Time to act against Israel's apartheid tendencies

In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution which asserted that Zionism was racism. The resolution read: “The General Assembly … determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

This resolution was passed at a time when the state of Israel was in cahoots with apartheid South Africa, it covertly assisted the brutish apartheid regime in the development of nuclear weapons. All this happened against international attempts to isolate apartheid South Africa and against the US’s desperate attempt to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Israel provided military support to the apartheid government and by that it consequently assisted the apartheid government in the systematic slaughter of innocent men, women and children who clamoured for their freedom. Both Israel and apartheid South Africa deemed freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat terrorists and their organisations, the African National Congress and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, were targeted through military thuggery.

This resolution gave the Israeli government an excuse to intensify its Zionist campaign through the expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories and by playing an international victim that is surrounded by enemies everywhere. This expansion of settlements is against the backdrop of the questionable UN resolution 181 of 1947 which partitioned Palestinian territory between Jews and Arabs. It was a resolution that initiated the so-called independence of Israel in 1948 against the protest of the Arab populace.

Coincidentally 1948 was the year that DF Malan won the general elections in South Africa and with such victory apartheid was enacted into law and racial discrimination was officially institutionalised. The relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa is something not impressed upon often when we make reflections on particular historical events. The general pattern is to view Israel as only a nation of Jewish survivors of some of the greatest atrocities ever visited upon human beings while ignoring the subsequent atrocities committed by the very same nation against those who seek their freedom. Commonsense would inform a reasonable man that a nation of victims of the Holocaust would be guided by some measure of compassion and moral fortitude in their affairs with the Palestinians, yet to the contrary, hostility and military thuggery has defined the relationship between Jews and Arabs.

Relations between Israel and Palestine soured greatly after the Six-Day War of 1967, after which Israel moved to gain control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel’s action went against the UN Security Council resolution 228 of 1966 which condemned its military reprisals. In that resolution the Security Council promised to “consider further and more effective steps as envisaged in the (UN) Charter to ensure against the repetition of such (military) acts”. And as it has become rather common, the Security Council took no action against Israel’s military escapades and violation of its resolutions.

It was apparent from the 1960s that Israel was untouchable and enjoyed the protection of the US at the Security Council. It may have therefore made political sense for the apartheid regime, an international pariah, to forge close ties with the state of Israel. The relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa was cemented by state visits between the two countries. In April 1976, John Vorster, on invitation from the Israelis, met with Yitzhak Rabin on a state visit. This was at a time when apartheid South Africa was in advanced stages of developing nuclear weapons. It had already completed two nuclear test shafts, north of Upington. In 1981, after visiting the South African forces in Namibia, Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon said the apartheid regime needed more military weapons. Israel was publicly denouncing apartheid while it propped up the apartheid regime militarily and assisted its campaign of terror against the oppressed people.

Israel’s support of apartheid is a fact of history which was validated by Nelson Mandela on his visit to Israel in 1999 when he said: “To the many people who have questioned why I came, I say: Israel worked very closely with the apartheid regime. I say: I’ve made peace with many men who slaughtered our people like animals. Israel cooperated with the apartheid regime, but it did not participate in any atrocities.” Where Mandela was wrong was to say Israel did not participate in any atrocities. It may have not directly participated in these apartheid atrocities but did indirectly through its supply of weapons to the Nationalist regime.

The campaign of terror by the Israeli government continues to this day. The general and implausible excuse by the Israeli government in justifying its campaign of terror is that it is being denied the right to exist, that it faces imminent threat from its neighbours, in particular Iran. It is somewhat an imagined threat as Israel has the military capability to protect itself from hostile neighbours. Neither Hamas, Hezbollah nor Iran has the military capability to pose any direct threat on the continued existence of Israel.

Israel has specifically isolated Hamas as one of the groups that threaten its national security and has imposed a Gaza blockade effectively subjecting countless numbers of Palestinians to starvation and a lack of access to healthcare etc. This follows the 2009 Israeli military adventure into Gaza where thousands of innocent women and children were slaughtered because Hamas had been firing rockets at Israeli towns, though there had been no loss of lives as a result. Israel responded to Hamas’s firecrackers with untold and unimaginable brutality while the international community sat on the sidelines and did nothing to protect innocent women and children butchered by Israeli forces.

It is in understanding these historical facts that one begins to comprehend the general solidarity that black South Africans share with the people of Palestine. The pain they endure at the hands of Israeli thuggery is the pain we share equally with them, because it is the pain we had to endure at the hands of the merciless apartheid regime. It is time that the local Jewish community begins to renounce the Israeli government’s military thuggery and support the campaign to end its apartheid tendencies and in particular the Gaza blockade. The preservation of the historical sentiment towards Israel by the local Jewish community does not assist in the promotion of international justice, peace and human rights. The Goldstone Report on Gaza found both Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes and gross violations of human rights. We must be unequivocal in condemning both sides, whether you are a Jew, Arab or African.

The end of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and violation of human rights begins when we condemn all rogue regimes and take decisive action against them. Equality before international law is paramount. When countries such as Iran are isolated and stringent sanctions imposed upon them, equally countries such as Israel should be subject to the same punishment. The continued protection of Israel only serves to breed resentment against the Jewish nation by the Arab world. The fight against terrorism cannot be won when all known perpetrators of such acts are not held to account. The Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Gaza massacre happened because nations of the world, in particular those with the capacity to act, preferred to be spectators to crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights.

Hypocrisy appears to have generally been accepted to be an integral part of politics. The betrayal of the people’s trust is something that we have accustomed to accept because we have conditioned ourselves to embrace men and women of dubious constitution as masters of our destiny. Ironically, these are the very same individuals upon whom we claim to entrust with the arduous task of serving us and delivering on the promises they make. By condoning mediocrity we have nurtured politicians to becoming a menace to society. The world is in its current state because we the people have allowed it to degenerate into this seemingly unmanageable state. Wanton and indiscriminate acts of political thuggery by nations happen because we let politicians ran amok in our name.