Friday, July 11, 2008

ANC Delegation: Israeli Hafradah is “Worse Than Apartheid”

Well, the interminable argument over whether the Israeli system of hafradah ("separation") between West Bank Jews and Palestinians constitutes apartheid is now over. The experts were called in, and they have ruled: It's not apartheid.

According to some of them, it's worse.

A high-ranking delegation of ANC veterans, some of whom were jailed under apartheid, just completed a fact-finding mission of the West Bank. The delegation included Jews and non-Jews, Whites, Blacks, and Colored, a former deputy minister, and a high court justice..

I will reproduce here two articles that have appeared on the subject. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate those who organized the mission, both in Israel and in South Africa.

To call hafradah apartheid is an insult against apartheid and the White supremacist regime of South Africa.

The first article is from the Independent.

'This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank

By Donald Macintyre in Hebron
Friday, 11 July 2008

Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the restrictions endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.

Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank.

After a five-day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, some delegates expressed shock and dismay at conditions in the Israeli-controlled heart of Hebron. Uniquely among West Bank cities, 800 settlers now live there and segregation has seen the closure of nearly 3,000 Palestinian businesses and housing units. Palestinian cars (and in some sections pedestrians) are prohibited from using the once busy streets.

"Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here," said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the West Bank. "There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it's impossible."

Mrs Madlala-Routledge, a former deputy health minister in President Thabo Mbeki's government, added: "While I want to be careful not to characterise everything that I see here as apartheid, I just do find comparisons in a number of places. I also find differences."

Comparisons with apartheid have long been anathema to majority Israeli opinion, though they have been somewhat less taboo since the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, last year warned that without an early two-state agreement Israel could face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights.

Fatima Hassan, a leading South African human rights lawyer, said: "The issue of separate roads, [different registration] of cars driven by different nationalities, the indignity of producing a permit any time a soldier asks for it, and of waiting in long queues in the boiling sun at checkpoints just to enter your own city, I think is worse than what we experienced during apartheid." She was speaking after the tour, which included a visit to the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem and a meeting with Israel's Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch.

One prominent member of the delegation, who declined to be named, said South Africa had been "much poorer" both during and after apartheid than the Palestinian territories. But he added: "The daily indignity to which the Palestinian population is subjected far outstrips the apartheid regime. And the effectiveness with which the bureaucracy implements the repressive measures far exceed that of the apartheid regime."

Members of the delegation – the first of its kind – visited Nablus as well as towns and villages bordering the separation barrier, including Na'alin where a temporary curfew was imposed after joint Israeli-Palestinian demonstrations against the barrier.

The visit was organised by Israeli human rights groups which co-operate with Palestinians committed to non-violent campaigns against Israeli occupation.

In Hebron's main Shuhada Street, the South African delegation was plunged into a confrontation after one of the local settlers' leaders disrupted the tour by unleashing a barrage of abuse through a megaphone at one of the Israeli guides. Amid angry arguments, police arrested three of the Israeli guides.

Mrs Madlala Routledge exclaimed: "This is ridiculous. Why are they arresting our guides and leaving the man with the megaphone?"

Dennis Davis, a high court judge and one of the South African delegation's several Jewish members, told the extreme right-wing Hebron settlers' leader Baruch Marzel: "These provocations didn't come from us. I'm Jewish and I look at this and I say to myself, how can I feel fear from other Jews?"

Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliament member, said that the visit to Yad Vashem had been "extremely moving" because his mother had been a Holocaust survivor who lost many members of her family. "As you walk into Yad Vashem you see a quote that says in effect you should know a country not only by what it does but what it tolerates," he said. "So I found it very shocking to then come and here and see footage of teenagers heaping abuse on Palestinian children as they come out of school, and throwing stones at them. And that this should be done in the name of Judaism I find totally reprehensible.

"What the Holocaust teaches us more than anything else is that we must never turn our heads away in the face of injustice."

The delegation's final formal statement made no mention of comparisons with apartheid and Judge Davis said he thought the use of the term in the Middle East context was "very unhelpful".

He added: "The level of social control I've seen here, separate roads, different number plates [between Palestinian and Israeli cars] may well be more cynically pernicious than what we have ever had. But this is a country that is really about how there is going to be divorce and we were always a marriage." Ms Hassan herself said she thought the apartheid comparison was a potential "red herring".

Israelis point out there are no South-African-style laws segregating Israeli East Jerusalem Arabs from Israeli Jews in public spaces.

The delegation yesterday urged international support for the "new and small movement of Palestinian-Israeli joint non-violent struggle". And its members stressed their understanding of Israeli security needs. Mr Feinstein said: "I completely understand the fears of Israelis ... but at the same time we have seen for ourselves and been told about all sorts of measures that don't seem to be in terms of security and in some instances could if anything undermine security of state."

