
currents have led to its continued decline in policy and practice.
Increasing diplomatic support for the two-state solution has gone
together with growing blurring of the physical, legal and symbolic
boundaries between Israel and the occupied territories. Most residents
of the country have never experienced any reality other than that of
Greater Israel.
Thus, the rhetorical victory of the paradigm, as expressed in almost
unanimous international support for it, and its invocation in all UN
resolutions, has disguised its demise in practice. As a result of
Israeli settlement activities, which created new realities, the prospect
of a viable independent Palestinian state has become more remote than
ever. Through massive allocation of state resources, and a consistent
policy of expansion, Israel has created a patchwork of disconnected
areas in which Palestinians live, criss-crossed by settlement
infrastructure. This makes the task of removing hundreds of thousands of
settlers, and restoring the integrity of the pre-1967 boundaries,
virtually impossible. Separation between Jewish settlers and local
residents within the occupied territories is maintained through an
elaborate system of laws and military regulations, with settlers legally
and politically incorporated into Israel, while Palestinians live as
stateless subjects. The crucial distinction now is between citizens and
non-citizens within the same territory, rather than between the pre- and
post-1967 territories.
A similar argument, but without Shenhav’s sociological focus on
marginalized Jewish groups, is provided by Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli
analyst who was the first to put forward the thesis that the occupation
had become irreversible (back in the mid-1980s). Israeli hold over the
territories beyond the Green Line had become permanent for most
practical purposes, Benvenisti argues, even if their Palestinian
residents remain excluded from citizenship and rights. This means that
defining the territories as occupied is misleading, as they have become
incorporated into the Israeli system of control. Disguising this
reality, by keeping the pretence that the situation is temporary and
there is meaningful ‘peace process’ that would result in change, helps
maintain the status quo. The paradigm of temporary occupation should be
replaced by that of a ‘de facto bi-national regime’, which can describe
the “mutual dependence of both societies, as well as the physical,
economic, symbolic and cultural ties that cannot be severed without an
intolerable cost.” The bi-national situation does not mean parity of
power due to “the total dominance of the Jewish-Israeli nation, which
controls a Palestinian nation that is fragmented both territorially and
socially … only a strategy of permanent rule can explain the vast
settlement enterprise and the enormous investment in housing and
infrastructure, estimated at US $100 billion.”[v]
The system is geared to undermine every agent or process that puts
the Jewish community’s total domination in jeopardy and threatens its
ability to accumulate political and material advantages. It has evolved
as an unplanned response to some “genetic code” of a settler society,
but is no longer dependent on settlements and military occupation to
entrench itself. It is sustained by Israel’s success in fragmenting
Palestinians and ensuring that each of the fragments is concerned only
with its own affairs with no interest in or capacity to work together
with the others. As a result, a bi-national reality has emerged and
partition is no longer a viable option, if it ever were. The two
national groups are destined to live together and the only question is
what kind of relations between them can and will be established.
A more complex picture is presented by Ariella Azoulai and Adi Ophir,
who make a distinction between the two sides of the Green Line, in an
attempt to understand how both are governed by a single internally
differentiated regime.[vi]
This regime has a dual character: brutal oppression, denial of human
and political rights, total disregard for the welfare of subjects in the
occupied territories, combined with (qualified) democracy in pre-1967
boundaries. This duality exists within the boundaries of the same
regime. Talking today about Israel in its pre-1967 boundaries as a
distinct social and political entity is meaningless – the regime
encompasses both sides of Green Line and they are interdependent. The
occupied territories are included in a way that retains their exclusion
from the realm of legitimate politics (they fall rather under notions of
‘security’ or of ‘demography’). The regime incorporates the occupied
territories as a permanent ‘outside’, an ‘inclusive exclusion’: a space
that is always subject to Israeli domination (in the Gaza Strip today
just as much as in the West Bank since 1967) but is never absorbed into
Israel. Neither withdrawal from the territories nor their annexation is a
likely outcome: this is not a result of failure to decide on a policy
due to fierce internal debate as it is usually portrayed; rather, it is a
firm policy decision to retain this ambiguity forever, if possible.
