"Carter faces revolt over book on Middle East"
"Tutu condemns Israeli 'apartheid'"
Is It Apartheid?
Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one progressive, liberal in Israel; the other cruel--injurious--in the occupied territories. In effect we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day. This is the harsh reality that is causing us to lose the moral base of our existence as a free, just society and to jeopardize Israel's long-term survival.--Michael Ben Yair, Former Attorney General of the state of Israel
(Ha'aretz, 3/3/02, cited in Jeff Halper, Obstacles to Peace, 2004 p. 50)
Carter faces revolt over book on Middle East
Ed Pilkington, 12 January 2007, The Guardian (UK) (Full story)
The former US president Jimmy Carter was facing a revolt from some of his own supporters yesterday after 14 members of the advisory board of his human rights organisation resigned in protest at his view on Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr Carter has faced a backlash to the argument in his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, for a renewed effort to kick-start the Middle East peace process. The book has been denounced by some commentators as anti-Israeli.
...The book tracks the peace process from Mr Carter's role as an architect of the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel. It blames all sides in the conflict but is especially critical of successive Israeli governments. "Israeli bad faith fills the pages," wrote the New York Times book reviewer.
The most vociferous attacks on Mr Carter have come from the pro-Israeli Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard law school. In a series of articles published on a Boston website under the title Ex-President For Sale, Prof Dershowitz has accused Mr Carter of having been in hock to Arab leaders in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
...Part of the reason reaction to Mr Carter's book has been so fervent has been his use of the word apartheid to describe the lot of Palestinians, a comparison with the former racist regime in South African vehemently rejected by Israel.*
The very title of Jimmy Carter's new book has stirred a huge controversy in America, as he dares to make a comparison between the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the rejected racist system in South Africa. We understand that this is difficult emotional territory for many people. Nevertheless, what Carter says is far from outlandish. And painful truths must sometimes be faced with candor, rather than angrily brushed aside.
Actually, the apartheid analogy is often used by Israelis themselves, even high public officials. As Knesset member Yossi Beilin puts it:
"It is not that Israelis are indifferent to what is said about them, but the threshold of what passes as acceptable here (in Israel) is apparently much higher than it is with Israel's friends in the US...There is nothing in the criticism that Carter has for Israel that has not been said by Israelis themselves."
(Yossi Beilin, "The Case for Carter", in THE FORWARD, 16 Jan. 2007)
Even Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel's domestic intelligence service, the Shin Bet (1993-2000) has said that in the Occupied Territories, Israel is "guilty of apartheid policies". He was a key figure in Israel's own "war on terrorism". But he advocates a break with the past.
(cf. Tracy Wilkerson, "Israeli hawk considers run at a wounded Dove", LA TIMES, 5 Dec. 2000).
Pro-Israel organizations often claim that the apartheid parallel is unfair because Israeli Arabs have the right to vote and stand for office, and Israel is a majority rule state, not a minority-rule one. But this reasoning is superficial. The majority of Arabs under effective Israeli rule live in the Occupied Territories, under de facto military dictatorship. Israel acheived its majority status in 1948 only by forced removal of the native population. South Africa, by its Bantustan policy, tried to become a "white majority state" by similar means. Blacks were to be deprived of citizenship, shipped off to isolated "homelands" completely surrounded by South Africa, and treated as "guest workers" in the white "democratic" state. Nor would anyone have said that South Africa had abolished apartheid had it enfranchised merely some of its non-white citizens.
Israeli Arabs, subject to military rule until 1966 and extensive political surveillance thereafter, today live in largely segregated communities, have an education system deemed by Human Rights Watch "separate and unequal", and their GDP per capita is one-third that of Israel's Jewish citizens.
(Yoav Stern, "GDP per capita in Jewish sector 3 times more than among Israeli Arabs", in HA'ARETZ, 1/19/07; Human Rights Watch World Report 2001, "Israeli Schools: Separate, not Equal". www.hrw.org/press/2001/12/SecondClass1205.htm).