The delegation also visited the Parents' Circle – a joint organisation of Israeli and Palestinian families bereaved by the conflict. Ms Hassan said this had been at once the most "depressing and inspiring" visit of the trip.

And our own Gideon Levy, God bless him, here

'Worse than apartheid'

By Gideon Levy

I thought they would feel right at home in the alleys of Balata refugee camp, the Casbah and the Hawara checkpoint. But they said there is no comparison: for them the Israeli occupation regime is worse than anything they knew under apartheid. This week, 21 human rights activists from South Africa visited Israel. Among them were members of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress; at least one of them took part in the armed struggle and at least two were jailed. There were two South African Supreme Court judges, a former deputy minister, members of Parliament, attorneys, writers and journalists. Blacks and whites, about half of them Jews who today are in conflict with attitudes of the conservative Jewish community in their country. Some of them have been here before; for others it was their first visit.

For five days they paid an unconventional visit to Israel - without Sderot, the IDF and the Foreign Ministry (but with Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and a meeting with Supreme Court President Justice Dorit Beinisch. They spent most of their time in the occupied areas, where hardly any official guests go - places that are also shunned by most Israelis.

On Monday they visited Nablus, the most imprisoned city in the West Bank. From Hawara to the Casbah, from the Casbah to Balata, from Joseph's Tomb to the monastery of Jacob's Well. They traveled from Jerusalem to Nablus via Highway 60, observing the imprisoned villages that have no access to the main road, and seeing the "roads for the natives," which pass under the main road. They saw and said nothing. There were no separate roads under apartheid. They went through the Hawara checkpoint mutely: they never had such barriers.

Jody Kollapen, who was head of Lawyers for Human Rights in the apartheid regime, watches silently. He sees the "carousel" into which masses of people are jammed on their way to work, visit family or go to the hospital. Israeli peace activist Neta Golan, who lived for several years in the besieged city, explains that only 1 percent of the inhabitants are allowed to leave the city by car, and they are suspected of being collaborators with Israel. Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a former deputy minister of defense and of health and a current member of Parliament, a revered figure in her country, notices a sick person being taken through on a stretcher and is shocked. "To deprive people of humane medical care? You know, people die because of that," she says in a muted voice.

The tour guides - Palestinian activists - explain that Nablus is closed off by six checkpoints. Until 2005, one of them was open. "The checkpoints are supposedly for security purposes, but anyone who wants to perpetrate an attack can pay NIS 10 for a taxi and travel by bypass roads, or walk through the hills.

The real purpose is to make life hard for the inhabitants. The civilian population suffers," says Said Abu Hijla, a lecturer at Al-Najah University in the city.

In the bus I get acquainted with my two neighbors: Andrew Feinstein, a son of Holocaust survivors who is married to a Muslim woman from Bangladesh and served six years as an MP for the ANC; and Nathan Gefen, who has a male Muslim partner and was a member of the right-wing Betar movement in his youth. Gefen is active on the Committee against AIDS in his AIDS-ravaged country.

"Look left and right," the guide says through a loudspeaker, "on the top of every hill, on Gerizim and Ebal, is an Israeli army outpost that is watching us." Here are bullet holes in the wall of a school, there is Joseph's Tomb, guarded by a group of armed Palestinian policemen. Here there was a checkpoint, and this is where a woman passerby was shot to death two years ago. The government building that used to be here was bombed and destroyed by F-16 warplanes. A thousand residents of Nablus were killed in the second intifada, 90 of them in Operation Defensive Shield - more than in Jenin. Two weeks ago, on the day the Gaza Strip truce came into effect, Israel carried out its last two assassinations here for the time being. Last night the soldiers entered again and arrested people.

It has been a long time since tourists visited here. There is something new: the numberless memorial posters that were pasted to the walls to commemorate the fallen have been replaced by marble monuments and metal plaques in every corner of the Casbah.

"Don't throw paper into the toilet bowl, because we have a water shortage," the guests are told in the offices of the Casbah Popular Committee, located high in a spectacular old stone building. The former deputy minister takes a seat at the head of the table. Behind her are portraits of Yasser Arafat, Abu Jihad and Marwan Barghouti - the jailed Tanzim leader. Representatives of the Casbah residents describe the ordeals they face. Ninety percent of the children in the ancient neighborhood suffer from anemia and malnutrition, the economic situation is dire, the nightly incursions are continuing, and some of the inhabitants are not allowed to leave the city at all. We go out for a tour on the trail of devastation wrought by the IDF over the years.

Edwin Cameron, a judge on the Supreme Court of Appeal, tells his hosts: "We came here lacking in knowledge and are thirsty to know. We are shocked by what we have seen until now. It is very clear to us that the situation here is intolerable." A poster pasted on an outside wall has a photograph of a man who spent 34 years in an Israeli prison. Mandela was incarcerated seven years less than that. One of the Jewish members of the delegation is prepared to say, though not for attribution, that the comparison with apartheid is very relevant and that the Israelis are even more efficient in implementing the separation-of-races regime than the South Africans were. If he were to say this publicly, he would be attacked by the members of the Jewish community, he says.