While in the occupied territories the distinction between citizen
(soldier, state official, settler) and non-citizen (Palestinian
resident) is paramount, within the Green Line the ethnic distinction
between Jewish and Arab citizens is crucial. In the occupied territories
both distinctions overlap but not so in Israel, which is why it is
important not to lump them together. This tension between the principles
of ethnicity and citizenship opens up opportunities for change. Israeli
Palestinians are discriminated against but are not subject to the same
system of domination as their counterparts who live under
occupation. They can exercise their citizenship rights to campaign for
meaningful political and social integration as equals. And, in doing
that, they could open the way for changing the regime itself. Occupied
Palestinians can resist the occupation but the road to changing the
regime itself is blocked, because they have no effective leverage from
the external position into which they are forced. Overall regime change
thus hinges on the success of changing Israel from within through the
joint efforts of Israeli Palestinians and their Jewish allies. A change
there will open possibilities for further change in the nature of the
regime itself.
Is Israel an apartheid state?
Despite their different emphases and disagreements, all views above
agree that it is impossible to look at Israel in isolation from the
occupied territories. In other words, that Greater Israel is the
effective boundary of control and meaningful unit of political analysis.
They may also agree – but do not discuss it explicitly – that Greater
Palestine is an essential part of the picture even though it is beyond
the 1948 and 1967 boundaries. In fact, precisely how Palestinians from
the ‘beyond’ came to occupy that position and remain there against their
will is part of the system of control which is left largely
unaddressed. Perhaps uniquely in modern history, the Israeli regime was
founded historically – and continues to be essentially based – on the
forcible exclusion of a large part of its potential citizens. How to
conceptualize this state of affairs remains a challenge.
This apparent agreement notwithstanding, many voices critical of
Israeli policies retain a focus on the occupied territories and use the
apartheid label to describe and condemn Israeli control there but not
elsewhere. Famous references to the notion of apartheid in
Israel/Palestine by former US President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond
Tutu of South Africa and Professor John Dugard, the special rapporteur
for the UN Commission on Human Rights, are restricted to Israeli
practices of occupation and do not deal with Israel ‘proper’. This is
the case also for the thorough 2009 report by the South African Human
Sciences Research Council (HSRC), titled “Occupation, Colonialism,
Apartheid”.[vii]
That the conceptual distinction between Israel and the occupied
territories is still so entrenched, despite the fact that Israel has
occupied the territories for 43 years (and had existed only 19 years
without them), is a testimony to the success of the Israeli strategy of
externalizing them from its body politic while retaining effective
control over them. It is also a testimony to the spirit of nationalist
resistance to the occupation (in the territories) and struggle for equal
rights by Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is precisely this
distinction that serves as the starting point for those rejecting the
suitability of the apartheid analogy. I will examine in this section one
such case of rejection, provided by the Israeli/South African
journalist Benjamin Pogrund.
Armed with real though limited anti-apartheid credentials, and with a
critical attitude towards Israeli policies in the occupied territories,
Pogrund is perfectly positioned to present the case against the analogy
between apartheid and Israel. Unlike others who work directly in the
service of Israeli propaganda, he maintains an appearance of political
independence and therefore a measure of credibility when addressing the
issue in the international media (he seems to be completely absent from
internal Israeli debates). He has become a key spokesperson – possibly
in an unofficial capacity – against any attempt to label the Israeli
regime and its practices as a form of apartheid and to borrow concepts
and strategies from the experience of the anti-apartheid movements in
South Africa. His approach replicates many of the taken-for-granted
assumptions and blind-spots of liberal-left Zionists, which need to be
addressed in some length.
