With all the ruckus around Kerry’s Apartheid gaffe and his pathetic apology, one would think that his statement attests to radical anti-Semitism or at least an anti-Zionist sentiment. As a matter of fact, the logic and vocabulary of Kerry’s statement is shared by no other than Naftali Bennett – head of Israel’s religious and far right-winged party.
In a 2012 ad, featured in his YouTube page and titled “Naftali Bennett’s stability initiative”, the narrator calls for the partial annexation of the West Bank to Israel and for allowing the Palestinians “self-rule” (though not a state) over what is left. This plan also entails granting Israeli citizenship to those Palestinians living in the would-be annexed territory and building overpasses between the islets of Palestinian self-rule which the plan would create.
The video (above) claims that this plan, although not utopian, will “greatly improve the situation.” What is wrong with the situation today? According to the video (1:27), if Israel does nothing then the arena is left open for Palestinian initiatives such as Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. (Notice that even Bennett believes BDS is not a form of anti-Semitism but rather a logical political strategy derived from Israel’s politics.) Then the video goes on to tell us (2:47) that this plan will “take the wind out of the sails of those who accuse us (Israelis) of being an Apartheid state.”
One logical conclusion from this last statement is that if the current legal status of the West Bank and its residents does not change, then the claims of Israel being an Apartheid state will have merit. Even right-wing politicians such as Bennett understand that as many differences one can find between post-1967 Israel and Apartheid South-Africa, the analogy between the two regimes will be reasonable so long as Israel holds within its sovereign territories a population which has no access to equal citizenship due to it being of non-Jewish faith and/or ethnicity.
The video also proves that the comparability of Apartheid South Africa with Israel is something that one can suggest and not have to ward off accusations of being an anti-Semite or even an anti-Zionist. What would be interesting to ask both pre-apology Kerry and 2012 Bennett is why they think Israel “might” become an Apartheid state versus it being an Apartheid state now? Really, why?
Disappointed in this analysis – or lack thereof.
Why didn’t the author delve into the plan in more detail and offer his view of whether it would be doable politically and secondly, whether it would be able to ward off the Apartheid dagger of Democles.
I certainly think it is doable politically. The second question is much harder to answer, because it is largely a social question; i.e., how far have we actually come in our understanding of the conflict?
During the end of the video, Bennett’s proposal makes clear that Israel would still control the Bantustan’s borders with the outside world even if they would try to increase the movement somewhat within and between them, thereby trying to counter the bad image the state has gotten due to all the checkpoints/roadblocks.
Another key issue is how to resolve immigration. I’m guessing Israel would control that issue too under that “solution”. So it’d basically be like today, where the Palestininan equivalent of the judenrat, i.e. the PA, would continue to do the wishes of their masters only on even smaller grounds.
However, if there are no more settlements in areas A and B, Israel would try to say “see, the issue is now resolved”. Will the world continue to care? The Arab world will. I’d like to think the rest of the Western world would too, but look at the passivity on the issue of Tibet or other areas under permanent occupation. It has fallen off the liberal radar in the West.
The Palestinian issue has energized a lot more people than the Tibetan issue, in large part because Palestine is so much closer to Europe and there is a large and growing muslim diaspora in the Western world. That alone suggests that the issue will have much more salience.
It’s a difficult question to answer. I think Bennett’s “solution” will be the one that Israel ultimately will try to take. Michael Oren has already suggested as much in a recent interview.
The only question is how long Israel will try to extend the 2SS narrative. They must know it is on its last legs, but they will try and pretend until they cannot try any longer. And then they will annex.
For how long (how many years?) must a state exhibit certain apartheid-like behaviors before it becomes proper to describe that state as “apartheid” (instead of: “gonna be”, “might someday be”, “seems likely to become, someday”). And who decides when it is “proper” to call the shots as you see them?
Gosh, so many terms: “apartheid”, “proper”. What next?
I guess it’s like bugs which are larvae, pupae, etc., and then adults. Stages of development. Baby in utero is not fully human (well, some people disagree), a Zionist Entity not yet 100 years old is too young to be conclusively described as an apartheid state?
Speaking of Bennett’s plan for Palestinian “self-rule”, here’s an interesting paragraph from the Wikipedia article on Bantustan:
You say ‘Tomato’
Israel is not ‘An Apartheid State’ in the sense that Bill Clinton ‘did not have sex with that woman.’
Just saying.
The push back against Kerry’s use of the ‘A’ word is predictably swift and brutal.
As the right wing World Net Daily states
In their piece titled: JOHN KERRY IN BED WITH TERRORISTS:
“his utterance of the term evokes the position of Palestinian leaders and allies in academia and the United Nations.”
In 2009 South Africa’s statutory research agency the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) published a report stating, “the State of Israel exercises control in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid.” The report was written by a team of international law experts.
The research team included scholars and international lawyers based at the HSRC, the School for Oriental and African Studies (London), the British Institute for International and Comparative Law, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (Durban), the Adalah/Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and al-Haq/West Bank Affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. Consultation on the study’s theory and method was provided by eminent jurists from South Africa, Israel and Europe.
Considering that his plan is pretty much the definition of apartheid as it was practiced after 1970 I’m not sure I’d take his word on much in that department.