We, South Africans who have lived through apartheid cannot be silent as another entire people are treated as non-human beings; people without rights or human dignity and facing daily humiliation. We cannot permit a ruthless state to use military jets, helicopter gun- ships and tanks on civilians. We cannot accept state assassinations of activists, the torture of political prisoners, the murder of children and collective punishment.
We, South Africans who lived for decades under rulers with a colonial mentality see Israeli occupation as a strange survival of colonialism in the 21st century. Only in Israel do we hear of `settlements' and `settlers'. Only in Israel do soldiers and armed civilian groups take over hilltops, demolish homes, uproot trees and destroy crops, shell schools, churches and mosques, plunder water reserves, and block access to an indigenous population's freedom of movement and right to earn a living. These human rights violations were unacceptable in apartheid South Africa and are an affront to us in apartheid Israel.
We South Africans faced apartheid and exploitation, bullets and prison, not with bouquets of flowers, but with resistance. We are proud of this, our history. This is the history of all oppressed people. Why should it be different for Palestinians? Born in squalid refugee camps, living in poverty and believing the world community does not care, more and more young Palestinians see empty futures, aborted hopes and feel unbearable frustrations. The great African- American poet, Langston Hughes, asked: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun…or does it explode?" The shocking suicide bombings answers this rhetorical question. Apartheid Israel has created a situation in which people feel they have nothing to lose. This dangerous situation could be reversed, if the Israeli state and the one country that funds and supports it unconditionally- the US, as well as the world community, act in a moral and just manner.
It's Apartheid Again!
We note how the Israeli state rests on overt repression, a system of structural violence and institutionalised discrimination that dehumanises one group to the advantage of another. Apartheid Israel has developed an elaborate system of racial discrimination, embedded in its legal system-even surpassing Apartheid South Africa's laws. These laws include the Law of Entry, the Law of Return, Citizenship Law, legally sanctioned discriminatory rabbinical rulings and the Military Service Law. Palestinians are denied various welfare benefits, access to many jobs, and the leasing of homes and land controlled by government bodies. We realise that while Palestinians within the '48 borders may vote, they face these discriminatory laws and are treated like third class citizens. Electricity, sewerage, roads and water supplies are provided free to Israeli households whereas many Palestinian communities in Israel, let alone the occupied territories, have existed for decades without adequate services. The Israeli education system is racist in practice and in content. Almost no Arab history is covered and there are no Arab textbooks in the Israeli curricula. Palestinians also face significant barriers in gaining access to universities. In South Africa similar factors contributed to the Uprisings in 1976 and the 1980s.
Laws governing land ownership such as the Law of Acquisition of Absentee Property and the Law for Acquisition of Land blatantly discriminate against Palestinians. Although settlers constitute a tiny minority in the West Bank, they own 60 percent of the land. Many of these settlers come from the US, the ex-Soviet Union and South Africa. In Gaza, 6000 settlers live among a population of one million Palestinians yet they own 42 percent of the land. Land ownership in Palestine is more unjust than it ever was in South Africa. At the height of apartheid black people nominally `controlled' 13 percent of the land, in Israel the oppressed control only 2 percent. The Israeli government also pursues a grossly discriminatory water policy. In Gaza in 1985, for instance, settlers consume about 2000 cubic meters of water per person; Palestinians are allowed to consume only about 120.
Despite the terminology, we recognise segregation when we see it. The policy of `closures' is a policy of segregation. Blockades which allow settlers free movement but restrict Palestinians have lost 100 000 workers their jobs. Some roads are for settlers only. The Israeli government issues identification cards and car number-plates, colour coded, which restrict travel for non-Jews. Palestinians in the West Bank are routinely prevented from travelling to the Gaza Strip because they have to travel through `Israeli' territory. No significant industry has been permitted to develop in the West Bank or Gaza. Consequently, Palestinians are concentrated in the lowest paying jobs and form a super-exploited labour force for Israeli capital. The occupied territories import 93% of goods but export a mere 7% of what they produce. Palestinian exports to Western Europe are banned so as not to compete with Israeli exports. Ninety percent of Palestinian workers must travel to Jewish towns for employment.
Israel is, simply, an Apartheid state. Apartheid laws, such as the pass system and influx control, bantustans, job reservation, bantu education and laws resulting in unequal resource allocation live on. As one South African journalist wrote after visiting Israel: "In both countries [apartheid South Africa and apartheid Israel] `subordinate races' were dispossessed of their land and crowded into marginal, drought-stricken ghettoes; their movement was restricted; access to education and skilled jobs limited so that they inevitably sank into a pool of low wage labour. In both societies, bans on inter-marriage and daily lives segregated by race did little to dispel the fear and ignorance that feeds racial bigotry."