What are Pogrund’s arguments? In dealing with Israel inside the Green
Line, he acknowledges that Palestinian citizens “suffer extensive
discrimination, ranging from denial of land use, diminished job
opportunities and lesser social benefits”, and so on. Yet,
“discrimination occurs despite equality in law; it is extensive, it is
buttressed by custom, but it is not remotely comparable with the South
African panoply of discrimination enforced by parliamentary
legislation.”[viii]
Pogrund clearly is unfamiliar with the extensive research and advocacy
work done by legal and human rights organizations such as Adalah – The
Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – and Mossawa – The
Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel. A look at their
publications would show precisely such ‘panoply’ of discriminatory
practices and laws, albeit frequently formulated in more subtle language
than the blunt South African legislation. It would seem that the task
of a critical journalist should consist in exposing such legal practices
rather than covering up for them.[ix]
But, Pogrund argues, “Arabs have the vote. Blacks did not. The vote
means citizenship and power to change. Arab citizens lack full power as a
minority community but they have the right and the power to unite as a
group and to ally with others.” True enough, but then – as he should be
fully aware of – some blacks in South Africa did have the right to vote
at certain periods of history, most recently with PW Botha’s 1983
Constitution, which established the Tricameral parliament. This applied
to minority black communities classified as coloured and Indian, not to
the majority of the black African population, and they voted on a
separate role rather than a common one for all citizens. And yet, they
faced political marginalization as minorities just as Palestinian
citizens of Israel do: in both cases these groups represented about 15%
of the overall indigenous population and enjoyed a relatively privileged
status, though in neither case have such privileges prevented them from
supporting the overall struggle for national liberation. Of course, the
analogy between the political status of such minority groups in South
Africa and Israel is not perfect; no analogy ever is. But, it does make
for potentially useful exploration that is entirely absent from
Pogrund’s account.[x]
Beyond these issues there is a bigger concern. Pogrund says: “Israel
now has a Jewish majority and they have the right to decide how to order
the society, including defining citizenship. If the majority wish to
restrict immigration and citizenship to Jews that may be incompatible
with a strict definition of the universality of humankind. But it is the
right of the majority.” Missing from this statement are a few
inconvenient facts. For example, Jews became a majority in the country
only through the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and, long before the UN
partition resolution of 1947, the Zionist movement created an
ever-expanding zone of exclusion by removing all Palestinian-Arab
residents from land acquired by official Jewish agencies and by denying
them employment in all Jewish public-owned workplaces. The crucial fact
that Palestinians are not immigrants, nor are they seeking rights in
someone else’s country but rather in their own homeland, is ignored as
well. In fact, the situation is the precise opposite: Jewish immigrant
settlers are granted rights directly at the expense of indigenous Arabs,
a state of affairs that Pogrund should be familiar with from his South
African experience.
While recognizing that “it is clearly unfair from the victims’ point
of view for Israel to give automatic entry to Jews from anywhere while
denying the ‘Right of Return’ to Palestinians who fled or were expelled
in the wars of 1948 and 1967, and their descendants”, he claims that it
is not unique to Israel: “The same has happened in recent times, often
on far greater scales, in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, India and
Pakistan, to list but a few parallel situations.” Again, this argument
deliberately ignores the fact that no European country recognizes the
right of ‘ethnic kin’ to return at the expense of its indigenous population.
That the Law of Return in Israel recognizes the rights of all Jews to
citizenship – even if they and their ancestors for millennia never set
foot in the territory – and denies the same right to all Palestinians
who are not citizens already – even if they and their ancestors were
born there – is without parallel. No other country practices such
policies, not even South Africa under apartheid.
Do India and Pakistan, then, provide any grounds for regarding the
Israeli case as unexceptional? The answer is no, for two reasons: there
was forcible but symmetrical exchange of populations between the two
countries, whereas Israel expelled the indigenous population in a
one-sided manner.[xi]
And, Hindu refugees from Pakistan and Muslim refugees from India
accounted for 2-3% of their countries’ respective populations. In
comparison, Palestinian refugees from the territories that became Israel
in 1948 accounted for 80% of the Arab population in those areas (and
about 60% of the Arab population of the entire country). The removal of
the majority of the indigenous population by settler immigrants is
unprecedented. In a sense Pogrund is right in rejecting the apartheid
analogy here: apartheid was about exploiting indigenous people, not
expelling them from their country. This is a key difference between the
two cases, but hardly one that portrays Israel in a better light.
