1

A comparison of South

Africa and Israel on

Apartheid

Sebastian Bidegain

NOMA: 7616-07-00.

Professeur: J.C Willame.

2

Table of Content

Introduction

3

History

3

Apartheid

12

Zionism

13

Economy Cheap Labour

15

Similitude and Difference between South Africa and Israel 17

Conclusion

18

Bibliography

23

3

Introduction

The construction of a wall in the occupy territories has now gain international attention to

what is going on in that part of the planet. The Israeli- Arab conflict has lasted almost a

century. With the first Intifada, the Palestinian cause gained international recognition and

support around the globe. Now, 40 years since the occupation started, the situation for the

Palestinian hasn’t changed. They are still under a military occupation by Israel, in a Stateless

regime and with few voices around the globe that gives real support to them. There has been

many statements comparing Israel regime in the occupy territories to that of South Africa

apartheid system.

Studying the Israeli –Arab conflict is a hard task, with partisan bibliographies that are pro

Israel or pro Arab, the truth is harder and harder to reach, the data and other information can

be read and mean something to one side, or something else to the other side.

The first question we have to ask ourselves, is how come after the Second World War was

won, a racist system as the apartheid (1948) could be placed in a country? The SHOA or

holocaust came into light and showed the world what a racist regime could do. So, how the

international community that in 1945 created the United Nations which main objective is

world peace and security could let that regime evolved. Maybe the answer is in Article 1.2 of

the U.N. Charte that says that: the people have the right of auto-determination. But a racist

regime can be considered auto-determination?

This paper will investigate the statements realness that is linking Israel occupation in Palestine

to South Africa’s apartheid.

History

South Africa was colonized first by the Dutch in the 17 century because they needed a

strategic point to protect their commerce with the east (China –India), also a supply port. Cape

of the Good Hope was that place, where their boat could get new provisions and continue to

the east. Then, England became the new industrial power and also saw the strategic advance

that the Cape represented as a provision post for their commerce. They installed themselves in

1814, and bought the Cape to the Dutch crown in 1843 (they annexed Natal). Then the Boers

(Dutch descendents) went east, inland, they migrated towards Transvaal and Orange in their

exodus (the Grand Trek) where they found a resistance from local Bantus tribes, especially

the Zulus. The importance of gold and diamond radicalized the conflict between the Boers

and the Englishmen and ended in the war of 1899-1902 where the English won. They created

equilibrium and formed the South African Union in 1911 integrated to the Common Wealth.

Since then, the Boers lived in an Anglo-Saxon regime controlled by the U.K that lasted until

1948, when the National Afrikaner Party (NAP) won the elections1 with 58% of the votes, and

with them apartheid came into the scene. In 1961 they left the commonwealth and change the

name to Republic of South Africa. We have to remember that the NAP couldn’t rest in power

if they didn’t consolidate the apartheid with a political and juridical system. The two

communities had different specialization, in one hand the Boers were more agricultural

1 The Boers where allied to the Germans during the war, as a way to get more power over the

English. Also, the NAP doctrines come from the nationalism christianism copy of the NAZI

ideology.

4

oriented, and were the owners of the farmlands and big plantations. In the other hand the

Anglo Saxons were more oriented to the commerce activities and industries; they were

represented by the Anglo-Saxon Union Party. Been more integrationist than the NAP, they

wanted to exploit the black cheap labour in a more efficiency way. The Boers were more

segregationist without doubt; the war that they had fought in the past against the Bantus tribe

played a role2.

The integrationist project that the Anglo-Saxons wanted to apply, gave more participation to

the blacks, in the political, cultural, social and economic domains. This would have meant the

end of the NAP’s power via the electoral vote or by revolts that would have made impossible

to maintain order.

Apartheid: separation in Afrikaans, or more exactly «to be or to live separated». Name given

to the South African racist regime in force since the 1950s until the beginning of 1990s. Term

was created and demanded by the new government (the National Party) that won the 1948

elections, it indicates a doctrine which was based in religious foundation, that of the

«developing separated from breeds» and a practice, that of the systematisation of segregative

principles. These, inherited from colonial period, governed in a more or less strict way the

land and residential organisation of the South African space. Under apartheid, these principles

were spread in all domains of social life and in all levels of the organisation of the space. The

policy of apartheid was notably translated by a strict classification of the individuals in

categories airtight and organised into a hierarchy corresponding to specific residential areas:

white, Indian, hybrid and black (themselves subdivided into groups ethnolinguistics) and by a

racist and augmentative legal and territorial engineering. This one went of " the mean-minded

apartheid", the most famous with the separated places and the phobia of mixing of sexes,

which restrained at the farthest contacts and co-habitation between racial groups, in «big

apartheid», which aimed at setting up independent bantoustans, depriving thereabouts even

their black nationals, among which several millions transferred by force, by South African

nationality. White supremacy expressed itself by the restriction of the political and economic

rights of non-whites and their billeting in the least skilled jobs, as well as by a narrow control

of displacements, organised for the working of the working force from aeries segregation:

bantoustans or townships.

A white South Africa was the main objective of the NAP. The segregation policy, created 9

Bantustan in which the blacks would live and have that nationality. They will only come to

South Africa to work (the blacks would be foreigners in South Africa). South Africa for the

whites had 87% of the territory, there were 20 million blacks, none of the Bantustan would be

economical viable, and would always have to depend on the South African economy, which

would let South Africa control.

