Palestine is not Apartheid...

Said Moshe Machover, the Israeli academic and dissident, founder of the Israeli Socialist organisation Matzpen in a lecture as part of the Coventry Peace Month last night.

"No," he continued "it is something far worse than that."

According to Professor Machover's analysis, the blacks and coloured people of South Africa had a great advantage over the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza. In South Africa, the white elite literally built their state on the back of the indigenous people. They required the great resources of labour in order to do all the back-breaking, dangerous, dirty and low paid work that the far less numerous whites could or would not do.

In Israel/Palestine, the Israeli Hebrew settlers simply want the indigenous Palestinian Arabs out of the way. Israel is in no way dependent on Palestinians for anything - and has recently been bringing in cheap labour from around the world to do various dirty jobs in the country. In contrast, the Palestinian economy is almost totally dependent on Israeli money.

perspectives on the academic boycott

In a very intelligent post, Rabbi David Forman from the Rabbis for Human Rights argues that use of an academic boycott and terms such as 'apartheid' in the context of Israel/Palestine are not helpful.

However, with rare humility he also says

And yet, we know in our hearts of hearts that while such boycotts are not justified on the universal plain of comparisons, there are more than a few elements of truth in what these hypocrites claim.... Israel’s present situation is still not politically analogous to South Africa’s history of discrimination; and so, we confidently argue that “apartheid” is not an appropriate term to apply to what we are doing in the West Bank. But what term would one choose to define a privileged protectionism for a few thousand Jews in the West Bank over a separate and unequal existence for over two million Palestinians?

The fact that compared to other countries we are a paragon of moral virtue does not obviate another fact: We have shamed ourselves as a Jewish state..

And as Howard Jacobson in yesterday's Independent points out, opposing an academic boycott is not necessarily to imply support of the occupation.

Daring to think differently

Laila El-Haddad is an international journalist from Gaza. Her blog is an travelog, mostly of time spent trying to enter or leave Gaza. Recently she conducted an interview with Ali Abu Nimah, a Palestinian thinker.

Abu Nimah suggests that it is time to consider a different way - rather than the much trumpeted two-states of mutual hatred in Israel-Palestine, how about a one state bination, similar to Belgium? It sounds pretty crazy, yet it is something I have heard mentioned several times by Palestinians - a nation where all Israelis and Palestinians live alongside each other in peace, including any refugees and anyone else that wants to live in their ancestoral lands, in a non-religious secular state.

Of course, it is pretty obvious that the Israelis have a lot to lose - given their history of oppression, it isn't really very surprising that they want to live in a Jewish and Democratic State where the Jews always are in the majority because they feel oppressed almost everywhere else in the world. On the other hand, it is pretty obvious that the Palestinians are also giving up a lot to even contemplate this idea.

I don't know what the answer is. If the Jews could be guaranteed security in this state (how would you actually do that?) why would they not want it if it led to peace?