On Feb. 4, 1965, as a teenager, I left South Africa, the country of my birth, for a new home in a place I\u2019d never been \u2014 Israel.<\/p>\n
I loved South Africa, but I loathed the apartheid system. In Israel, I saw a fresh start for a people rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, a place of light and justice, as opposed to the darkness and oppression of apartheid South Africa.<\/p>\n
Now, almost 50 years later, after decades of arguing that Israel is not an apartheid state and that it\u2019s a calumny and a lie to say so, I sense that we may be well down the road to being seen as one. That\u2019s because, in this day and age, brands are more powerful than truth and, inexplicably, blindly, Israel is letting itself be branded an apartheid state \u2014 and even encouraging it.<\/p>\n
In apartheid South Africa, people disappeared in the night without the protection of any legal process and were never heard from again. There was no freedom of speech or expression and more \u201cjudicial\u201d hangings were reportedly carried out there than in any other place on earth. There was no free press and, until January 1976, no public television.<\/p>\n
Masses of black people were forcibly moved from tribal lands to arid Bantustans in the middle of nowhere. A \u201cpass system\u201d stipulated where blacks could live and work, splitting families and breaking down social structures, to provide cheap labor for the mines and white-owned businesses, and a plentiful pool of domestic servants for the white minority. Those found in violation were arrested, usually lashed, and sentenced to stints of hard labor for a few shillings per prisoner per day, payable to the prison service.<\/p>\n
None of this even remotely exists in Israel or the occupied territories. But, increasingly, in the mind of the world it does. This is because of Israel\u2019s own actions and a vigorous campaign by those who oppose its occupation of Palestinians\u2019 land and, in some cases, Israel\u2019s right to exist as a Jewish state. They understand that delegitimization is Israel\u2019s soft belly and apartheid the buzzword to make it happen.<\/p>\n
International isolation is potentially more dangerous for Israel than the Iranian nuclear program. The Palestinians and their supporters, particularly the young generation, some of whom have graduated from the best universities in the world, have come to realize that the stones of the first intifada and the suicide bombers of the second are yesterday\u2019s weapons in yesterday\u2019s war.<\/p>\n
Boycott, divestment and sanctions are now the way they seek to end the Israeli occupation or Jewish Israel itself. Their message has started to resonate with trade unions, churches, universities and international companies in Europe and the United States, who see Israel as oppressing Palestinians and violating their human rights.<\/p>\n
A Dutch pension giant\u2019s decision last month to divest from Israel\u2019s five largest banks because of their ties to occupation rang warning bells in Israel\u2019s business community and the Treasury. According to the finance minister, even a partial European boycott would cost Israel 20 billion shekels (about $5.7 billion) in exports annually and almost 10,000 jobs. But the greatest damage is self-inflicted.<\/p>\n
The \u201capartheid wall,\u201d \u201capartheid roads,\u201d colonization, administrative arrests, travel restrictions, land confiscations and house demolitions are the clay apartheid comparisons are made of, and cannot be hidden or denied, for as long as Israel continues with the status quo.<\/p>\n
Military occupation comes with checkpoints, antiterrorist barriers, military courts, armed soldiers and tanks. That\u2019s the reality, no matter what your politics, and just the ammunition the Palestinians and their supporters need in their new war.<\/p>\n
In the coming weeks, the United States is expected to put forward a framework for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry. The Palestinians have said that if the talks fail to produce an agreement, they will take the battle against Israel and for their independence to the International Criminal Court and the United Nations and its various organizations, and fight for sanctions and boycotts, which they hope will force Israel, like apartheid South Africa before it, to its knees. As South Africa learned in the 1980s, possessing nuclear weapons may deter foes on the battlefield, but it doesn\u2019t help you win a propaganda war.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Israel is doing almost everything it can to help its opponents achieve their goal. Instead of focusing on peace talks, Israel continuously signals its intention to build more settlement housing, most recently on Jan. 10, when plans for 1,400 new homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were announced. Instead of welcoming Eritrean and Sudanese refugees seeking asylum \u2014 the way that a former Likud Party prime minister, Menachem Begin, did in 1977 with the Vietnamese boat people, saying they reminded him of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust \u2014 Israel is confining today\u2019s asylum-seekers to a camp in the desert, providing reams of footage to those who want to prove Israel is a racist society.<\/p>\n
And it didn\u2019t help when, on Dec. 15, a ministerial committee approved a bill that would impose heavy, punitive taxes on groups like B\u2019Tselem, which tracks alleged human rights violations in the occupied territories, and Adalah, the legal center for minority rights in Israel.<\/p>\n
As anyone who has bought a \u201cGucci\u201d bag in a Bangkok market can tell you, it\u2019s all in the label. And the apartheid label is beginning to stick \u2014 fair or not. It carries with it huge consequences for Israel, which the country\u2019s inward-looking leaders seem impervious to. They have yet to understand that on this new battlefield, tanks don\u2019t count and the use of force, sure to be televised, plays into the hands of the enemy. It\u2019s a war Israel cannot win unless it makes peace.<\/p>\n
_____________________________<\/p>\n
Hirsh Goodman is the author, most recently, of <\/i>The Anatomy of Israel\u2019s Survival<\/a> and the editor in chief of <\/i>The Jerusalem Report from 1990 to 2000.<\/i><\/p>\n A version of this op-ed appears in print on February 2, 2014, on page SR6 of the National edition with the headline: Losing the Propaganda War.<\/i><\/p>\n