Since the National Afrikaner Party got in power in 1948, they voted more then 200

segregationists laws and amendments. There was only one law that gave more freedom to the

blacks, and that was the 1962 the Liquor Amendment Act that allowed the blacks to drink

2 The comparison with the USA brings an interesting fact and that is that in the USA their Civil War

1861-65 was also done by the industrious north against the farm-plantation south, and even thought slavery ended, the discrimination laws were still apply in the USA until the 1960s when the Afro-

American Movements civil liberties started with famous leader as Malcolm X and Martin Luther

King.

5

alcohol. To get a grasp of what was like for a black man living in the apartheid regime, we

have to read some of the laws that they lived under:

1- No right to vote.

2- Obligations to leave their land when the whites need them as a cheap labour force.

3- No right to have lot of land (ranchers), not even in the reservations (Bantustan), they had to

accept that 13% of the land was for the blacks, and the rest for the whites. While the blacks

represented 70% of the population. They didn’t have any political rights in their Bantustan.

4- They can be expel from their land even thought they may have lived their all their lives.

The men didn’t have any right to take his wife and children to live with him outside the

Bantustan when they were working.

5- Cannot travel without authorisation.

6- They always have to carry their permits, because if they don’t, they can get arrested.

7- They had to maintain always the separation between blacks and whites in the use of public

services.

8- They cannot practice a qualify job in white zones (which were 87% of the land)

9- They didn’t have the right for strike.

10- They cannot be in charge of whites in the health industry.

11- They can only change jobs if they do it via the official jobs bureau.

12- They cannot attend multiracial gatherings, the multiracial political organisations are

banned.

13- They cannot be in meetings where there are more hen 10 people.

14- Cannot marry people that aren’t from the same race.

15- They can be put in prison for having sexual intercourse with somebody outside their race.

16- No rights to own arms.

17- No rights to organise passive resistance.

18- Can be arrested even if there is no arrest warrant.

19- Is considerate guilty according to some laws, until he can proof he is innocent.

20- Can be charged from 5 years to the death penalty if accused of terrorist acts. This crime

includes porting a gun, a union strike, anything that could make the State or the industries lose

money.

21- Illegal to carry political slogans, with a punishment, between 5 years to death penalty.

22- Can be incarcerated if he is carrying illegal literature.

23- Can be arrested for acts that were made before they became illegal, there is a retroactive

laws for the blacks.

24- Can be judged for second times, even if in the first trial was found not guilty. And without

considering the time between the first trial and the second time (time doesn’t matter).

25- Can be prohibited from learning how to write and read.

26- Cannot be a witness if his testimony will damage the State or the public security.

The use of maps and historical reference were both used by Israel and South Africa to

legitimise their arguments.

The first map shows the kingdoms of David, Salomon and Hérode who can constitute

reference of the «big Israel», these maps coming from official sites hold attention: - the first

one accomplished by IsraelInsider3, accessible on its site Israel Story in Maps is taken back on

the site of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It introduces the Jewish communities on the

land of Israel between the VIIth century and the XIth century. And represented borders are

sensible be those of ’" modern Israel " who include the occupied Territories and Golan by

adding as always in these cases there that it is international borders and line of ceasefire of

3 http://www.israelinsider.com/flash/maps/israel_story/free_trial.htm

6

1967. It is in this geographical frame that appears a seedling of points notably representing

most cities of Galileo in Cisjordanie and of the Gaza strip as integral part of «big Israel». A

more neutral comment accompanies this map4 - the second a map of the Jewish Agency for

Israel called «The British Mandate 1920-1946 »5 and which blocks the totality of the territory

under British mandate of the piled appellations Palestine - Eretz Israël - The Jewish National

Home - (British Delegates)». The comment which accompanies this map takes back the

passage of Statement Balfour on the English support to the constitution of a «Jewish National

Home in Palestine» and stipulates that it included no geographical restriction in the territorial

frame of the Mandate.

Source : IsraelInsider (Koret Com.) Min. of Foreign Affairs

Fig. 1 : « Jews in the Land of Israël (7th-11th centuries) »

4 « Après la mort de l’empereur Julien II en 363, la plupart des implantations juives furent détruites dans le Sud. Les Juifs

restèrent principalement en Galilée et dans les grandes villes. » 5

7

Source : Pedagogic Center, Jewish Agency Fig 2 : « British Mandate for Palestine 1920-1948 »

In an official publication of 1975 introducing the policy of black homelands, Africa Institute

of South Africa in Pretoria6 introduces two maps which redraw the official history of the

occupation of the South African space. Both figures (fig 3 and 4) are arranged on the same

page, they find below the one who redraws the progress of the white population. Represent

there to the left, in the beginning, the original date of their arrival: 1652. One reminds of

stages of conquest until 1910. A grey aerie fulfils the first zone of contact and of clash around

1800 beyond from which is the black’s country. It is of this oriental aerie of contact that leave

the arrows of the Big Trek in 1836, so on this map, the history of the South Africans tell the

story that the first to settle the land were whites and then the black tribes arrived. Indeed,

underneath, the map of the progress of the black population mentions only the Bantu with the

aerie of the empire of Chaka (Zulu) which occupies nearly that of the colony of the Native.