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories suffer even greater inequalities. Israeli-only roads criss-cross their country and checkpoints make daily life nearly impossible.Their land is confiscated for settlement use; they are harassed and abused by soldiers and settlers. Israeli settlers use 6 times more water per capita than Palestinians. Palestinians use only 60 liters of water per capita daily; the World Health Organization minimum is 100 liters. 80% of the water in the mountain acquifer goes to Israel or the settlements. This is the only source of water for the West Bank.
(cf. Jeff Halper, OBTACLES TO PEACE, Jerusalem: al-Manar Press, 2004, p. 19)
Everyone today talks about a two-state solution. We forget that until just a few years ago, it would have been political suicide for anyone to advocate this in the US, because of the opposition of AIPAC and others. The problem is that the West Bank has been peppered with settlements from top to bottom, all of them illegal, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, article 49. It is very difficult to visualize dividing the land up to create a viable Palestinian state. Israeli governments have a record of deceit on this issue. Menahem Begin was candid: he had no intention of allowing a Palestinian state. But even in the Oslo period (1993-2000), when Israel claimed to be getting ready to trade land for peace, the West Bank settler population actually doubled. There was more settlement activity under the "dove" Ehud Barak than under his "hawkish" predecessor, Benyamin Netanyahu. Last year, the settler population increased by 6%.
(Yehezkel Lein, LAND GRAB: ISRAEL'S SETTLEMENT POLICY IN THE WEST BANK, A REPORT FOR B'TSELEM: Israeli Center For Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, May 2002 p. 17; Shahar Ilan, "Interior Ministry: West Bank Settler Population grew by 6 % in 2006", in HA'ARETZ, 1/19/07)
How then can we assume that the Israeli government is sincere about the "two-state solution"? How can its professed desire for peace be reconciled with continued territorial expansion?
Israel may have painted itself into a corner. if we consider the whole territory effectively ruled by Israel, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan river, the land will soon have a non-Jewish majority. This will happen by 2020 at the latest, according to Israeli demographers.
(cf. Sergio Della Pergola, "A question of numbers", in HA'ARETZ, 1/25/06).
Israel thus faces a stark choice. It can become a transparent minority rule regime. It can expel the Palestinians. It can create a sham Palestinian state, like the Bantustans of South Africa. It can become a non-sectarian or binational state. Or it can resume negotiations for a real two-state solution.
The so-called "generous offer" of Ehud Barak at Camp David in July 2000 was a Bantustan offer. As Barak advisor Professor Menahem Klein of Bar Ilan University later admitted, the "state" he offered lacked sovereignty and territorial contiguity. It was not the real thing and Arafat would have been overthrown had he accepted this deal.
(Menahem Klein, "The Origins of Intifada II and Rescuing Peace for Palestinians and Israelis", lecture, Washington, 2 Oct. 2002: www.pepeace.org/current reprints%20Peace.htm).
Avraham Berg, a Labor Party leader, former Knesset Speaker, former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, put the issue this way in 2003:
"The end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep...There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be of a different sort, strange and ugly...Do you want the greater land of Israel (i.e. annexing the West Bank)? No problem. Abandon democracy. Let's institute a system of racial separation here, with prison camps and detention villages. Do you want a Jewish majority? No problem. Either put the Arabs on railway cars, buses and donkeys and expel them en masse--or separate ourselves from them absolutely, with no tricks or gimmicks. There is no middle path. We must remove all the settlements-all of them--and draw an internationally recognized border between the Jewish national home and the Palestinian national home".
(Avraham Berg, THE END OF ZIONISM, in the GUARDIAN, 15 Sept. 2003)
Michael Ben-Yair, Ami Ayalon, and Avraham Berg do not hate the Jewish people or want to wipe Israel off the map. Neither does Jimmy Carter. We all need to work for a real ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians, not just a "period of calm". The boycott of the Palestinian unity government must end and the two sides must go back to the negotiating table. Time is running out.
 (Photo by Anna Baltzer, annainthemiddleeast.com) |
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." --Robert Frost Is this an "apartheid wall" or a "fence"? Or a "security barrier"? The language may be abstract, but the fence is not. It's very real. It is ugly--but is it needed? Is it for defense? If so, why is 80% of it inside Palestinian territory instead of on the internationally recognized border, or Green Line? It's an offense, in every sense--a true barrier to the security of both Israelis and Palestinians.
