Israeli Apartheid

For the liberation movements of southern Africa, Israel and apartheid South Africa represented a racist, colonial axis. It was noted that people like John Vorster had been Nazi sympathisers, interned during World War II - yet feted as heroes in Israel and, incidentally, never again referred to by South African Zionists as anti-Semites.

It is instructive to add that in its conduct and methods of repression, Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith— even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment, and aggression against neighbouring states.

Any South African, whether involved in the freedom struggle or motivated by basic human decency, who visits the Occupied Palestinian Territories is shocked to the core at the situation they encounter and agree with Archbishop Tutu’s comment that what the Palestinians are experiencing is far worse than what happened in South Africa, where the Sharpeville massacre of 69 civilians in 1960 became the international symbol of apartheid cruelty.

I want to recall here the words of an Israeli Cabinet Minister, Aharon Cizling in 1948, after the savagery of the Deir Yassin massacre of 240 villagers became known. He said: “Now we too have behaved like the Nazis and my whole being is shaken.”

It needs to be frankly raised that if the crimes of the Holocaust are at the top end of the scale of human barbarity in modern times, where do we place the human cost of what has so recently occurred in Gaza and against the Palestinians since 1948 in the nakba (catastrophe) they have endured? Guernica, Lidice, the Warsaw Ghetto, Deir Yassin, Mai Lei, Sabra and Shatilla, Sharpeville are high on that scale— and the perpetrators of the slaughter in Gaza are the offspring of holocaust victims who are yet again, in Cizling’s words, behaving like Nazis. This must not be allowed to go unpunished and the international community must demand they be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Once more, let me turn to our South African experience. There, as with other struggles such as Vietnam, Algeria, the former Portuguese colonies, the just nature of the struggle was the assurance for success. With that moral advantage, on the basis of a just liberation struggle, we learnt the secret of Vietnam’s victory and strategised according to what we termed our Four Pillars of Struggle: Political mass struggle; reinforced by armed struggle; clandestine underground struggle; and international solidarity.

At times, any one of these can become predominant— and it is not for outsiders to direct those at the frontline of the struggle as to what and how to choose, but to modestly provide the lessons of our experience, pointing out that the unity of the struggling people is as indispensable as the moral high-ground they occupy. For the Vietnamese, the military element was generally primary but always resting on popular mass support.

In South Africa the mass struggle became the primary way, with sabotage actions and limited guerrilla operations inspiring our people. It all depends on the conditions and the situation.

But unquestioningly, what helped tip the balance, in Vietnam and South Africa, was the force and power of international solidarity action. It took some 30 years but the worldwide Anti-Apartheid Movements campaigns, launched in London in 1959, for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions not only provided international activists with a practical role, but became an incalculable factor in (a) isolating and weakening the apartheid regime (b) inspiring the struggling people (c) undermining the resolve of those states that supported and benefited from relations with apartheid South Africa, (d) generated a change of attitude amongst the South African White population generally, and political, business, professional, academic, religious and sporting associations in particular. Boycott made them feel the pinch in their pocket and their polecat status everywhere— whether on the sporting fields, at academic or business conventions, in the world of theatre and the arts they were totally shunned like biblical lepers. There was literally no place to hide from universal condemnation backed by decisive and relentless action which, in time, became more and more creative.

To conclude: we must spare no effort in building a worldwide solidarity movement to emulate the success of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Nelson Mandela stated after South Africa attained democratic rule that “we South Africans cannot feel free until the Palestinians are free.” A slogan of South Africa’s liberation struggle and our trade union movement is “An injury to one is an injury to all!” That goes for the whole of humanity. Every act of solidarity demonstrates to the Palestinians, and those courageous Jews who stand by them in Israel, that they are not alone. Whilst many Palestinians have lost their lives the Palestinians have not been conquered or cowed. Repression generates resistance and that will grow. Israeli aggression stands exposed.

A turning point has been reached in humanity‘s perception of this issue. The time is ripe for us to drive home the advantage— we know the times are changing and Zionist hegemony is fast losing control. Like South Africa, this can mean, must mean: freedom, peace, security, equality and justice for all— Muslim, Christian and Jew. That is well worth struggling for!

RONNIE KASRILS is a South African politician. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the African National Congress since 1987.
We Learn From History That We Learn Nothing From History
by Ronnie Kasrils