This map shows the single date, that of 1770, the very posterior therefore in the founder date

of European colonisation, it is about the date of extreme advance of the Bantu Nguni which

arrives at the contact of Whites in Eastern Cape, while the text adds that the Bantu of dialect

Sotho had already become established on the high lands of Basutoland when whites arrived at

the Cape. The picture geohistoric base of a distribution of the space is therefore raised. No

real anteriority of a racial group on the South African territory, a large part southwest and

exclusively white power station in terms of historical legitimacy and the black East , alone the

North is shared by both groups.

6 Institut de recherche créé en 1960 pour accompagner la réflexion et suivre scientifiquement le processus de décolonisation

sur le continent et notamment sa déclinaison sud-africaine que devait être la politique des bantoustans

8

Source : African Intitute of South Africa (1975) in « Black Homelands »

Fig 3 et 4 : Représentation historique officielle du processus d’occupation de l’espace sud-africain par les Blancs et les Noirs.

9

If therefore an analogy can be made on the usage of geohistoric arguments to justify a

hegemonic vision of a national domination in a case, and racial in other one, it is between the

propaganda of apartheid and that of a right partisan extremist Zionist of «big Israel» that

however sometimes gets into Israeli official history.

A fact also introduces confusion, it is about the unhappy cooperation, notably in servicemen,

that Israel maintained with the regime of apartheid (Nouhou, on 2003). Finally, in The Hague,

before the Court of International Justice then to the UNO, Israel was censured for its «fence of

security» seems one more time caught by the Southern Africa, almost 35 years after the

condemnation of this last for its occupation of Namibia. This factual and partial

rapprochement forgets the basics, Israel is a democracy in which voting right is universal and

independent justice, where opposition and press can criticise the government in its choices

including in times of war and where independent investigating committees do not spare

power. So much absolutely fundamental difference which returns obsolete all tries of

assimilation of the State of Israel in the regime of apartheid, totalitarian in many respects.

The denunciation of the discriminations which affect the Israeli Arabs, however real they are,

does not give either real catches in analogy. Safe to consider that alone «big Israel»

constitutes a pertinent frame of analysis. It is what make the partisan "neo-Zionists" of «big

Israel», (of whom Navon (2004) resumes most arguments), who see occupied Territories as

integral part and legitimate of the Israeli State and their nationals as having to continue

suffering the yoke of the occupation perpetuated in a system of "control" (Lustick, on 1980).

"Strengthening" versus annexation beyond abbreviated of an ill-founded analogy when she

applies to State of Israel in its nature and to Zionism in general, the analogy of «big

apartheid», in other words of policy of bantoustans or homelands, with Israeli policy

regarding the occupied Territories appears more interesting. It deserves debate as much as

such geopolitical problem must be put in perspective in comparison with some historical

references. Geopolitical data appear very different. It is what underlines Héribert Adam

(2002) who checks off difference7 of demographic report, difference of economic

interdependence of communities, more important in the case of Whites and of the Blacks of

Southern Africa than in the case of the Jews and of the Palestinians; the slightest importance

of religious cleavage in the South African case, which became famous later in the Christian

character of Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and finally the biggest autarky of the

South African system which was distinctly less dependent on outside than the Israeli system.

On the other hand the territorial techniques which accompany Israeli policies since occupation

seem to endure comparison more. Rather than to explore in a comparative and analytical way

the different aspects of this policies, and notably that of the control of displacements which

gives some similarities, let us note straightaway an essential difference: the try to trim the

perimeter of a future Palestinian State is a territorial step strictly compared to that of the

7 L’auteur évoque également les différences fondamentales de positionnement des parties au moment des négociations de

paix :

- leaderships politiques largement unifiés en Afrique du Sud, contre divisions politiques profondes aussi bien du côté palestinien qu’israélien (très contestable au regard notamment de la quasi guerre civile du début des années 1990, entre

partisans de l'ANC et de l’Inkhata, attisée par le régime l’Apartheid) ;

- recours à une médiation extérieure de la part des Israéliens et des Palestiniens, là où le Parti national et l’ANC avaient évité

l’intervention de tiers dans les négociations,

Notons que de ce point de vue, l’actuel unilatéralisme de la politique israélienne se rapprocherait plutôt, dans la forme, des quelques tentatives d’amender le système sud africain à la fin des années 1980.

10

constitution of bantoustans in Southern Africa in 1950s in 1980 from a discontinuous

archipelago of reservations. The plan of wall and the amputation of the Jordanian Palestinian

territory of several "blocks" of colonies or Israeli establishment, including among the most

recent, as well as the constitution of zones stamps of security along international borders (with

Jordan) and close to the Israeli cities obey two principles. The first principle is that of the land

colonisation which returns in an expansionist and hegemonic conception of Zionism, it is at

the same time ratified and curbed here in its objectives hard-liners of annexation of "Judée-

Samarie"; the second principle applies to the strategical zones of a military point of view, it is

security and of precaution and can theoretically be temporary. In the name of this last

principle, the controversial plan of withdrawal of the Israeli colonies of the band of Gaza

seems to have to be also accompanied by an amputation in periphery to create a military

buffer zone (the «line Philadelphia ») on international borders and coastal region which would

deprive therefore this space of direct contact with quite other neighbour (Egypt). Plan Sharon

comes in fact as a blow of stopping in Israeli land expansionism and acceptance of a

Palestinian State at the price of a partial validation of the colonisation of the West Bank of

Jordan. But by coming to relieve land colonisation by the establishment of zones stamps

catches on the occupied Territories, this plan can be seen as the last mishap of an

uninterrupted process of nibbling of the Palestinian territories.

