WHY ISRAELI & SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID ARE SO SIMILAR
Israel is rapidly constructing a parallel network of West Bank roads
for Palestinians, who are barred from using the many existing (and
superior) routes reserved for Jews only.
B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, describes this system as
bearing clear similarities to Apartheid's exclusionary and isolating
alternate road system that existed in racist South Africa.
Professor Uri Davis prefers to describe himself as a "Palestinian Jew"
who is a citizen of Israel. He was born in Jerusalem in 1943 and his
autobiography, published in 1995, is called "Crossing the Border: an
Autobiography of an anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew." He is a founder of
MAIAP (the Movement against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine).
I have met him twice; the first time, over a year ago, and again
earlier this year. His passion for justice has greatly impressed me
and numerous others who have heard him speak, or studied his work.
In 1987, he wrote "Israel, An Apartheid State" which I read with great
interest. In 2003, he published an updated version, "Apartheid
Israel," and kindly gave me an autographed copy.
Prof. Davis is an anthropologist who, in addition to a Ph.D. in
Philosophical Anthropology, also holds a BA in Arabic and Philosophy
and an MA in Philosophy.
He is a much-respected academic activist in Britain, where he holds
honorary research fellowships at both the University of Durham's
Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (IMEIS), and the
University of Exeter's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS).
For almost thirty years, Prof. Davis has worked to expose the real
truth behind Israel's so-called "democracy."
In his two books just mentioned, he presents concrete examples to
illustrate how clear it should be to any thinking person that
Apartheid Israel and Apartheid South Africa are remarkably similar.
But "Classifying Israel as an apartheid state does not mean equating
Israel with South Africa. Israeli apartheid is significantly different
from South African apartheid," he wrote in his 2003 book.
The following list, paraphrased from Dr. Davis' observations, offers
some sobering food for thought:
1]- Israel: The Apartheid Wall (which the government labels a
"Security Wall") forces communities apart and unlawfully grabs land.
South Africa: Segregated Bantustans, officially (but falsely) called
"Independent Homelands," forced millions of African blacks to be
herded into artificial landlocked reserves.
2]- Israel: Jewish residents in West Jerusalem who need government
services face a relatively short wait in air-conditioned comfort. In
East Jerusalem, Palestinians begin queuing in the middle of the night,
or pay someone else to do so, for a remote chance of being served.
Once the sun comes up, they wait for hours outside in the heat before
an iron-grilled gate for what should be routine requests, such as;
identity documents, birth registrations, death certificates, etc. They
often go home empty-handed.
South Africa: In Johannesburg, whites, blacks and mixed-race
"coloreds" were directed to separate entrances of government offices,
such as the Home Affairs Ministry, and given service -- or not --
entirely according to their skin color.
3]- Israel: East Jerusalem imposes strict territorial classifications
on Palestinian residents that dictate who you can marry, where you can
live, where you can go to school, even where (or if) you can get into
a hospital.
South Africa: South Africa had similar classifications, based on race,
regarding who one could marry, where one could live, where one was to
attend school, or be admitted to hospital.
4]- Israel: Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, which is often also
the city of their birth, are nevertheless classified only as
immigrants with "permanent resident" status there -- not as citizens
in their own right.
South Africa: Most of the black population were treated not as
citizens of the cities and townships where they were born, but as
citizens of distant ancestral homelands that many (as well as their
parents, even grandparents) had never visited.
5]- Israel: It is now the only western society to deny construction
permits to people solely on the grounds of race.
South Africa: Under Apartheid, construction permits were issued or
denied on the basis of race.
6]- Israel: Urban planning has been intentionally been directed toward
the political objective of eliminating all Palestinian presence from
the country's urban landscape, especially in Jerusalem where the
inequality of Jewish and Palestinian sectors increases substantially
with every passing year.
South Africa: Under Apartheid, the "group area" planning system
targeted blacks in a similar way, with the goal of moving them into
invisibility, away from white centers of population.
7]- Israel: Through the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Lands
Authority, successive Israeli governments have reserved 93% of the
land for Jews only: much of this land was expropriated by the state
from original Arab owners without compensation.
South Africa: In colonial and Apartheid South Africa, 87% of the land
was reserved for whites. The Population Registration Act categorized
South Africans according to an array of racial definitions which,
among other things, determined who would be permitted to live on white-
reserved lands.
8]- Israel: Israel maintains separate schools for Arabs and Jews on
the grounds of language differences, but many Israeli Arab parents
have challenged this segregation system as a cover for systematic
state- sanctioned discrimination.
