In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution which asserted that Zionism was racism. The resolution read: “The General Assembly … determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
This resolution was passed at a time when the state of Israel was in cahoots with apartheid South Africa, it covertly assisted the brutish apartheid regime in the development of nuclear weapons. All this happened against international attempts to isolate apartheid South Africa and against the US’s desperate attempt to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Israel provided military support to the apartheid government and by that it consequently assisted the apartheid government in the systematic slaughter of innocent men, women and children who clamoured for their freedom. Both Israel and apartheid South Africa deemed freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat terrorists and their organisations, the African National Congress and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, were targeted through military thuggery.
This resolution gave the Israeli government an excuse to intensify its Zionist campaign through the expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories and by playing an international victim that is surrounded by enemies everywhere. This expansion of settlements is against the backdrop of the questionable UN resolution 181 of 1947 which partitioned Palestinian territory between Jews and Arabs. It was a resolution that initiated the so-called independence of Israel in 1948 against the protest of the Arab populace.
Coincidentally 1948 was the year that DF Malan won the general elections in South Africa and with such victory apartheid was enacted into law and racial discrimination was officially institutionalised. The relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa is something not impressed upon often when we make reflections on particular historical events. The general pattern is to view Israel as only a nation of Jewish survivors of some of the greatest atrocities ever visited upon human beings while ignoring the subsequent atrocities committed by the very same nation against those who seek their freedom. Commonsense would inform a reasonable man that a nation of victims of the Holocaust would be guided by some measure of compassion and moral fortitude in their affairs with the Palestinians, yet to the contrary, hostility and military thuggery has defined the relationship between Jews and Arabs.
Relations between Israel and Palestine soured greatly after the Six-Day War of 1967, after which Israel moved to gain control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel’s action went against the UN Security Council resolution 228 of 1966 which condemned its military reprisals. In that resolution the Security Council promised to “consider further and more effective steps as envisaged in the (UN) Charter to ensure against the repetition of such (military) acts”. And as it has become rather common, the Security Council took no action against Israel’s military escapades and violation of its resolutions.
It was apparent from the 1960s that Israel was untouchable and enjoyed the protection of the US at the Security Council. It may have therefore made political sense for the apartheid regime, an international pariah, to forge close ties with the state of Israel. The relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa was cemented by state visits between the two countries. In April 1976, John Vorster, on invitation from the Israelis, met with Yitzhak Rabin on a state visit. This was at a time when apartheid South Africa was in advanced stages of developing nuclear weapons. It had already completed two nuclear test shafts, north of Upington. In 1981, after visiting the South African forces in Namibia, Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon said the apartheid regime needed more military weapons. Israel was publicly denouncing apartheid while it propped up the apartheid regime militarily and assisted its campaign of terror against the oppressed people.
Israel’s support of apartheid is a fact of history which was validated by Nelson Mandela on his visit to Israel in 1999 when he said: “To the many people who have questioned why I came, I say: Israel worked very closely with the apartheid regime. I say: I’ve made peace with many men who slaughtered our people like animals. Israel cooperated with the apartheid regime, but it did not participate in any atrocities.” Where Mandela was wrong was to say Israel did not participate in any atrocities. It may have not directly participated in these apartheid atrocities but did indirectly through its supply of weapons to the Nationalist regime.
The campaign of terror by the Israeli government continues to this day. The general and implausible excuse by the Israeli government in justifying its campaign of terror is that it is being denied the right to exist, that it faces imminent threat from its neighbours, in particular Iran. It is somewhat an imagined threat as Israel has the military capability to protect itself from hostile neighbours. Neither Hamas, Hezbollah nor Iran has the military capability to pose any direct threat on the continued existence of Israel.
Israel has specifically isolated Hamas as one of the groups that threaten its national security and has imposed a Gaza blockade effectively subjecting countless numbers of Palestinians to starvation and a lack of access to healthcare etc. This follows the 2009 Israeli military adventure into Gaza where thousands of innocent women and children were slaughtered because Hamas had been firing rockets at Israeli towns, though there had been no loss of lives as a result. Israel responded to Hamas’s firecrackers with untold and unimaginable brutality while the international community sat on the sidelines and did nothing to protect innocent women and children butchered by Israeli forces.
It is in understanding these historical facts that one begins to comprehend the general solidarity that black South Africans share with the people of Palestine. The pain they endure at the hands of Israeli thuggery is the pain we share equally with them, because it is the pain we had to endure at the hands of the merciless apartheid regime. It is time that the local Jewish community begins to renounce the Israeli government’s military thuggery and support the campaign to end its apartheid tendencies and in particular the Gaza blockade. The preservation of the historical sentiment towards Israel by the local Jewish community does not assist in the promotion of international justice, peace and human rights. The Goldstone Report on Gaza found both Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes and gross violations of human rights. We must be unequivocal in condemning both sides, whether you are a Jew, Arab or African.