This process is very different in fact from the plan of «big apartheid " which tried to fabricate

territories monoskin ethnic provided unlike the appearance of relatively compact national

areas and international borders, therefore in "credible" sovereignty. It was a question of

getting an international recognition of these new pseudo-independent States. The model was

that of Lesotho, of Swaziland and of Botswana British ex-protectorates, become independent

and constituent of captive reservoirs of work force for the Southern Africa.

11

12

Fig. 5 Reproduction de la planche intitulée : Land for Blacks, from the 1913 Land Act to the Independant States

extraite d’un atlas autorisé et validé par les autorités sud-africaines de l’apartheid :

Atlas of Southern Africa, 1984, The Reader's Digest Association South Africa (produced in cunjunction with the

Department of Community Development, Directorate of Surveys and Mapping).

Apartheid

The 10 of November 1975 the General Assembly8 of the U.N. assimilated the term Zionist to

a form of racism. The world community recognizes that the apartheid regime was inhuman,

and that the majority of U.N countries (without U.S.A.) decided that the Zionism has a racist

fundament.

In 1948 was the creation of Israel in the Palestinian land and also was the same year that the

National Afrikaner Party won the election in South Africa puting in place the apartheid

system. According to the Walter Limp9 that uses the Natural Resources Development Council

data, South Africa in 1965 had to receive a minimum of 50,000 white immigrants per year to

maintain the population proportions that existed between blacks and whites.

As a fact, between the years 1940-1950 being racist was the most common thing in the

western world. Is is interesting to notice that blacks gain voting rights in the USA in the 60s,

and aboriginals in Australia also in the 60s. The colonisers have always based their

discrimination in a biological aspect (inferiority). When the decolonization began, the racist

conviction were less notorious and of bad taste. This, the Zionist understood it well, and from

their vocabulary they took off any word that had any ties to colonization to designate what

they were doing in the occupy territories. They decided to use the words cooperation and

8 http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/30/ares30.htm.

9 LIMP walter, Anatomie de l’ Apartheid, Casterman, 1972.

13

liberation instead, as now they are using the word “barrier” and not “wall”. The separation

barrier called by Israel or the apartheid wall called by the Palestinians sees in a physical

separation a semantic war. While the Israelis use the term barrier or fence to define it, the

Palestinians use the term wall or apartheid wall, bringing into the semantic the political war in

which they are engaged. The separation wall or barrier is difficult to define because is made

from different material in different places.

We have to remember that in those years U.S.A (won the war) became the new world power.

The third world countries became independents and all the colonization ended, with the

exception of South Africa, Portugal and Israel.

The Zionism

As a form to solve the Jews European problem, the creation a Jews State in Palestine was seen

as a solution. A new type of colonization took place that would be based in the expulsion of

the Palestinians from their land. The Jews question was an economic and social question from

the 19 century Europe, and later with the Second World War: capitalists, nationalists and anti-

Semites. The Zionist ideology presented the Anti-Semitism as something incurable and

eternal. They made their own the thesis that Anti-Semitism existed always, and as the Chosen

People they mystify the Jews history, they said that the Jews were persecuted in Europe, they

preconized the return to the Promised Land, the Zionism was the restoration of the Chosen

People to the Promised Land. The Zionism is a colonial effect, and its instalated in the jump

that Europe does in the Middle East, it’s used by the Europeans powers so they can get a

strong and strategic grip in the Middle East.

The notion of “Jews work”, “Jews market”, “inalienable of Jews land”, “Jews productivity”

and the “political Jews direction” as part of the plan to disperse the Palestinians. What Jews

work meant was that a Jew should hire for work only another Jew. Also, adding to the Zionist

practices was the boycotts of Arabs products. This meant a planned segregation against the

Palestinians, with these policies the Zionism plannify the physical, economical and political

exclusion of Palestinians as a condition for the creation of the Jew State

This Zionist Organisation planned and legitimized the dispose of the Arabs from their land

and the economic circuit. This could be compared to Japans attack on Pearl Harbour when

U.S.A. was cutting the provisions of oil to Japan; this first Jew policies can be seen as an

aggression.

Adding to it is the first discrimination law: which was the Law of Return in 1950 which gave

Israeli nationality to all the Jews that lived in Israel the day (and before) that that law was

implemented for the first time. Not only that, but also any Jew that arrived after the law

started at any given time also got the nationality. This is not the case for Arabs or Christian

that were living there or were spelled from the land, they are sent to a state of apatride10

. The

exception to this law it’s in Article 4 Chapter I, which says that a person born in Israel that

doesn’t have the nationality can obtain it if he or she introduces a petition for nationality

between the ages of 18 and 21. He or she has to show certificates that they have lived the last

5 years in Israel. The difference that Arabs have with the Jews, is that one (Jew) that just

arrived in Israel obtains the nationality immediate, a Palestinian with Palestinian father and

10

Uri Davis : loi sur le retour in Palestine, Gembloux, Duculat, 1977, page 145

14

mother even if he or she was born there, they don’t get the nationality, and this is clearly a

racial base law (discrimination).