Was a big high wall there
--Woody Guthrie |
|
then . . . South Africa
"Since the late 1960s, when the program for urban relocation was launched, there has been a virtual freeze on the building of houses for Africans outside the bantustans...Everywhere this is having the effect of squeezing African people desperate for the security of a home of their own into the Bantustans..." "Physical development in Huhudi has been actively frozen since 1970. People have been prohibited from putting up new structures because according to National Party policy the place has been earmarked for removal" "Although the Administrative Boards prohibited owners from improving or even maintaining their houses over the years, they are now using the fact that the houses are dilapidated as a reason for clearing the areas." (Laurine Platzky and Cherryl Walker, The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa, Johannesburg: Ravan's Press, 1985 pp. 161, 203) |
Israel/Palestine . . . now
"[In 1993, Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek] acknowledged the existence of a policy ‘followed by all governments since 1967', that restricted Arab growth in East Jerusalem by setting a strict limit on the number of new homes built in their neighborhoods....[This was] the first time an Israeli official--and not just any official but the Mayor of Jerusalem himself--had publicly acknowledged the existence of a policy to ensure Israel's demographic superiority in Jerusalem...The strict limits on Arab housing starts is, in fact, a poorly kept secret in Jerusalem. A good number of city officials make decisions, day in and day out, based on these limits." (Amir Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem, Harvard University Press, 1999 p. 30. Cheshin and Melamed were advisors to former Mayor Kollek.) Arabs with growing families are forced to build without permits; the "illegal' structures are then demolished. Arabs are systematically pressured to move out. |
Tutu condemns Israeli 'apartheid'
Monday, 29 April, 2002, 11:55 GMT 12:55 UK (Original story)
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused Israel of practicing apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians. The Nobel peace laureate said he was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to the Holy Land, adding that "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa".
In a speech in the United States, carried in the UK's Guardian newspaper, Archbishop Tutu said he saw "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about".
The archbishop, who was a leading opponent of apartheid in South Africa, said Israel would "never get true security and safety through oppressing another people".
Archbishop Tutu said his criticism of the Israeli Government did not mean he was anti-Semitic.
"I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group," he said.
The archbishop attacked the political power of Jewish groups in the United States, saying: "People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful--very powerful. Well, so what? The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust," he said.
Speaking at a conference called Ending the Oppression in Boston, Archbishop Tutu told delegates Jewish people had been at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.*
He asked: "Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?
"Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions?"
The archbishop said that while he condemned suicide bombings by Palestinian militants against Israel, Israeli military action would not bring security to the Jewish state.
Israel must "strive for peace based on justice, based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on those territories side by side with Israel, both with secure borders," he said.
* Like all people of conscience--and in the long Jewish tradition of respect and activism for human rights--many Jewish people opposed apartheid in South Africa. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the Israeli government supported the white minority government in South Africa by selling arms to it in violation of an arms embargo. (Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter, South End Press, 1987.)
--PJP
Opposition to a nation's policy is not the same as oppression of that nation's people. |
Why don't Americans hear about that? |
| Israel stands in violation of both international law and dozens of UN resolutions, including Resolution 242...and the United States stands with Israel, repeatedly using its Security Council status to veto UN resolutions and defy international consensus. | The U.S. places no human-rights conditions on the billions in annual aid to Israel--billions that come from U.S. taxpayers' pockets. By contrast, the U.S. withdrew aid to Palestinians when they freely and fairly elected Hamas as their government. |
Now that you know more about the controversy over Mr. Carter's book, these are actions you can take to support free speech on this vital international issue:
- Buy Carter's book and read it. (And discuss it with your friends, family, and coworkers. Or with us.)
- Give a copy to friends, family members, local libraries, and your Congressional representatives in the House and Senate.
- Sign the petition to Amazon.com for their discriminatory negative "demotion" of the book here.
- Support Mr. Carter and the work of the Carter Center in every venue you have access to.
- Insist on Americans' right to free speech on the issue of a just solution for the Palestinian people--a right that Israeli journalists and peace activists already enjoy and exercise.