The end of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and violation of human rights begins when we condemn all rogue regimes and take decisive action against them. Equality before international law is paramount. When countries such as Iran are isolated and stringent sanctions imposed upon them, equally countries such as Israel should be subject to the same punishment. The continued protection of Israel only serves to breed resentment against the Jewish nation by the Arab world. The fight against terrorism cannot be won when all known perpetrators of such acts are not held to account. The Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Gaza massacre happened because nations of the world, in particular those with the capacity to act, preferred to be spectators to crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights.
Hypocrisy appears to have generally been accepted to be an integral part of politics. The betrayal of the people’s trust is something that we have accustomed to accept because we have conditioned ourselves to embrace men and women of dubious constitution as masters of our destiny. Ironically, these are the very same individuals upon whom we claim to entrust with the arduous task of serving us and delivering on the promises they make. By condoning mediocrity we have nurtured politicians to becoming a menace to society. The world is in its current state because we the people have allowed it to degenerate into this seemingly unmanageable state. Wanton and indiscriminate acts of political thuggery by nations happen because we let politicians ran amok in our name.
Gersie dee you honestly have a short take on fact and history. You refer to the Goldstone report (all 537 pages that I have read), which means that you are referring to Gaza.
Gaza was never forcibly taken from the Palestinians – that territory has been governed by Egypt since the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War until 1967 when Israel conquered the whole of the Sinai Peninsula in a war forced on her by the Arab States.
In 1978 when Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David Accord, which ended the hostility between these two countries. Egypt would not take back control of Gaza that it had previously governed! Wonder why?
Israel then ended its occupation of the Sinai but remained in Gaza until 2005 when it withdrew from every inch of that territory, leaving an infrastructure that could have turned Gaza into a second Dubai. However that was not to be since Hamas’s agenda was one of belligerence not only to Israel but also to Fatah and its supporters who have been systematically decimated since.
Human rights, gay rights, women’s rights simply have no room in Gaza. Just recently Hamas closed down 7 UN aid agencies. Girls schools have been forced to close.
I challenge you to refute this
It never ceases to amaze me how afraid the Arab and Muslim world is of Israel – the tiniest country in the Middle East – and of no more than 14 million Jews worldwide.
If there were real concern about the Palestinians and their plight in the Arab world, those living in Gaza would have been taken in by Egypt (who doesn’t want them), Jordan (who definitely doesn’t want them) and / or Lebanon (who absolutely doesn’t want them). So none of their countrymen wants them – what does that say about the humanitarian feelings of Muslims towards their own? Sadly, they are being used as pawns by their fellow Arabs to divert attention away from a world of people most of whom live in extreme poverty; most of whom are illiterate; most of whose women and girl-children are abused and humiliated in the most appalling and horrific manner; and most of whose leaders live in obscene and cruel opulence, autocratic and dictatorial, abusive and condemnatory, while paying little if any heed to their own.
Internationally it is politically incorrect to be antisemitic; to express antisemitic comments is frowned on; yet diatribes like this one are nothing more than an attack on the Jewish people, and should be given short shrift. Israel is the spiritual home of the Jewish people – the link between the two is eternal and indissoluble – and perhaps that’s what frightens the Arabs: that we Jews care for one another,and will do for all time.
S, The argument is branding Israel as an apartheid state, so lets examine what was an apartheid state as we know it and we should know better than most.
Does Israel have pass laws? No
Does Israel have job reservation on its statute books? No
Does Israel have ‘Bantu’ education? No
Does Israel have a Group Areas act? No
Does Israel have whites only signs on toilets, park benches, Govt. buildings? No
To correct you Arab citizens of the State enjoy all rights that Jewish citizens do and yes Israel does practice a fair and impartial judicial system – please refer to the countless judgments handed down by the courts favoring not only Arab citizens of the State but Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.
You mention social discrimination between Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities that hardly exists today, however our social discrimination right here at home is certainly a yardstick to compare with given the very recent xenophobic violence. (As they say – Those in Glass Houses…) It is only the very naïve that believe no discrimination exists anywhere in the world. Gaza, The West Bank and ALL Arab countries practice the very worst kind of discrimination against non believers, gays, women – Iran stones to death women simply accused of infidelity!
@ Lebo
The same standards must apply to Palestinians and Hamas in particular. What right to life does Hamas afford to Israeli innocent civilians when it instigates war by lobbing ordinance over their border into Israeli towns? And let us not forget their religious right to martyr themselves in suicide attacks against innocents from all walks of life. Do you consider Hamas suicide bombers as murderers?
Israel does also have the right to defend its civilian population; – although it would seem that half the world does not think so.
You pull another one.
@ S
The general definition of a massacre is what? Is it when a few thousand civilians are marched off to an open pit and gunned down? Is is the when a building full of innocent civilians is bombed by flying a plane into it? Is it when a marketplace full of shoppers in Tel Aviv OR Baghdad is bombed for maximum casualties?