It is important to comment that once the Arabs were spelled from their land, most of the land

now belongs to the Jews National Fund or is administer by it. The Fund, doesn’t allow no-

Jews to live in it or open a business nor commerce in those parts of the territory. That way

there are zones that don’t have Arabs on them. There are special neighbourhood for Arab that

can be compared to South Africa’s Bantustan, where the blacks were obligated to live in. Of

the 110,000 acres of the best land that used to belong to the Palestinians farmer in 1948,

70,000 were confiscated or expropriated via different reasons. 34,000 Palestinians were taken

away from their land. The main reason for this was to get Arabs off and Jews on. The General

Interest Law was a racial oriented that had a discrimination ethics behind it. The Zionist

program needed to move the local Arabs out, and put Jews in. With the Abandon Regions

Law, the new State made sure to obtain the Arab lands, or with the Absent Homes Law (1950)

and State Security laws, any home or land that didn’t have the owner insight could be

expropriated and given to the Jews National Fund. With these laws, the State of Israel stole

whole Arabs villages and were declared the properties of the Jews people.

The Arab language has disappeared from the government departments. The Arabs (that live

inside Israel) are almost totally excluded from the public administration, only in the lower

levels of the administration they get positions. They are sub-represented in parliament and

there aren’t any ministers in the government. The presence of an Arab student in the

universities is more symbolic than anything else. The Arabs inside Israel are under a cultural

blocus, and any Arab ideology and culture coming from outside is not allowed. All the school

books were purify from anything that could tell the real history of the Palestinians. They had

all the citizens obligations (paying taxes, etc) but they couldn’t really have any right and

benefits.

There is also another type of discrimination, which is against the black or oriental Jews. In

1971, black Jews from U.S.A. weren’t allowed in Israel. The community of sepharades in

Israel, that Marc Mille11

calls “Israel Orientals blacks” and he continues saying “they

constitute about 60% of the Jew population, but they suffer a racial discrimination and they

occupy the lower social scales, directed by the European Jews, in the army and the police,

administration, industry, commerce the blacks are always in subaltern jobs. Of parliament, 16

of the member are blacks, les than 5% of the high ranking officials are black, only one

minister and one vice minister. Only 5% of university students are black. Mix marriages are

practically prohibited; they live in well delimited neighbourhoods, the good neighbourhoods

are occupied by the western Jews”. Just to know how bad things were for Arabs, blacks and

other races, in 1971 inside Israel the Black Panther Movement was created that had as an

objective to fight all type of segregation.

The former president of the U.S.A. Jimmy Carter12

recently said: “When Israel does occupy

this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each

other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases

even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than

we witnessed even in South Africa”. He has even written a book entitles: “Palestine: Peace

Not Apartheid”.

11

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/799476.html. 12

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/799476.html

15

As already mentioned the UN's Special Rapporteur John Dugard13

describes the regime as

being designed to dominate and systematically oppress the occupied population. He

continues saying “Israel's laws and practices certainly resemble aspects of apartheid”

“unashamed discrimination against Palestinians in favour of Israeli settlers” (…) “It is

difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel's laws and practices violate the 1966

Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination” (…) “Throughout the

West Bank, and particularly in Hebron, settlers are given preferential treatment over

Palestinians in terms of movement (major roads are reserved exclusively for settlers), building

rights and army protection and laws governing family re-unification”. But his report also

condemns the two Israeli offensives launched to counter the missile threat from Gaza. Four

hundred Palestinians died, and some 1,500 were injured - many of them civilians. Three

Israeli soldiers were killed. Mr Dugard says that this was a “grossly disproportionate and

indiscriminate” response that led to the army committing “multiple war crimes". He also

criticises “the very tight controls that Israel maintains over the flow of goods and people in

and out of Gaza” (…) “This add to the poverty-stricken territory's chronic economic problems

- contributing to mounting levels of unemployment and desperation”. Mr Dugard says that

Israel is imposing a policy of “controlled strangulation” that is helping to give rise to a failed

State on its doorstep”14

.

Economy- Cheap Work Force

In 1965 Israel had an economic depression which created 100,000 unemployed and an

important emigration mostly of brains (university educated), a deficit of the commercial

balance (500 millions), and low donation from the Diaspora. The State of Israel was

consuming 4 times more than what it was producing. From 1967 with the 6 Days War, the

tendency changed thanks to the Diaspora’s donation and the economy improving. Israel

needed Palestinian cheap labour. That labour was 50% cheaper than that of Israelis. But not

only that, the Palestinian didn’t have the entire social (license, vacation, health), political and

economic rights that the Israeli workers had.

In 1969, the commercial balance between the West Bank and Israel was 12 million dollars

exported to the West Bank and 50 million imported. In 1972, it passed to 25.6 million

exported and 81.2 imported. Three years later it was 69.9 million exported and 204 million

imported. In 1969, 5% of the E.A.P. (Economically Active Population) of the West Bank

worked inside Israel. It’s important also to know that those salaries are inferior to the ones

paid to Israelis, even if they are doing the same work and have the same study level achieved.

In 1972, it passed from 5% to 27%, and in 1974 it got even higher to 31%. The Israeli

economy desperate needed this cheap labour to keep its economic motor going.

