I have been looking for years, and I cannot, for the life of me, locate the Republic of South Africa on any map of the world. The name should be a very helpful indicator: Africa is a very large continent, South Africa, then, must be at the southern tip. Yet I keep looking, and South Africa isn’t there. It just disappeared, one fine, fine morning in 1994. On April 28, 1994, to be very specific, when the people of South Africa voted to end apartheid, the system of institutionalized discrimination that privileged one race over others. With the end of apartheid, celebrated in all corners of the world, South Africa must have simply disappeared.
And I worry, is this going to be the fate of Israel? Once we finally overthrow apartheid there will it completely disappear off the map, just as South Africa did? Because I keep hearing that if Palestinians achieve their rights, then Israel will disappear. As Norman Finkelstein put it in the now famous infamous interview in February, 2012: If BDS accomplishes its goals, “there is no Israel.” You know, like there is no South Africa, since the indigenous people of that land finally overthrew apartheid there.
Now that I think of it, what kind of person would view the abolition of institutionalized racism as a loss, a disappearance, rather than a global victory? What kind of person actually believes South Africa was finished, after the end of white supremacy there? Because that is the kind of person who would believe Israel would be destroyed, rather than improved upon, by justice.
Which leads me to the more serious discussion: we need new terminology, we need the freedom to discuss the major change we hope to see happening in Israel, without it being described in mainstream discourse as overwhelmingly negative, the “end” of Israel, its “destruction.” Because I cannot fathom how someone would claim that “there is no South Africa” after apartheid, and I doubt that many rational beings would describe the end of apartheid there as the destruction of that country. Why then describe the end of a Jewish supremacist state as destruction?
And we need to redefine sovereignty. Israel will not disappear off the map. The majority of the Israelis living there today will not return to the countries their parents and grandparents came from, even though I do suspect that some will try to desert the sinking ship of unearned prerogatives. After all, if they are to suddenly become equal with the Palestinians, no longer living in “Jewish-only” luxury gated communities, some will decide that they are better off living in Europe or the US. But these will be the minority. Millions of Israelis will continue to live in the country they love, for many, the only country they know. They just won’t be legally privileged, as much as they will be privileged as all hereditary benefactors of oppressive systems are. You know, like being white in the US after the abolition of slavery, or white in South Africa, after the end of apartheid. They will be Jewish in Israel, after the official end of Jewish supremacy.
And the Palestinians will return, after decades of languishing in refugee camps, in hostile countries, or even just miles from their ancestral village. Impoverished, traumatized, rightfully bitter at their unfair cruel treatment for close to a century, they will finally enjoy equal rights in a country transformed by decades of Jewish supremacy. They will be a free people again, free to learn and teach and take pride in their culture and history, and they will have much to learn, for so much will have been erased, has already been erased. How do we redefine sovereignty, so that the Palestinian people are sovereign in their homeland, as Israel ceases to be a Jewish supremacist apartheid state, but is not “destroyed,” only improved upon?
I do not believe any solution can take the shape of “two states,” for that would simply be replacing one apartheid state, and some occupied fragments, with two apartheid states. I believe the solution can only be in one single entity: historic Palestine, which is today’s “greater” (apartheid) Israel. If Palestine is to be free, it can only be from the river to the sea.
In The Wretched of the Earth, his manifesto of anti-colonial struggle, Frantz Fanon urged “If we want humanity to advance a step farther, we must invent, and we must make discoveries…. We must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man.”
This too will be an imperative in Palestine/Israel, to invent, to create a new vocabulary, to redefine nationhood and sovereignty. I’m ready. I am so ready to shift gears, to switch from resistance to creativity. But for that to happen, we need to end apartheid. Some would say we are out to “destroy Israel,” but you and I know better.
“Some would say we are out to “destroy Israel,” but you and I know better. “Nada Elia.
You and I know that the only people destroying Israel , are the Zionists .The very ones claiming that others are out to destroy it, wherever it,s borders are .
Classic pathological narcissism and projection.The eventual destruction of Israel is in good hands.Outside help is not necessary.
What Zio-supremacists worry about isn’t the disappearance of Israel – it’s the disappearance of:
– religion-supremacist “Jewish State”; and
– their supremacist standing within it.
One state or two, the solution must be based on justice, accountability and equality in (a) secular and democratic state(s).
If the solution is two states and if those two states decide to merge into a single state at some point through the democratic consensus of the citizens, immigrants, expats and refugees of both states, that would be an act of self-determination (the real kind, not the Zio-supremacist kind) and it would be perfectly acceptable.
Beautifully written. But I am not altogether clear what the author means by Israel “not disappearing.” Will the post-apartheid regime still be called Israel then? Rather than Palestine?
One of the differences between apartheid South Africa and Israel is that the former had a politically neutral geographical name that could fit any type of regime (though there were some who wanted to rename the country Azania). The word “Israel” was originally a collective name for Jews or Jewry, so its use as the name of a country implied and implies a special position for Jews (at a minimum). Perhaps the author wants us to understand that despite this logic the country might continue to be called Israel for the sake of continuity and reconciliation. Or perhaps it could be called Israel and Palestine simultaneously/.
I think Palestine is correct just from a historic standpoint. It is much older than “israel”, this area was known around the world as Palestine and on all the maps as Palestine. Voila!
“As Norman Finkelstein put it in the now famous infamous interview in February, 2012: If BDS accomplishes its goals, “there is no Israel.” You know, like there is no South Africa, since the indigenous people of that land finally overthrew apartheid there.” BINGO!
This was a wonderful article – thank you!
Amen! I dream that this scenario will come into being. However, unfortunately, I cannot see it happening in my lifetime. A whole generation of Israelis have been brainwashed by the supremacist mindset of Zionism – they will defend it with their lives, for they cannot see outside the totalitarian belief system. I too believe that the reality depicted by Nada will come into being, but only after years of bloodshed and attrition and a paradigm shift by the outside world to finally put a stop to Israeli’s messianic ideology encompassing moral turpitude and oppression of the other. For now, it is precisely the outside world, and in particular America, that facilitates such a reality within Israel. But a new socail-media embibed generation of Americans are growing up too, more savvy, less accepting of the hegemonic narrative, and more questioning the beliefs of their elders. With them too come hope of change …