Under a fig tree in the center of the Casbah one of the Palestinian activists explains: "The Israeli soldiers are cowards. That is why they created routes of movement with bulldozers. In doing so they killed three generations of one family, the Shubi family, with the bulldozers." Here is the stone monument to the family - grandfather, two aunts, mother and two children. The words "We will never forget, we will never forgive" are engraved on the stone.

No less beautiful than the famed Paris cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, the central cemetery of Nablus rests in the shadow of a large grove of pine trees. Among the hundreds of headstones, those of the intifada victims stand out. Here is the fresh grave of a boy who was killed a few weeks ago at the Hawara checkpoint. The South Africans walk quietly between the graves, pausing at the grave of the mother of our guide, Abu Hijla. She was shot 15 times. "We promise you we will not surrender," her children wrote on the headstone of the woman who was known as "mother of the poor."

Lunch is in a hotel in the city, and Madlala-Routledge speaks. "It is hard for me to describe what I am feeling. What I see here is worse than what we experienced. But I am encouraged to find that there are courageous people here. We want to support you in your struggle, by every possible means. There are quite a few Jews in our delegation, and we are very proud that they are the ones who brought us here. They are demonstrating their commitment to support you. In our country we were able to unite all the forces behind one struggle, and there were courageous whites, including Jews, who joined the struggle. I hope we will see more Israeli Jews joining your struggle."

She was deputy defense minister from 1999 to 2004; in 1987 she served time in prison. Later, I asked her in what ways the situation here is worse than apartheid. "The absolute control of people's lives, the lack of freedom of movement, the army presence everywhere, the total separation and the extensive destruction we saw."

Madlala-Routledge thinks that the struggle against the occupation is not succeeding here because of U.S. support for Israel - not the case with apartheid, which international sanctions helped destroy. Here, the racist ideology is also reinforced by religion, which was not the case in South Africa. "Talk about the 'promised land' and the 'chosen people' adds a religious dimension to racism which we did not have."

Equally harsh are the remarks of the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times of South Africa, Mondli Makhanya, 38. "When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid.

"The apartheid regime viewed the blacks as inferior; I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all. How can a human brain engineer this total separation, the separate roads, the checkpoints? What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible - and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible. We also knew that it would end one day; here there is no end in sight. The end of the tunnel is blacker than black.

"Under apartheid, whites and blacks met in certain places. The Israelis and the Palestinians do not meet any longer at all. The separation is total. It seems to me that the Israelis would like the Palestinians to disappear. There was never anything like that in our case. The whites did not want the blacks to disappear. I saw the settlers in Silwan [in East Jerusalem] - people who want to expel other people from their place."

Afterward we walk silently through the alleys of Balata, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank, a place that was designated 60 years ago to be a temporary haven for 5,000 refugees and is now inhabited by 26,000. In the dark alleys, which are about the width of a thin person, an oppressive silence prevailed. Everyone was immersed in his thoughts, and only the voice of the muezzin broke the stillness.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jerry you forget something. The Palestinians brought their current Hafradah situation largely upon themselves. Like you, I used to oppose Israel's presence in the West Bank but frankly the "peace process" is an unsustainable paradigm. Sadly, I must say to them their request for statehood cannot be honoured at this time. It's a thing with me. I value the lives of my fellow Jews better than those of Arabs. Call me a racist if you will, I can live with that.

Furthermore, I'm reminded of a decent man named Ian Smith who was forced to sign his country away in 1979 to a thug named Robert Mugabe. The rest is all history. I'd rather see hundreds of ANC led delegations come to Medinat Yisrael to castigate us than to see Mr. Abbas get his trainwreck republic!

Jerry Haber said...

David,

You may be new to the blog, or you may not have read my post on the Dove of Peace (see sidebar on the right). Had you read that, you would see that I couldn't care less about the "peace process". The peace process is an invention of Israeli govts. and the PLO to keep themselves in power.

The Palestinians have an internationally-recognized right to a state; they have had one at least since 1947, whether at the time they accepted partition or not. They need Israel's permission for a state to the same extent that Israel needed their permission for a state. You seem to think that Palestinian statehood is a gift from the Zionists to the Palestinians if they behave.

Let me put it bluntly: if the price for a strong and secure Israel is the ongoing suffering of 3 1/2 million Palestinians in a situation "worse than apartheid" -- then only a mafia moralist (or a moral monster) wouldn't look for alternatives to the current political situation. Certainly no decent Zionist -- including Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, or Jabotinsky -- would have supported a Jewish state under those conditions. And nobody who ever argued for Zionism before the court of world opinion ever said that this would be necessary. It is completely irrelevant who is more responsible.