The occupation of the West Bank has another geopolitics benefit linked to the economy. In

one hand the Israeli economy obtains cheap labour work force and in the other a captive

market for their products, which end up being dominating the Palestinian economy. Israel has

the monopoly to sell products in the occupy territories. But not only that, the Palestinian

cheap labour doesn’t only apply inside the territories, they work also inside Israel. This way

the Jews industries obtain cheap labour workforce. The Palestinian workers need a special

working pass that are given under strict condition making the Palestinians depend on the

13

Mr Dugard is a South African professor of international law assigned to monitor Israeli human rights abuses. 14

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6390755.stm.

16

Israelis to survive. This makes or impose a certain type of behaviour (conduct) to which the

Palestinian are expected to have toward the Israelis if they want to get their permits. This

could be considered as a type of slavery15

, because is thanks to the Israelis “grace” that the

Palestinian can work and feed their families. Any behaviour that is not liked by the Israelis

(authority) can result in being “apartheid” from the permits and the work.

The commercial-economic policy that Israel applies in the occupied territories (Palestinian

market) has as sole beneficiary: the Israelis products. This policy also doesn’t let almost any

Palestinian product in the Israelis markets, even if some licenses are given to some Palestinian

products, they are difficult to obtain. Any product that doesn’t have Israel as its origin needs a

special permit from Israel to be sell inside the occupy territories. Those products have to pay

taxes to Israel that are much higher than the ones that Israelis product have to pay. This makes

the Palestinian market a captive of Israel’s economy. In 1975, 89% of the products sold in the

occupy territories came from Israel. The other 11% that wasn’t made in Israel were products

that weren’t made in Israel and didn’t compete with any Israeli production, this data according

to Benjamin Moraimé16

.

In 20 years of occupation with repression that neutralised the political elites and their

imprisonment, the Palestinians have been left with no elemental rights. According to the

World Bank17

estimation the West Bank and Gaza in the last 6 years saw their economic

situation deteriorated, losing almost 20% of the GDP per capital. In 2000, 21% of the

population was poor according to the World Bank with an average less than 2 dollars per day

job. That number went up to a 60% at the end of 2002. Continuing with the World Bank

report, the losses are about 5 billions since the start of the Second Intifada with out counting

the Palestinian infrastructure and material losses. The mayor losses have been in the

agricultural sector, with the loss of lands that were destroyed, confiscated or inaccessible.

Also, the difficulties to irrigate the isolated lands, the transactions cost and the blocking of

investments to the zones affected by the wall.

The poverty level from 1994 to 2000 dropped from a 24% to a 20%. In 2001, it went up to

33%, and in 2002 was already in 62%. The lack of famine and a humanitarian catastrophe is

due to the presence of the international aid and donations. In February 2004, the people living

near the wall, 65% of them were under the line of poverty, when is 57% for the rest of the

West Bank all this according to the Palestine Monitor Organisation18

. In another survey, it

shows that the wall already paralyzed the Palestinians work and commerce. In February 2004,

47% of Palestinians said that the prices were higher, and 35% said that it was getting more

and more difficult to commerce the agricultural products. 29% said that the wall cut the

cultivable land from the water. Also, there was a big reduction in the commerce between

Israel and Palestine, dropping from a 58% in 2001 to a 44% in 2002.

The same way that South Africa had its cheap black labour, Israel uses the Palestinians.

15

In the city Richon LeTzion exist what the Israelis call the “slave market” a population without a

political right, that have prohibited any rights, organisation, that doesn’t vote, has the right to work but

to be quiet. 16

MORIAME Benjamin, La Palestine Dans l’étau Israélien Avant et Après le Mur, Paris: l’Harmattan, 2006, page 42.

17

World Bank, Deep Palestinian Poverty in the Midst of Economic Crisis, November 22, 2004, in www.worldbank.org.

18

Palestine Monitor, Bad Fences Makes Bad Neighbours, April 20, 2005, in www.palestinemonitor.org.

17

Similitude and differences between South Africa and Israel

1-In one hand the Afrikaners persecuted by the English had to move to hostile Bantus

territories. The Jews also persecuted because of Anti Semitism, had to move to a hostile Arab

land.

2-The Herrenvolk and the Chosen People are the terms that the two communities use for

themselves.

3-The Grand Trek of the Afrikaners is the Exodus for the Jews.

4-The Promised Land for the Jews in Palestine was Orange and Transvaal for the Afrikaners.

5-The two communities are based in the Bible and their interpretation as legitimacy of their

practices. The Zionism has converted itself to a patriotism that has Anti Arabs content. A

wrong lecture on the Bible puts in it a political, ethical and moral justification in racism that it

was never intended to be (the same as in South Africa).

6-In face of the aggressiveness of Bantus and Arabs, made both communities felt they had

their backs against the sea.

This way of conceiving their history created on them a specific mentality: 1-Identity

exaltation. 2- Deny of the others identity biological inferior. 3- Deny of any common project

with the other communities, not a possible integration. Thus a one State with two nations is

hardly an option for Israel. This common logic was to change Palestine into a Jews only State,

and South Africa into a white only State.

Same tactics used by both States:

1- To stop or not allow anybody that could put in jeopardy the Jews or white character of the

nation.

2- Make the other community into a cheap not qualify workers.

3- Save the white purity or the Jews purity in the conquered lands, and remove local

population. Arabs or blacks, stop the mixing of race, limited the rights to reside and control

their movements.

4-By immigration, only allowing good citizens to come in and block the entry to the others,

that way the proportions could be kept. Natality: encouraging whites and Jews to have more

children and discouraging blacks and non-Jews.

