apartheid

This may be one of those rare instances where I actually manage a coherent series of thoughts over the course of more than one posting! Yeah me! The recent hullabaloo over former President Carter's book is the basis of this consistency. Whether it's at the heart of the matter or merely one among many issues is the question: is it fair to compare Israeli policy in the West Bank to those of apartheid era South Africa? As noted the other day President Carter is not the first to make this comparison (and neither am I). But the question remains is it fair. To this end I'd like to address that issue. These are my musings and, thus, not rigorously researched arguments but they are educated ones based on my academic background.

The first issue concerns the simple phrasing and juxtaposition of ideas and policies. Part of the criticisms against the application of apartheid to Israel's West Bank policies (and let's be clear that this is what we are discussing) is that apartheid is one of those rare terms that holds so much moral and historical significance that its application must be limited (we can think of the term genocide in similar terms in that we reserve its application so as not to denude the term of meaning). From this perspective apartheid holds a high bar to its application by way of analogy that Israel does not pass. To do so not only unfairly paints Israel in racist, immoral colours but also waters down the historical legacy and moral condemnation of apartheid itself. This could be a fair argument if minimal scrutiny did not tear it apart. Apartheid policies may have been more egregious than Israel's but we are talking about a matter of degree not kind. One may also make the counter argument that apartheid, unlike many other rare historical analogies and terms, and its legacy carries with it the obligation to use it as an example and to end racism and segregation everywhere at any time. The anti-apartheid struggle was broadly framed as part of a global struggle against oppression and racism. Its application on these ground is, thus, valid.

But what of the particulars of apartheid and Israeli policy? Apartheid is a strange thing (or was). Like many policies good and bad that we have come to know by a proper name, apartheid lacks clear conceptual, temporal, and policy boundaries. The official beginning of apartheid is 1948 when the Nationalists took over the South African parliament and declared a body of unofficial policies and some existing policies to be part of a broader policy of segregation and separateness. But many of apartheid's most infamous policies (e.g. the pass laws that restricted the movement of black South Africans) pre-date this period. Apartheid evolved over time, became nastier, and slowly weakened. Even fixing a date to its demise is difficult. Israeli West Bank policies too defy this easy conceptual and temporal coherence. But they share many characteristics and, most importantly, purposes.

While Israel may not make racial superiority a focus of its policies of separation their does exist a race component. ID cards are used by Israel as a means of control to not only keep certain populations in certain areas but to control their movement. Palestinian ID cards serve as a useful mechanism, seemingly benign, to control the movement of Palestinians not only to and from Israel but within the West Bank and Gaza (at least more so in the past than now). Race was explicitly used in apartheid SA to define the rights of movements of various 'racial categories', where people could live, and where people could work (being Indian or coloured entitled one to less onerous restrictions and greater access to property, jobs, and wealth in general). Pass laws even limited people to certain job categories and limited who could enter 'white' neighbourhoods and for how long. The existence and maintenance of Jewish neighbourhoods is comparable to the maintenance of white neighbourhoods in apartheid SA. Again, that it is less overt in Israel does not invalidate the comparison. While I am unaware of any 'white only' roads in apartheid SA, Israel has constructed Jewish only highways that connect larger neighbourhoods in the West Bank with Israel and each other. And let's not forget an actual wall being built- understandable in part from a security perspective- that physically reinforces the idea of separateness.

And it is this notion of separateness, I feel, that is at the heart of any real comparison between the two states. While the two-state solution in Palestine is old and has a solid rationale to it, one can't help but see a comparison to the apartheid government's decision to fully separate the black population. The creation of Bantustans as separate nations/states (recognised only by the apartheid South African government) was an attempt to rid the state of any responsibility for the black population and as a means to justify the pass laws, property laws, etc. as a policy on foreign nationals (of a sorts). Indeed, statistics from this period (I forget the date but it is sometime in the 1960s) cease to include black people at all; they were no longer South African. Is Israel's sudden and seemingly resigned acceptance of a separate state and government for Palestinians (growing into a hearty promulgation in the past few years) comparable? Yes. At least from the perspective of separateness, which is at the heart of Israel's pursuit of a separate state for Palestinians.

Israel sees itself as not only physically separate but, in a way, existentially separate from Palestinians. If Israel no longer runs the West Bank then it is no longer responsible for its development or its people (the existential component can come from the issue Israel faces concerning its Arab citizens and what it means to be Jewish and a citizen of Israel). The blatant racial inferiority approach of the apartheid government is, of course, absent. The only problem with this comparison is that a two-state solution is probably a fair one and one premised on a sense of Palestinian nationhood. Nevertheless, the comparison has merits (we could even go so far as to compare Israel's land grabs, the effects of its policies on the lack of development in the West Bank, or its policies of control on workers and goods going to Israel with apartheid).

Obviously, this discussion is incomplete but it does scratch the surface enough to see that those who have compared the two states have a rationale for doing so. No one is making a direct comparison, mind you. No one is saying that Israeli policies are the same as apartheid. Some merely argue that they are similar and really a difference of degree not kind. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he felt the suffering of the Palestinian people because he knew and saw suffering under apartheid. I think he would be the first to say that Israel is not apartheid South Africa. But he would also say that at times it certainly feels that way.