Mondoweiss: Are comparisons of South African apartheid and Israel useful?

[Little Tich]

4. (allAfrica): South Africa: Are Comparisons of South African Apartheid and Israel Useful?

Source: allAfrica

JON SOSKE and SEAN JACOBS reflect on the utility of comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

The South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee has a habit of speaking in rhetoricals. The effect, however, is that he makes his point quite clearly. This was the case recently at the Palestine Festival of Literature, which travels through Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Speaking on the festival's last day, Coetzee noticed that "naturally people ask me what I see of South Africa in the present situation in Palestine."

At first, Coetzee suggested that using the word apartheid to describe the occupation is not a productive step ("it diverts one into an inflamed semantic wrangle which cuts short the opportunities of analysis&quot . Coetzee then offered a definition of South African apartheid: "Apartheid was a system of enforced segregation based on race or ethnicity, put in place by an exclusive, self defined group in order to consolidate colonial conquest particular to cement its hold on the land and natural resources." He continued, "In Jerusalem and the West Bank we see a system of ... " and proceeded to read the same definition, ending to applause: "Draw your own conclusions."

Although comparisons between Israel and South Africa stretch back to the early 1960s, the past decade has seen a growing recognition that Israel's policies should be characterised as apartheid. The term apartheid (Afrikaans for separation or apartness) gained currency among Afrikaner racial theorists in the 1930s and became the basis of government policy with the election of the Nationalist Party in 1948, which coincides with the founding of Israel. Subsequent global campaigns and UN conventions declared apartheid a crime, and extended its meaning to contexts beyond southern Africa.

More recently, two separate debates have developed regarding the idea of Israeli apartheid. The first is a dispute about legal definitions: Do Israeli actions in the occupied territories (or, in some formulations, the Israeli state's policy toward the Palestinian population, including refugees and Palestinian Israelis) amount to apartheid under the relevant international treaties? When the official statements of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign use the term, they are not making a direct analogy with the South African regime. They are arguing that Israeli policies should be condemned as the crime of apartheid under international law. The significance of this discussion is that the prohibition against apartheid is absolute under international law. In other words, a legal finding of apartheid would obligate the international community to end any aid that perpetuated the crime.

Read more: http://allafrica.com/stories/201606150776.html

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