What does the end of South African apartheid tell us about how Israeli apartheid can end? That sanctions on Israel are required, and that a civil society mass movement is the only way to get there.
2021 was a watershed year for Palestinians. The struggle for Palestinian freedom and liberation saw unprecedented levels of global solidarity and unity amongst Palestinians despite their forced fragmentation. The year did not come without its challenges, however.
When a former Jewish professional asked David Harris of the AJC about the emotional drain on people like herself of advocating for Israel with young people who don’t buy the story, the tonedeaf CEO responded: I live in a bubble… My grandchildren all are proud of Israel… And the Polish national anthem is pessimistic but the Israeli one is called “Hope.”
Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken: “The product of Zionism, the State of Israel, is not a Jewish and democratic state, but has instead become an apartheid state, plain and simple.”
The growing list of those who say Israel practices “apartheid” in occupied territories and west of the Green Line is joined by Michael Benyair, a former Israeli attorney general. But US advocates maintain a taboo on that word in the U.S. discourse, enforced by Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL and Rep. Ted Deutch.
B’Tselem published a video today of a disturbing incident in Hebron on September 3 in which Israeli soldiers raided the home of an extended Palestinian family at about 8 PM and forced a dozen children, some of whom were sleeping, to line up for a photograph.
Even the apartheid regime in South Africa never outlawed human rights defenders in the manner that Israel just did when it declared six Palestinian organizations to be “terrorist organizations.” South Africa sought to maintain a reputation that it respected the Rule of Law. Israel knows that it need not worry about its image because the West will not take action against it for any wrongdoing — in the name of Israeli exceptionalism.
I work for one of the leading Palestinian human rights organizations, Al-Haq, which was recently declared a “terrorist organization” by the Israeli regime along with five prominent civil society organizations in Palestine. Friends and acquaintances keep asking me how it feels to be a member of a “terrorist organization”. I always respond by saying: it seems like we’re doing something right.
As the word “apartheid” grows in popularity to describe Israeli oppression of Palestinians it is helpful to revisit another concept defined in the mid 20th century: genocide.
The Episcopal Church of Vermont stood up loudly against Israel’s U.S.-backed oppression of the Palestinians, Nov. 4, as its annual convention, condemning by an 89-25 majority what it said are the Jewish State’s apartheid policies. Similar resolutions will soon be considered by other Episcopal dicoeses.