Turning to the occupied West Bank (ignoring Gaza), Pogrund tries to
create a false picture of symmetry: “Everyone is suffering, Palestinians
as victims and Israelis as perpetrators. Death and maiming haunts
everyone in the occupied territories and in Israel itself. Occupation is
brutalising and corrupting both Palestinians and Israelis. The damage
done to the fabric of both societies, moral and material, is
incalculable.” This pseudo-humanist rhetoric disguises the crucial
difference between the oppressors and the oppressed: the former are
perpetrators; they do not suffer, they cause suffering; they do most of
the killing and maiming, the bulk of the damage and brutalization, and
all the land expropriation and political oppression. That the
Palestinians are not oppressed “on racial grounds as Arabs”, but on
national grounds (as Arabs), does little to offset the huge disparity in
power, resources, ability to inflict damage, and impunity with which
Israel pursues its settlement and occupation policies. Neither does the
fact that “The Israeli aim is the exact opposite [of historical
apartheid]: it is to keep Palestinians out, having as little to do with
them as possible, and letting in as few as possible to work”, rather
than exploit their labour, provide much consolation. After much of their
land was taken away from them, Black South Africans under apartheid
remained with the prospect of finding work with whites. Palestinians in
the occupied territories, in comparison, are deprived of land and job prospects. Little wonder that they do not find the notion that they are free from apartheid rule very comforting…
If Israel were “to annex the West Bank and control voteless
Palestinians as a source of cheap labour”, Pogrund continues, “or for
religious messianic reasons or strategic reasons — that could indeed be
analogous to apartheid. But it is not the intention except in the eyes
of a minority — settlers and extremists who speak of ‘transfer’ to clear
Palestinians out of the West Bank, or who desire a disenfranchised
Palestinian population.” He seems ignorant of the fact that for the
first twenty years of the occupation that was indeed the case: voteless
Palestinians were a source of cheap labour for Israelis. For the last
twenty years, Palestinians have remained disenfranchised, though they
have been replaced by immigrant workers as a source of cheap labour.
And, for the entire duration of the occupation – 43 years so far –
Israel has controlled the territories for religious messianic or
strategic reasons, regardless of the professed intentions of its
population. The only difference between the scenario portrayed by
Pogrund and reality itself is formal annexation. But actual practices on
the ground are much more powerful than legal formulas. Indeed,
Benvenisti’s argument that keeping the pretence that the occupation is
temporary helps maintain the status quo comes in handy here. Empty
rhetoric about the need for “genuine peace efforts” cannot disguise the
fact that the longer the peace process continues, the more entrenched
Israeli control over the occupied territories becomes.
In summary, then, with regard to ‘Israel proper’ Pogrund
misrepresents both the extent and the nature of the systemic formal and
informal discrimination against Palestinian citizens. With regard to
‘Greater Israel’, he ignores the quasi-permanent nature of the
occupation and the fact that Palestinian residents have been living
under a system of an effective apartheid-like control for 43 years
already, as recognized by most critical South African visitors. As for
‘Greater Palestine’, it plays no role in the analysis: to include it
would shatter his entire construction. In other words, he provides a
partial and deceptive analysis.
Summary
Examining the different aspects of Israeli policies, Palestinian
citizens are granted rights that were denied to the majority of black
people, occupied Palestinians are treated in much the same way as black
people were treated (especially residents of the ‘homelands’), and
Palestinian refugees are excluded to a far greater degree than black
South Africans ever were. Considering apartheid in the generic sense,
then, Israeli policies and practices meet many – not all – of the
criteria identified in the international convention on apartheid, with
the qualification that they are based on ethno-national rather than
racial grounds.
