{"id":130890,"date":"2019-04-08T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=130890"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:42:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:42:14","slug":"i-fought-south-african-apartheid-i-see-the-same-brutal-policies-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/04\/i-fought-south-african-apartheid-i-see-the-same-brutal-policies-in-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"I Fought South African Apartheid. I See the Same Brutal Policies in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was shut down in South Africa for speaking out, and I\u2019m disturbed that the same is happening to critics of Israel now.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u2018Benjamin Netanyahu said recently: \u2018Israel is not a state of all its citizens \u2026 Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people \u2013 and them alone.\u2019
Photograph: Amir Levy\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

3 Apr 2019 – <\/em>As a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist I look with horror on the far-right shift in Israel ahead of this month\u2019s elections<\/a>, and the impact in the Palestinian territories and worldwide.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s repression of Palestinian citizens, African refugees and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza has become more brutal over time. Ethnic cleansing<\/a>, land seizure, home demolition, military occupation, bombing of Gaza and international law violations led Archbishop Tutu to declare that the treatment of Palestinians reminded him of apartheid<\/a>, only worse.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also deeply disturbed that critics of Israel\u2019s brutal policies are frequently threatened with repression of their freedom of speech, a reality I\u2019ve now experienced at first hand. Last week, a public meeting in Vienna where I was scheduled to speak in support of Palestinian freedom, as part of the global Israeli Apartheid Week<\/a>, was cancelled by the museum hosting the event \u2013 under pressure from Vienna\u2019s city council, which opposes the international movement to divest from Israel.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s apartheid government banned me for life from attending meetings. Nothing I said could be published, because I stood up against apartheid. How disgraceful that, despite the lessons of our struggle against racism, such intolerance continues to this day, stifling free speech on Palestine.<\/p>\n

During the South African struggle, we were accused of following a communist agenda, but smears didn\u2019t deflect us. Today, Israel\u2019s propaganda follows a similar route, repeated by its supporters \u2013 conflating opposition to Israel<\/a> with antisemitism. This must be resisted.<\/p>\n

A growing number of Jews worldwide are taking positions opposing Israel\u2019s policies. Many younger Jews are supporting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions<\/a> (BDS) movement, a peaceful mobilisation inspired by the movement that helped to end apartheid in South Africa.<\/p>\n

How disgraceful that, despite the lessons of our struggle against racism, such intolerance continues to this day<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The parallels with South Africa are many. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently said<\/a>: \u201cIsrael is not a state of all its citizens \u2026 Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people \u2013 and them alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar racist utterances were common in apartheid South Africa. We argued that a just peace could be reached, and that white people would find security only in a unitary, non-racist, democratic society after ending the oppression of black South Africans and providing freedom and equality for all.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Netanyahu\u2019s Likud is desperately courting extremist parties, and abandoning any pretext of negotiating with the Palestinians. His plan to bring an extremist settler party and Kahanist terrorist party<\/a> into his governing coalition is obscene. His most serious opponent is a general accused of war crimes<\/a> in Gaza. As long as a repressive apartheid-like regime rules, things will only worsen for Palestinians and Israelis too.<\/p>\n

The anti-apartheid movement grew over three decades, in concert with the liberation struggle of South Africa\u2019s people, to make a decisive difference in toppling the racist regime. Europeans refused to buy apartheid fruit; there were sports boycotts; dockworkers from Liverpool to Melbourne refused to handle South African cargo; an academic boycott turned universities into apartheid-free zones; and arms sanctions helped to shift the balance against South Africa\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

As the movement developed and UN resolutions isolated Pretoria\u2019s regime, pressure mounted on trading partners and supportive governments. The US Congress\u2019s historic adoption of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (1986) was a major turning point. When the Chase and Barclays banks closed in South Africa and withdrew their lines of credit, the battle was well-nigh over.<\/p>\n

This required huge organisational effort, grassroots mobilisation and education. Similar elements characterise today\u2019s BDS movement to isolate apartheid-like Israel.<\/p>\n

Every step is important \u2013 pressing institutions and corporations that are complicit in Israel\u2019s crimes and supporting Palestinians in their struggle for liberation. This is not about destroying Israel and its people but about working for a just solution, as we did in South Africa.<\/p>\n

It is the duty of supporters of justice worldwide to mobilise in solidarity with Palestinians to help usher in an era of freedom.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Ronnie Kasrils is a former South African government minister, and was a leading member of the African National Congress during the apartheid era. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Apr 2019 – As a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist I look with horror on the far-right shift in Israel ahead of this month\u2019s elections, and the impact in the Palestinian territories and worldwide. I was shut down in South Africa for speaking out, and I\u2019m disturbed that the same is happening to critics of Israel now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":130891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[772,120,100,767,85,99],"class_list":["post-130890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-apartheid","tag-conflict","tag-direct-violence","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine-israel","tag-structural-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275223,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130890\/revisions\/275223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}