[WCUSP] Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped

Fri Dec 1 07:13:29 CST 2006

> Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran the
> following op-ed (pasted below) by John Dugard, a
> South African former anti-apartheid leader.  He is
> currently the Special Rapporteur on Palestine to the
> United Nations Human Rights Council.  He not only
> compares Israeli policies to apartheid, but says
> that in many ways Israeli policies are worse than
> South African apartheid was.  Please take a minute
> to write a letter to the editor thanking the Atlanta
> Journal-Constitution for running this honest piece.
>  
> Write to letters at ajc.com.  Letters should be 200
> words or less and include your name, address and
> telephone (for identification purposes only).
>  
>  
>
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> 
>
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2006/11/29/1129edcarter.html
>  
> 
> APARTHEID
> Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped
> 
> By JOHN DUGARD
> Published on: 11/29/06 
> 
> Former President Jimmy Carter's new book,
> "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is igniting
> controversy for its allegation that Israel practices
> a form of apartheid.
> 
> As a South African and former anti-apartheid
> advocate who visits the Palestinian territories
> regularly to assess the human rights situation for
> the U.N. Human Rights Council, the comparison to
> South African apartheid is of special interest to
> me.
> 
> On the face of it, the two regimes are very
> different. Apartheid was a system of
> institutionalized racial discrimination that the
> white minority in South Africa employed to maintain
> power over the black majority. It was characterized
> by the denial of political rights to blacks, the
> fragmentation of the country into white areas and
> black areas (called Bantustans) and by the
> imposition on blacks of restrictive measures
> designed to achieve white superiority, racial
> separation and white security.
> 
> The "pass system," which sought to prevent the free
> movement of blacks and to restrict their entry to
> the cities, was rigorously enforced. Blacks were
> forcibly "relocated," and they were denied access to
> most public amenities and to many forms of
> employment. The system was enforced by a brutal
> security apparatus in which torture played a
> significant role.
> 
> The Palestinian territories  East Jerusalem, the
> West Bank and Gaza  have been under Israeli
> military occupation since 1967. Although military
> occupation is tolerated and regulated by
> international law, it is considered an undesirable
> regime that should be ended as soon as possible. The
> United Nations for nearly 40 years has condemned
> Israel's military occupation, together with
> colonialism and apartheid, as contrary to the
> international public order.
> 
> In principle, the purpose of military occupation is
> different from that of apartheid. It is not designed
> as a long-term oppressive regime but as an interim
> measure that maintains law and order in a territory
> following an armed conflict and pending a peace
> settlement. But this is not the nature of the
> Israeli occupation of Palestine. Since 1967 Israel
> has imposed its control over the Palestinian
> territories in the manner of a colonizing power,
> under the guise of occupation. It has permanently
> seized the territories' most desirable parts  the
> holy sites in East Jerusalem, Hebron and Bethlehem
> and the fertile agricultural lands along the western
> border and in the Jordan Valley  and settled its
> own Jewish "colonists" throughout the land.
> 
> Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories
> has many features of colonization. At the same time
> it has many of the worst characteristics of
> apartheid. The West Bank has been fragmented into
> three areas  north (Jenin and Nablus), center
> (Ramallah) and south (Hebron)  which increasingly
> resemble the Bantustans of South Africa.
> 
> Restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by a
> rigid permit system enforced by some 520 checkpoints
> and roadblocks resemble, but in severity go well
> beyond, apartheid's "pass system." And the security
> apparatus is reminiscent of that of apartheid, with
> more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and
> frequent allegations of torture and cruel treatment.
> 
> Many aspects of Israel's occupation surpass those of
> the apartheid regime. Israel's large-scale
> destruction of Palestinian homes, leveling of
> agricultural lands, military incursions and targeted
> assassinations of Palestinians far exceed any
> similar practices in apartheid South Africa. No wall
> was ever built to separate blacks and whites.
> 
> Following the worldwide anti-apartheid movement, one
> might expect a similarly concerted international
> effort united in opposition to Israel's abhorrent
> treatment of the Palestinians. Instead one finds an
> international community divided between the West and
> the rest of the world. The Security Council is
> prevented from taking action because of the U.S.
> veto and European Union abstinence. And the United
> States and the European Union, acting in collusion
> with the United Nations and the Russian Federation,
> have in effect imposed economic sanctions on the
> Palestinian people for having, by democratic means,
> elected a government deemed unacceptable to Israel
> and the West. Forgotten is the commitment to putting
> an end to occupation, colonization and apartheid.
> 
> In these circumstances, the United States should not
> be surprised if the rest of the world begins to lose
> faith in its commitment to human rights. Some
> Americans  rightly  complain that other countries
> are unconcerned about Sudan's violence-torn Darfur
> region and similar situations in the world. But
> while the United States itself maintains a double
> standard with respect to Palestine it cannot expect
> cooperation from others in the struggle for human
> rights.
> 
> John Dugard is a South African law professor
> teaching in the Netherlands. He is currently Special
> Rapporteur (reporter) on Palestine to the United
> Nations Human Rights Council.
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
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