Or is it 1500 (majority of which voted for Hamas) Palestinian civilians (of which at least half were cowardly Hamas MILITANTS, hiding among them), who were caught in crossfire during a war situation. Its called collateral damage, and Israeli’s and I are just as appalled by unnecessary death and any other. If you are not going to apply rational objectivity to this matter then at least apply the same subjective emotional response to the difficulties that Israel have to contend with.
At least the tounges are wagging, in favour of and against, which is the desired effect in a blog.
@ Gersie Dee
The UN is a club, and like all loose democratic institutions, cliques are formed along class (and other) lines. The UN does not make laws, but only pass some resolutions (if not vetoed) which make their way into International Law. These resolutions may be made into binding law by respective countries (if they choose), or ignored if it suits them.
As mentioned, third world countries outnumber Western Democracies three to one, and the easiest and smallest Western country to bully and harass happens to be Israel – which is perfectly placed within their midst to show up the deficiencies of non-democratic, value-less and backward regimes of Africa, South America and the Middle East.
@ Jeremiah Kure on July 21st,
You must be hasbara – you have made reference to a statement that was never made. What Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually said was:
“Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
This sentiment is shared by many and refers to the zionists regime – not Israel. And it contains no threat from Iran either.
@panchetta
Not entirely true. The Maoris fought the Brits to a truce and forced them to enter into a treaty. This was because the Maori had developed an effective ‘fort’ type defense that was all-but-impenetrable.
@ Mark
Whatever legal terminology you choose to use (I use the common use), the fact that so many people died in the concentration camps through neglect and what seems to be deliberate starvation (not only boers and which was known by the Commons http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/lxxxix.html) as well as things like scorched earth, etc, would today be considered a crime against humanity. You should read those parliamentary debates, very interesting. So wrt your semantic point, Its debatable. I will remind you, though, that the dead would be no less dead, all of them, boer or otherwise.
It is intersting that you make point out where the differences are (nationalism and faith-ism). The similarity between them is loss of lives and close to total economic destruction. Germany can be included under close to total economic destruction, a factor in the rise of the Nazis. We know how that one turned out. It seems to me that, when a nation feels threatened (and surrounded) empathy is the last thing on their mind.
@ John Everyman
Can you point me in the direction of a full list of laws? It would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Lesego you are obsessed by colour. In the Middle East mostly your dress identifies you not colour as Arabs/Israeli’s both come in many different hues from black through to white the blackest being the Ethopian Jews.
Brent
Michael Liermann, think it is your hair that is ruffled. Panchetta’s statement was made in the contex of other much worse ‘massacres’ that are ignored by “The Left” – thus by logic israel’s is also not a massacre.
Brent
@ Gersie…UNGA resolutions are non-binding UNSC are binding and therefore law. all those have been kept by Israel at least…where are your cries of Hizbullah rearming itself and setting flottillas ISrael’s way in contravention of UNSC 1701??? You should go read the resolutions of the UNSC against Israel and then say if those are being broken I do not see…the wording of one comes to mind land taken BY war must be returned…nowhere does it say FROM war…in all the wars Israel got land was after it was attacked. 1967 and 1973 were both started by the arabs and they ended up losing the land.
It is so funny how people just forget the real facts like when was the first hospital built in West Bank or Gaza and who built it? When were the first schools built ? When were the first universities built?
How you forget how they( the Palestinians) were oppressed by the Egyptians and Jordanians while those territories were under their control.
What about the expelling of the Jews from Arab countries? They have title deeds for land massing the size of the sinai desert yet no one cares about their situation.
How your facts are misguided to push, and BTW The US was going to vote against Israeli statehood until Edward Jacobson asked him to vote for.
How you forget at anytime Palestine could have declared independence and they would have had all of Jerusalem…yet they never….why????????? AN AGENDA
Why is no one worried about how the Turks and Iranians bomb villages for days on end and kill hundreds if not thousands of Kurds? But if Israel kills one person then front page news it will be for the rest of the week?
Why is it that the Palestinians have their own UN refugee commission UNRWA, yet the rest of the world have to use the UNHCR. Why is it that the Palestinians are the beneficiaries of the worlds most aid?
Ask yourselves how much of this world aid comes from their so called Arab/Persian/Turkish “brethren”….if 1% I will eat my hat…Saudi pledged $500 million in 2007 and how much has arrived?
@ Gersie Dee
The UN is a club, and like all loose democratic institutions, cliques are formed along class (and other) lines. Resolutions may be made into binding law by respective countries (if they choose), or ignored if it suits them.
As mentioned, third world countries outnumber Western Democracies three to one, and the easiest and smallest Western country to bully and harass happens to be Israel – which is perfectly placed within their midst to show up the deficiencies of non-democratic, value-less and backward regimes of Africa, South America and the Middle East.