In light of the recent events in the Middle East, it seems pertinent to address the accusation that will seemingly never die. That is the charge that Israel is perpetrating a system of Apartheid analogous to what was imposed against non-white South Africans in the mid to late twentieth century. But is this view correct? Make no mistake, the recent actions of Israel against the Palestinians have been shocking and appalling in equal measure, and the excessive use of force is to be condemned. However accusations of Apartheid, like the quote below, do not hold:
The statement rightly identifies Israel’s aggressive forum policy, and that it is guilty of horrendous human rights violations. The perpetual media coverage of the most recent spat between Hamas and Israel is good evidence as any of this. However, this in itself does not necessarily constitute what one would call apartheid. Indeed, it is profoundly ignorant in its usage of the word. For it shows that the author likely knows little of what happened in South Africa, and seems instead intent on using the term to provoke, rather than paint an accurate picture of the situation at hand. To balance this out, and give a more appropriate context, a brief overview of the South African experience must be laid out.
In 1948, the National Party came to power in South Africa. Over the next few years, it gradually cemented its position of power and sought to remove any notion of black participation in society. Its rule would come to an end in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president in the first free elections. During the vast majority of this period, non-white people were effectively regarded as sub-human, similar to the treatment of the jews in Nazi Germany. This isn’t entirely unsurprising, as many of the main architects of apartheid were Nazi sympathisers.
Under this system, non-whites were disenfranchised, could not run for office, could not eat in white restaurants, use toilets, train carriages, buses, platforms that were reserved for whites, and they could not use the same hospitals either. Moreover, interracial marriage was expressly forbidden, and blacks were essentially treated as slaves when it came to labour. A prime example of this is black miners. Those men who worked in the treacherous conditions were housed in overcrowded accommodation, and were barred from seeing their families until their contracts expired. All this was happening inside their own country, orchestrated by those who were governing them.
As noted previously, one of the fundamental facets of the National Party’s policy was to keep whites and blacks separate from one another in all possible aspects. The word ‘apartheid’ itself is Afrikaans; it quite literally means ‘apart-hood’. In spite of a wall separating the Palestinian Territories from Israel does not prevent both groups from interacting. Israelis and Palestinians are not forbidden from marring each other for instance. Whilst the linked article above demonstrates opposition by racist Israeli citizens, and disturbingly, the court allowing the protests, Israeli police protected the couple from demonstrators, and the couple’s marriage was not stopped despite the bigots attempts to do so. There clearly exists prejudice, but in this case, it is not like South Africa.
Image © 2011, some rights reserved.
Moreover, the myth of separation along such racial lines is further refuted by the fact that Palestinians and Israelis can be treated in the same hospitals without repercussions or laws preventing such eventualities. As previously discussed, non-whites, forbidden from being treated in the “white healthcare system”, received inferior treatment in the era of white dominance, and it was only in the 1980s that these restrictions were lifted. Seeing as the same cannot be said with regards to Israel, the short sighted comparison of Palestinian maltreatment to South Africa’s situation is simply in this case, wrong again.
Of course, these examples alone would not be enough to show the erroneous use of the apartheid analogy. As mentioned previously, a second fundamental tenet of the National Party’s framework was the prevention of non-whites from participating in politics, or having any kind of right to vote in free elections whatsoever. Contrary to this as pointed out in the NY Times:
However, these are the circumstances within Israel’s border. What about the situation for the Palestinians? Are they prevented from having a say in the politics of their homeland? The answer is a resounding no. Palestinian citizens are granted suffrage, able to vote in elections for people to represent them in government.The same applies to citizens residing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They too can cast their ballot in elections. This was not the case in South Africa. At all.
It seems prudent therefore to reiterate that charging Israel with the crime of apartheid is a fallacy. The most elementary aspects of the framework; prevention of race mixing, and disenfranchisement are not applicable. However, the article outlined in the beginning argues that Israel’s less than magnanimous human rights record is the rationale for laying down such judgement on the Jewish State. So we need to unpack this too.
During apartheid, South Africa’s armed organs of power were explicit in many crimes against the black population. The massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, the Soweto Uprising in 1976 are testament to the ruthlessness of dealing with dissent. Moreover. in the 1980s, the South African Defence Force conducted violent raids in the townships, arresting numbers of those residing there. The Israeli military has been known to conduct similar raids into Gaza and the West Bank. Detaining people with little or no legal justification. Furthermore, the operations conducted over the summer of this year have killed hundreds if not thousands of civilians. It is perhaps understandable from this perspective why parallels are drawn.
The civilians who live in Palestine are obviously suffering greatly. Caught up in the crossfire between the terrorist organisation of Hamas, and the IDF, they bear the brunt of Israel’s ferocious retaliation to rocket fire. They too endure arbitrary detention by the Israeli armed forces. But it must be stated again that this does not constitute apartheid. It certainly demonstrates that Israel must own up to its violent and sometimes inhumane actions towards innocents. But the crucial aspects that National Party in South Africa inflicted on an entire people for almost half a century; banning of race mixing, use of facilities and disenfranchisement, are simply non-existent here.
Further reading:
Thompson, L. (2014) A History of South Africa, New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
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