All of theses had one simple logic: racist, the main difference between the communities, was

that South Africa had a 1 white to 5 blacks ratio, and Israel had a 6 Jews- 1 Arab ratio at

that time, now it has changed due to the high birth-rate of the Arabs as already mentioned

above.

18

CONCLUSION

International Ruling:

No mechanism exists to prosecute any State for the crime of apartheid except referral from the

UN Security Council to the International Criminal Court, and no such referral has ever taken

place.

Rome Statute definition of the crime of apartheid:

Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against

humanity as: For the purpose of this Statute, 'crime against humanity' means any of the

following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against

any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: Murder; Extermination; Enslavement;

Deportation or forcible transfer of population; Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of

physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; Torture; rape, sexual

slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of

sexual violence of comparable gravity; Persecution against any identifiable group or

collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in

paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under

international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within

the jurisdiction of the Court; Enforced disappearance of persons;

The crime of apartheid;

Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious

injury to body or to mental or physical health.

Later in Article 7, the crime of apartheid is defined as:

The 'crime of apartheid' means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in

paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression

and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with

the intention of maintaining that regime

Even thought the comparison between South Africa apartheid system and what Israel is doing

in the occupy territories doesn’t match in all the cases, we have shown that there is an

apartheid in the economy field, where the Palestinian workers are at the mercy of the Israeli

regime. Also, Even thought we cannot fully say that there is a full apartheid system been used

inside the territories, we can see some traces of it. It doesn’t matter the name used to define

what’s going on inside Palestine; if it is Apartheid, military occupation or any other name.

The truth is that it must end.

If we take the Rome stature definition, then Israel would be considered an apartheid regime,

not inside Israel but what is doing to the Palestinians Also, if we read the rest of international

treaties and conventions, we see that Israel is breaking them systematically.

All ready The International Court of Justice19

(ICJ) in The Hague July 9, 2004, despite intense

pressure from Israel, ruled: The wall is illegal. The ICJ voted 14-1 that "the construction of

the wall and its associated regime are contrary to international law", 14-1 that “Israel must

immediately cease construction of the Wall in all areas, dismantle parts already build and

19

International Court of Justice, Consequences Juridiques de lédification d’un Mur dans le Territoire

Palestiniens occupé, avis consultatif rendu le 9 juillet 2004, rôle général n°131, sur www.icijcij.org.

19

repeal any legislation or regulation relating to the Wall” and 14-1 that “Israel must make

reparations for damages caused by construction of the Wall. Should Israel, the U.S., the

European Union or any other country attempt to avoid their legal obligation to stop

construction of the Illegal Wall, they would be in clear contempt of the ICJ’s opinion” in

which a 13-2 vote stated that "all States are under an obligation not to recognize the

illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or

assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction." The court

reinforced this point with a 14-1 vote that the "United Nations and especially the General

Assembly and the Security Council should consider what further action is required to bring an

end to the illegal situation resulting from the wall and the associated regime”.

Furthermore the International Court of Justice estimates that “16.6% of the West Bank will be

situated between the Green Line and the wall, some 975 km, which will affect 237,000

Palestinian in one way or another. 160,000 will live in totally isolated zones. 320,000 settlers

will be protected by the wall, also under international law, those colonies are all illegal”.

Adding to the International Court of Justice ruling, the Fourth Geneva Convention that was

adopted in 1949 by the international community in response to Nazi atrocities during World

War II, which governs the treatment of civilians during wartime, including hostages,

diplomats, spies, bystanders and civilians in territory under military occupation.

These 4 Articles of the Geneva Convention that follow, are been broken systematically by

Israel policies on the occupied territories. Not only the International Court of Justice has ruled

that the wall is illegal, but the practices now and before the construction of the wall done by

Israel goes against the international laws and treaties signed by Israel:

• Article 4 defines who is a protected person: Persons protected by the Convention are

those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case

of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power

of which they are not nationals.

• Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not

personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation

or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

• A protected person/s shall not have anything done to them of such a character as to

cause physical suffering or extermination ... the physical suffering or extermination of

protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture,

corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not

necessitated by the medical treatment. While popular debate remains on what

constitutes a legal definition of torture (see discussion on the Torture page), the ban on

corporal punishment simplifies the matter; even the most mundane physical abuse is

thereby forbidden by Article 32, as a precaution against alternate definitions of

torture.

• Article 49. The second paragraph of Article 49 provides that persons displaced during

armed conflict must be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the

area in question have ceased. This right of displaced persons is often referred to as the

« right of return » and has been reaffirmed in later international treaties and

conventions. State Practice also establishes this rule as a norm of customary

international law, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

20

Seen this, the question remains, why did Apartheid fell in South Africa and the situation on

occupy territories hasn’t.

The answer lies in many factors: first the international context has changed, with the 9/11

Israel got more support. Second we have to remember that the demographic situation in one is

very different than the other. South Africa had a minority white, and needed desperately white

immigration. In Israel and Palestine, the ratio were different, there were more Jews than

Arabs, plus with the collapse of the Soviet Union, an estimated 1 million of Russian Jews

emigrated toward Israel, getting the ratios pro Jews higher. The apartheid had to open to the

world, South Africa had commerce with the UK and with USA, leaving the apartheid behind

was a cost benefit equation and not a moral decision. They needed to open up to the world,

and the apartheid was getting to be too expensive. The developing of the markets made a

necessity to make the black consumers and producers inside the economic circuit. That we

can say was the main reason adding to the international pressure the reason why apartheid

ended in South Africa. Third, Israel is the USA premium ally, which South Africa wasn’t.