Finally, David, if you truly are a Zionist, then your main concern is not the "lives of your fellow Jews." They would be much safer in the US than in Israel with or without the wall in the West Bank. No, you have ideological concerns that transcend the physical safety and security of Jews; otherwise you would not support the state of Israel. That's your prerogative, of course. But don't pretend that you wouldn't sacrifice the safety and lives of thousands of Jews for your ideal of Jewish statehood.

Having said that, I don't call you a racist. I would call you a tribalist with a mafia morality. But not a racist.

Anonymous said...

Jerry I would love to see the Palestinians enjoy the state you claim they are worthy of, however, as a tribalist, as you suggest, I need to be sure that my own National Community can live with that entity. I do not have that assurance at this time and I'm confident that Ben-Guiron and Jabotinsky would eagerly stand for their own people and land first before extending courtesies to others, especially those whose track record is less than favorable!

Anonymous said...

Hi Jerry

I'm completely new to the post so please excuse my ignorance if I get anything wrong in terms of your political stance.

I was born in Israel and grew up in South Africa - so you can see why this post is of interest. I find it hilarious that an ANC delegation can come to Israel - or any part of the world - and criticize on any level. They have turned into the very people they hated and I believe the quality of life for the average black South African has indeed declined since they came into power. This is not to say that Apartheid wasn't despicable - its to say that they threw the baby out of the bathwater. Now its the Chinese and other foreigners that are buying up Africa for profit only, not really caring about the land or its people - and they will ultimately be in charge anyway.

I was irked by your reply to David L when you mentioned that if he was a zionist then he doesn't really care about the lives of his Jewish brethren in Israel as they would be safer in the US. I see this exact situation with the supporters of the arabs who live in Gaza and the West Bank. If they really cared about these people they would move them into the neighbouring muslim neighbours, educate and feed them until they are back on their feet and making a life with their brethren.

The huge difference between the two sides is that the Jews who live in Israel maintain a safe haven for those around the world just in case another holocaust will ever happen. They are financially and politically supported by Jews around the world who realise the importance of ensuring its safety and they have seen with their own eyes that ElAl planes take off to fetch Jews in trouble all over the world.

What is the benefit of keeping the arabs who live in Gaza and the West Bank - please help me with this as I can't work it out?

As for the jews taking land that wasn't theirs, the history is now so clouded that its impossible to find out what the real story was anyway. I just think its a little ridiculous for anyone living in the US and Great Britain to say that land you won in wars isn't yours. Its the height of "Do what I say not what I do"

Ultimately its futile to spend so much time looking at the past to find answers when we could be dealing with the present and how to improve quality of life for the people involved.

Jerry Haber said...

Anonymous, quick response for Shabbat.

1) Apparently you are not familiar with the folks who came on the trip. They are former ANC members who are in opposition to the current ANC government. So your first paragraph misses the mark entirely.

2) I don't understand what you find wrong with my criticism of David L. On the one hand, you are irked by my suggestion. On the other hand, you want the supporters of the Palestinians to do the same thing for them -- to urge them to seek their safety.

If you understand why, as a Jew, it is important for your identity and your for your people to live as a free people in your homeland, to quote Hatikva, why don't you get that this is precisely what the Palestinians want? And if you think that this ideal is work sacrificing your life for, why don't you get that this is what the Palestinians believe?

Finally, you write

"I just think its a little ridiculous for anyone living in the US and Great Britain to say that land you won in wars isn't yours. Its the height of "Do what I say not what I do"

Don't you realize that the rules of the game changed after World War II? Read the Fourth Geneva Convention. How much territory did the US and Great Britain acquire in World War II? And by the way, if the rule changes irk you, you may ponder that without the international climate following World War II that produced the conventions, there would not have been diplomatic recognition of the Jewish State. So you really honestly can't have one without the other.

The treatment of the Native American is a permanent stain on the United States that should be recognized and rectified, as much as is possible today. Reasonable people will disagree about what that rectification will be.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jerry

My feeling is that Israel came about because the British and Americans didn't know what to do with the Jewish refugees that were streaming out of camps at the end of WWII. They didn't want them so they put them in a land that they had previously conquered - the whole political landscape was just a sophisticated mask of previous methods of claiming land.

I see the same concept with the ANC - a sophisticated mask of ancient African tribalism. And my question to these anti ANC tourists is - in light of whats happening in the rest of Africa - how exactly did they think things would turn out?

The only difference I see between the Palestinians and the Jews is that the Palestinians can freely practice their religion in many more countries then the Jews. Therefore one has a choice of where to live and the other doesn't.

And again, the question you didn't try and tackle - and its a hard one - who is benefitting from keeping the Gaza and West Bank residents in their current situation?