South Africa: Separate and unequal education systems were a central
part of the Apartheid regime's strategy to limit black children to
lives of subservient manual labour in mines, factories and fields. In
many parts of post-Apartheid South Africa, the education system still
has not recovered.
9]- Israel: Israelis who marry Palestinians are not allowed to bring
their spouses to live with them in the Jews-only part of the country.
South Africa: During the mid-1980s, the Komani Case successfully
challenged the Apartheid "pass laws" that broke up black families by
preventing rural spouses from joining husbands or wives who worked in
towns.
10]- Israel: Most Israeli Jews believe they are the Chosen People,
God's Elect, and claim that the Torah (Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament)
justifies their racism and Zionist exclusivity.
South Africa: The Dutch Reformed Church also used the Old Testament to
legitimize Apartheid and to assert white Afrikaaner superiority. And
based on the Dutch colonists' victory over the Zulus at the battle of
Blood River, they continued to believe that God sided with whites.
11]- Israel and South Africa: Under both regimes, the repressed
populations have been demonized as "terrorists" to justify ever-
greater violations of their human and civil rights.
Both regimes have tried to convince the rest of the world of the
absurdly false logic that the victims are to blame for violence the
state meted out to them.
Apartheid South Africa and Apartheid Israel are prime examples of how
terrorist states try to absolve themselves by blaming their victims.
12]- White South Africa and Israel have both painted themselves as
enclaves of democratic civilization, defending the front line of
Western values.
Ironically, however, both governments have often demanded that the
rest of the world judge them by the standards of neighbors from which
they claimed to be protecting the "free world."
13]- Israel is rapidly constructing a parallel network of West Bank
roads for Palestinians, who are barred from using the many existing
(and superior) routes reserved for Jews only.
B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, describes this system as
bearing clear similarities to Apartheid's exclusionary and isolating
alternate road system that existed in racist South Africa.
14]- Israel: The so-called Security Wall (really an Apartheid wall) is
another land-grab to draw even more of the Occupied Territories
permanently away from Palestinians, depriving them of community,
livelihood, education, and resources.
South Africa: Apartheid was all about keeping the best parts of the
country for whites only and herding blacks into the least habitable,
least desirable, and least serviced parts of the country.
15]- Israel and South Africa: In Israel, Palestinians are almost daily
being dispossessed of their houses, fields and orchards by state-
ordered bulldozing.
During the heyday of South African Apartheid, population relocation
programs also resulted in property destruction, but not on the same
scale as that inflicted in the West Bank against Palestinians.
Mohamed Elmasry @ MMN
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| User: "Jean Guernon" |
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| Title: Re: Similar Apartheid Systems |
24 Feb 2007 06:09:58 PM |
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"WH" <bollogs@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1172331786.687775.272880@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
WHY ISRAELI & SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID ARE SO SIMILAR
Israel is rapidly constructing a parallel network of West Bank roads
for Palestinians, who are barred from using the many existing (and
superior) routes reserved for Jews only.
B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, describes this system as
bearing clear similarities to Apartheid's exclusionary and isolating
alternate road system that existed in racist South Africa.
Professor Uri Davis prefers to describe himself as a "Palestinian Jew"
who is a citizen of Israel.
snip the lies>>
He is Professor of Stupidity and terrorist-butt kisser. Israel must
protect itself from hostile enemies.
You are student in his class that give him shiney red apple.
J.
.
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| User: "Perseid" |
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| Title: Re: Similar Apartheid Systems |
26 Feb 2007 04:19:40 AM |
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After Much Chewing of Cud and Cogitation, "Jean Guernon"
<jguernon@globetrotter.net> Spat the Words
"WH" <bollogs@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1172331786.687775.272880@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
WHY ISRAELI & SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID ARE SO SIMILAR
Israel is rapidly constructing a parallel network of West Bank roads
for Palestinians, who are barred from using the many existing (and
superior) routes reserved for Jews only.
B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, describes this system as
bearing clear similarities to Apartheid's exclusionary and isolating
alternate road system that existed in racist South Africa.
Professor Uri Davis prefers to describe himself as a "Palestinian Jew"
who is a citizen of Israel.
snip the lies>>
He is Professor of Stupidity and terrorist-butt kisser. Israel must
protect itself from hostile enemies.
Israel must liberate the Palestinians of their land.. see, it's
all about peace, democracy, and liberation. You herd the
Palestinians into a big, separated group (that's the democracy
part), then you've got peace. It's the Pax Judaicana.. the
Jewish Peace by physical separation.. apartheid. Easier to
build walls than relationships, right ?
You are student in his class that give him shiney red apple.
J.
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