This does not mean that Israeli society, state, and system of control
are indeed the same as those of historical apartheid, although they do
bear family resemblances. No case is like any other. Even countries that
shared much history with South Africa – Such as Zimbabwe and Namibia
under colonial rule – did not have identical systems, and apartheid
itself changed substantially over time. While the technologies of rule
(coercive, legal and physical) used by Israel have largely converged
with their apartheid counterparts, crucial differences between the
societies remain. These involve ideological motivations, economic
strategies, and political configurations. In all these respects,
Israel/Palestine shows greater tendency towards exclusion than is the
case for South Africa. To understand why that is the case we need to
examine historical trajectories.[xii]
Contemporary South Africa is the product of a long history, which saw
various colonial forces (the Dutch East India Company and the British
Empire, Afrikaner and English settlers, missionaries, farming and mining
lords and so on), collaborate and compete over the control of various
indigenous groups. Over a long period of expansion, stretching over
centuries, this pattern created a multi-layered system of domination,
collaboration and resistance. Numerous political entities (British
colonies, Boer republics, African kingdoms, missionary territories)
emerged as a result, accompanied by diverse social relations (slavery,
indentured labour, land and labour tenancy, sharecropping and wage
labour). White supremacy was a means to ensure white prosperity, using
black labour as its foundation.
By the late 19th century, a more systematic approach had
begun to crystallize. It was used to streamline the pre-existing
multiplicity of conditions and policies into a uniform mode of control,
which would guarantee the economic incorporation of black people while
keeping them politically excluded. Apartheid was a link in this
historical chain, seeking to close existing loopholes and entrench white
domination. During the same period, the nature of resistance changed as
well, from early attempts to retain independence to a struggle for
incorporation on an equal basis, prompted by the massive presence of
indigenous people in the white-dominated economy. The exploitation of
labour gave them a crucial strategic lever for change due to their
indispensable role in ensuring white prosperity. Since the 1930s at
least, black political movements aimed to transform the state rather
than form independent political structures. By the late 1970s, white
elites had started to realize that apartheid was becoming
counter-productive in ensuring prosperity. It was too costly and
cumbersome, and increasingly irrational from an economic point of view:
it hampered the creation of an internal market and prevented a shift to a
technology-oriented growth strategy. The resistance movement that grew
after the 1976 Soweto uprising, combined with international pressure and
increasing stress on the state’s resources and capacity, gave the final
push towards a settlement. This took the form of a unified political
framework, within which numerous social struggles continue to unfold.
The South African trajectory can be contrasted with that of
Israel/Palestine, which produced two distinct ethno-national groups. The
formation of Israel in 1948 and the unfolding of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict have deepened the divide between the
communities (though they also gave rise to Palestinian citizens as an
intermediary group). A major reason for this diversion is that settler
Jews and indigenous Arabs had started to consolidate their group
identities – linked to broader ethno-national collectives – before
the initial encounter between them, whereas settlers and indigenous
people in South Africa formed their collective identities locally in the
course of the colonial encounter itself. As a result, the Zionist
project has faced indigenous people as an obstacle to be removed from
the land in order to clear the way for Jewish immigration into the
country. White settlers in South Africa, in contrast, focused on
controlling resources and populations (land and labour) to enhance their
wealth. Political domination was a means to an economic goal in South
Africa, whereas it has become a goal in its own right in
Israel/Palestine.
On the basis of this trajectory, the founding act of the State of Israel in 1948 was inextricably linked with the nakba
– the ethnic cleansing of the majority of the indigenous population
living in the areas allocated to the new state. This has had
contradictory effects: on the one hand, the removal of most Palestinians
and the relegation of the rest to the status of a permanently
marginalized minority have allowed the state to adopt democratic norms
premised on Jewish demographic dominance. On the other hand, the same
process ensured a permanent external threat from Palestinians who were
dispossessed in 1948. Neither outcome had parallels in South Africa
under apartheid. With the 1967 occupation, another component was added
to the picture, moving it closer to historical apartheid: a large number
of people became incorporated into the Israeli labour market but
remained disenfranchised. The state was unwilling to extend to them
political and civil rights enjoyed by Palestinian citizens, and unable
to impose on them another round of the 1948 ethnic cleansing. They
remain stuck in the middle, subject to a monstrous legal-military
apparatus aimed to ensure their subordination, without annexation and
without ethnic ‘purification’.
Is this apartheid in its generic sense, then? In crucial respects it
is indeed. It is important to understand its similarities to and
differences from historical apartheid, though, not for purposes of
labelling but because they provide crucial clues for strategies of
resistance and change. Any discussion of possible alternatives will
benefit from such understanding.