To the question on why the Israeli wall had made so much controversy which also draw

attention on the allegation of apartheid, we can answer saying that the wall pass by Palestinian

territory and not Israeli. Also adding to it is the division that it creates inside the West Bank as

seen in the map below. A Palestinian State in this condition is not viable. The possible border

that the wall is setting is a border that gives the advantage to the Israeli. The wall is set in a

way that the hydraulic resources end up inside Israel. Also, Israel thanks to the trace that the

wall does gets 11% more land. It is important to mention that the Golan Heights that it’s

occupied by Israel hasn’t been given back to Syria for the same reason. The water that that

region has is also of geopolitical importance to Israel (the water that Israel gets from there, is

the water that his enemy –Syria doesn’t).

21

We can conclude that the wall will set the definitive border between Israel and a possible

future Palestinian State (due to the demographic difference, a one State two nation solution is

not viable for the Jews nation). It can also be said that the wall serves to maintain the pseudo-

apartheid system that Israel practices inside the occupied territories. Not only that, but it will

also make the Palestinian economically dependant on Israel just like the Bantustan of South

Africa.

Even thought the South Africa apartheid has some similarities with the Israeli system. We can

see that system been more of an economic need than anything else. Now with the

globalisation, the cheap labour is in third world countries. That system of economic apartheid

has changed forms. Is not a local one anymore but more of a global type.

22

According to author Genot Kohler in his 1978 book called Global Apartheid. He analyzed the

global situation of the world against the South African regime and concluded that the global

apartheid was much worst.

Global Apartheid 1978 (Genot Kohler)

GNP Bulgaria USA South A. World

Top 20% 33% 38% 58% 71%

Middle

40%

40% 41% 35.8% 23%

Lowest

40%

26% 19% 6.2% 5.2%

As the graphic shows the difference between those who owns the wealth in the world: 20% of

the people posses 71% of the wealth (GNP) and inside South Africa was 58% of the wealth

for 20% of the people. It shows that the white around the world posses more wealth than the

South Africans whites. So, it’s interesting to notice that even thought the rest of the world

hasn’t implemented a juridical apartheid, it has made it via a economic system.

We know that the African apartheid ended in 1994 due to the reason already mentioned, now

is interesting to see that the regime put in place in the occupy territories can also end with

what we already mention before: a demographic factor:

Arnor Sofer a Jew demographer nicknamed the Arab counter said “that the wall was an

answer to the demographic problem, the fear the Israelis have of losing their way of life”.

With a growth rate higher, the Palestinians will be a mayor security problem for Israel. Not

only the exchange or percentages but also the Palestinians now will be majority, and not

minority like they have been for the past 30 years.

According to Professor Robert Escalier20

and the demographer Youssef Coubage21

the

demography is a geopolitical factor in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. An example is Gaza,

where there were 8,000 Jews settlers and a million Palestinians; it couldn’t be annexed

because of the demographic difference. That’s why the Israeli government decide to take out

the settlers.

20

ESCALIER Robert, Population and Geopolitics in the Mediterranean, Studies and Reflections Around the

Israeli-Palestine Conflict, in Rachid Driss: Arab World and International Mutations, Tunis: International studies

association Editions, March 2005, page 165-175. 21 COURBAGE Youssef, L‘enjeu Démographic en Palestine à l’aube du XXI siecle, in Bichara Khade

(coordinateur), Palestine : Mémoire et Perspectives, Louvain la Neuve/Paris, Centre Tricontinental/Edition

Syllepse, Coll ; Alternatives Sud, volume 12-2005/1, 2005., page41-71.

23

Population 1917-205022

YEAR JEWS (%) ARABS TOTAL

1917 70,000 (13,8) 595,000 665,000

1947 630,000 (32) 1,324,000 1,970,000

1967 2,347,000 (63,9) 1,306,000 3,716,000

1975 2,959,000 (64,8) 1,563,000 4,568,000

2000 5,168,000 (55,5) 4,151,000 9,310,000

2020 6,697,000 (46,7) 7,656,000 14,353,000

2050 8,780,000 (37,4) 14,681,000 23,461,000

Estimation by the year 2010 says that the Palestinians from the territories plus those inside

Israel will be about 50% of the total population. In 1967, the difference was 2,374,000 Jews,

against 1,306,000 when the occupation started.

For the year 2020, according to Arnor Sofer23

, between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea,

there will be 58% of Arabs, and 42% of Jews. This way he is in favour of withdrawing from

the territories and traces the definitive frontier line before the Arabs flood Israel and affects

the Jews identity.

Having these numbers, it is impossible to maintain a system that have a ratio of 1-1 or 1-2,

where the majority would be under a minority just like South Africa. And here the apartheid

analogy would advance. There isn’t any doubt that the situation in Palestine will eventually

end with a negotiation bringing peace to the region.

One thing comes out of both experience, and that is what cannot be done again in any country.

Those examples should help demonstrate the wrong path that any State can take.

22 ESCALIER Robert,art.cit., pp 173-174. 23

MORIAME Benjamin, La Palestine Dans l’étau Israélien Avant et Après le Mur, Paris: l’Harmattan,

2006, page 90.

24

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