User:Sm8900/apartheid
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[edit] Notable commentators who have used the analogy
- In 2002 Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote an op-ed for The Guardian titled "Apartheid in the Holy Land"[1] and another in The Nation titled "Against Israeli apartheid";[2] both argued that there were parallels between the Israeli treatment of Palestinians and the treatment of black people in South Africa. Tutu says that the parallels are not exact, and that "Israel is certainly more democratic than most of its neighbours."[3]
- Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, Camp David Accords negotiator, and Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote a book entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid that criticizes Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories. Carter states that there is an apartheid-like system in the West Bank, but it is not based on racism. He also states that Israeli Arabs are equal citizens. [4][5] At aq recent appearance, Carter stated:
"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." [6]
- Uri Davis, Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote a book Israel: An Apartheid State (1987) that drew parallels between Israel and South Africa.[7]
- Michael Ben-Yair, attorney-general of Israel from 1993 to 1996 referred to Israel establishing "an apartheid regime in the occupied territories", in an essay included in the anthology The Other Israel, Voices of Refusal and Dissent.[8][9]
- Hendrik Verwoerd, the prime minister of South Africa, widely considered the architect of South Africa's apartheid policies, stated in 1961 that "The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state," [10]
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Agency (NSA) advisor to President Carter and currently a professor of American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies has said the absence of a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict could lead to de facto apartheid and "two communities living side by side but repressively separated, with one enjoying prosperity and seizing the lands of the other, and the other living in poverty and deprivation."[11]
Other South African anti-apartheid activists have used apartheid comparisons to criticize Israel's policies in the West Bank, and particularly the construction of the separation barrier. These include the Muslim writer and Harvard professor Farid Esack,[12] Ronnie Kasrils,[13] Winnie Madikizela-Mandela,[14] Arun Ghandhi,[15] Dennis Goldberg,[16] and Breyten Breytenbach.[17] Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky headed a list of hundreds of Jewish leaders in South Africa who wrote a June 2001 open letter comparing the occupation of Palestinian lands to Apartheid.[18]
Israelis who have compared the separation plan to apartheid include political scientist Meron Benvenisti,[19] Ami Ayalon, Israeli admiral and former leader of the Israel Security Agency,[20] and journalist Amira Hass.[21] Shulamit Aloni, former education minister, Israel Prize winner, and a former leader of Meretz [22], and Tommy Lapid, leader of the liberal Shinui and former Justice minister, used the term "apartheid" when describing a bill proposed by the government of Ariel Sharon to bar Arabs from buying homes in "Jewish townships" within Israel proper. [23][24][25]
Michael Tarazi, a Palestinian proponent of the binational solution has argued that it is in Palestine's interest to "make this an argument about apartheid", to the extent of advocating Israeli settlement, "The longer they stay out there, the more Israel will appear to the world to be essentially an apartheid state".[26]