Ran Greenstein in associate professor of sociology at the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has
written “Genealogies of Conflict: class, identity and state in
Palestine/Israel and South Africa” (1995), edited “Comparative
Perspectives on South Africa” (1998) and “The Role of Political Violence
in South Africa’s Democratization” (2003). He is currently working on a
manuscript titled “Alternative Voices: dissident perspectives in
Israeli/Palestinian history”.
Notes
[i] Exceptions are Ran Greenstein, Genealogies of Conflict: Class, Identity and State in Palestine/Israel and South Africa (Wesleyan University Press, 1995); Mona Younis, Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National MovementsThe Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, edited by Adi Ophir, Michal Givoni and Sari Hanafi (Zone Books, 2009).
(University of Minnesota Press, 2000); Hilla Dayan, “Regimes of
Separation: Israel/Palestine and the Shadow of Apartheid”, pp 281-322 in
[ii] http://www.anc.org.za/un/uncrime.htm
[iii] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm
[iv] Yehouda Shenhav, The Time of the Green Line (Am Oved, 2010), in Hebrew
[v] Meron Benvenisti, “United We Stand”, Ha’aretz, 28/01/2010: http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/united-we-stand-1.262282
[vi] Ariela Azoulai and Adi Ophir, The Regime which is not One: Occupation and Democracy between the Sea and the River: 1967 –The Power of Inclusive Exclusion (Zone Books, 2009). (Resling, 2008), in Hebrew. An excerpt from the book appeared in English as “The Order of Violence”, pp 99-140 in
[vii] HSRC, Occupation,
Colonialism, Apartheid?: A Re-assessment of Israel’s Practices in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories under International Law (HSRC Press, 2009): www.hsrc.ac.za/Document-3227.phtml
[viii] Benjamin Pogrund, “Israel is a Democracy in which Arabs Vote – Not an Apartheid State”, Focus, 40 (December 2005). Online version in http://www.zionism-israel.com/ezine/Israel_democracy.htm
[ix] Among many examples, see Adalah, Legal Violations of Arab Minorities in Israel (March 1998): www.adalah.org/eng/publications/violations.htm; Adalah, Annual Report of Activities, 2009 (February
2010):
www.adalah.org/newsletter/eng/feb10/docs/Adalah_Annual_Report_of_Activities_2009_FINAL%20PDF.pdf
; Mossawa Center, The Human Rights Status of the Palestinian Arab Minority, Citizens of Israel (October 2008): www.mossawacenter.org/files/files/File/Reports/2008/Mossawa%20HR%20report%202008%20update%20Nov%202008.pdf; Mossawa Center, One Year for Israel’s New Government and the Arab Minority in Israel (April 2010):
www.mossawacenter.org/files/files/File/Reports/2010/Netanyahu%20Final.pdf; The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, The State of Human Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories (December 2009): www.acri.org.il/pdf/state2009en.pdf
[x]
See the analogy between Palestinian citizens and coloured South
Africans in Oren Yiftachel, “‘Creeping Apartheid’ in Israel/Palestine”, Middle East Report, 253 (Winter 2009).
[xi]
Since Palestinian refugees did not move into countries from which Jews
left for Israel in the 1950s (Iraq, Yemen, North Africa), nor did they
enjoy access to abandoned Jewish property, there was no exchange of
populations there.
[xii] Extended discussion of these issues can be found in Greenstein, Genealogies of Conflict.
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Al-Awda,
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition calls on all its members,
supporters and people of conscience to contact the White House to demand
that the Obama administration direct the Israeli leadership, currently
in Washington DC, to immediately release and end to the systematic and
institutionalized abuse of all Palestinian children in Israeli prisons
in accordance with international law. The US government, which supports
Israel to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars a year while
most ordinary Americans are suffering in a very bad economy, is bound by
its laws to cut off all aid to Israel until it ends all of its
violations of human rights and basic freedoms in a verifiable manner.
Four
Israeli civilians in a car were shot dead in the West Bank on Tuesday
on the eve of a U.S. sponsored Middle East peace summit in Washington,
an Israel Army spokeswoman said.
