Worlds Apart...Parallels between Israel and South Africa

[Beetroot]

here

Gyst of it is that Israel has been compared to South Africa.

'The Jews took Isael from the Arabs after the Arabs hadlived there for a thousand years. Israel. like South Africa is an Apartheid state'

'If we take the magnitude of the injustice done to the Palestinians by the state of Istael, ther is a basis for the comparison with apartheid'

'Israel treats Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem as immigrants, who live in their homes at the beneficence of the authorities and not by the state'

'Muslims and Christians are barred from buying in the Jewish quarter of the old city on the grounds of 'historic patterns of life of each community having it's own quarter' But that didn't prevent the Israeli government from aggressively pursuing activities to place Jews within the Muslim quarter'

Discuss

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agree! I have been saying all of this on MN for months!
except we observed hardline economic and tradew sanctions against SA but have no such policy against Israel. Indeed we sell tham lots of lovely guns, rocket launchers etc worth billions every year.Shame on us.

oh please don't get me started..... (pet subject ).....

As an aside, how many supermarket fruit/vegetable/fresh herbs do we all buy daily that are most probably farmed by w. bank settlers on confiscated palestinian land?

discuss.

I have tried to stop buying Israeli goods.

My brother has been to Palistine adn was so so shocked.

Has anyone read the book 'a little touch of grund'? It is a childrens book but wonderful. About a boy who wants to play football in Palestine.

I have read most of the article, very thought provoking imo. Personally I try to avoid buying Israeli produce when I do my weekly shop. It's instinct I think, because like many I try to blank out of my mind the uncomfortable knowledge of what happens in Isreal. But actually I know whats going on is wrong and the way it comes out is I avoid buying the products in the supermarket

I haven't heard of that book Beetroot, sounds good.... have you read "Palestine" by Joe Sacco? Amazon link here ...

I went to a lecture by hanan ashrawi last year, she is an amazing woman.

A little Peice of Ground

Orangina, no I havenot read that one.

My mum works in Israel and works with poeple affected by trauma

that looks good Oranaina, I will buy it

graphically v. powerful, and doesn't require too much brain to read it (unlike a lot of the edward said/noam chomsky books that just at the moment I can't find the concentration for at the end of a long day!). Where could I find the book you mentioned do you think? It's not on amazon.... would waterstones order it for me do you think?

sorry, my typing/spelling is rubbish, got your amazon link thanks!

link below Orinigna

blimey B, that's a lot of trauma on your mother's plate then.....

thanks, will order that....

i know, she only does a small bit with students training to be counsellors.

I haven't read it but having lived in one of those countries and visited the other, I would say there are some big differences.

The whites were the minority race in SA and the non-whites were completely oppressed - they had no vote at all. That isn't the case with the palestinians/israelis. And also don't forget, it was the UN (with the backing of the US) that actually created Israel in the first place.

When I visited Israel, it did very much feel like a war zone though - especially Jerusalem.

Absolutely my stance, I know of a few Jewish sisters in NZ whom I went to school with in NZ, who went to Israel to work on a kibbutz.
After travelling around for a few years they eventually decided to settle down helping the Palestinians.
Her parents now work there with them. They say an increasing number of younger generation Israeli Jews are also a little more enlightened about their history and they hold out hope that it could be helped if not politically then generationally.
this is one of my pet topics too, I avoid Israeli produce as well.

there must be entire generations (of both israelis and palestinians) growing up there who are affected by this conflict on a daily basis. Must require a very specific form of counselling I'd have thought. I lived in Beirut for a while and the effects of the civil war and the (then) ongoing conflict in the south with Israel were v. deep rooted, even if on the surface everyone pretended that things were normal etc.... living there certainly put a lot of things into perspective...

well the palisinians have un equal education.
2002 budget: Israels housing misirty spent £14 per person in Arab community compared to £15,000 per person in the \Jewish one. Same year the Health minsitry allocated £200.000 to Arab communities of its £35m budget to develp helath care. Until recently the Bank of Israel adn the State electrity company did hire a singel Arab

...sounds very familiar to me

oh I agree they are treated like second class citizens but I think the non-white south africans had a harder deal. We (the EU) and the US fund the Palestinians massively and they have had their own elections and elected Hamas to fight their corner.

According to the Israelis though, comparing the situation there to South African apartheid is anti semitic. It is very difficult to engage in any constructive criticism without that accusation being flung about.....

And what about the wall?

It's all too depressing to think about, it does my head in sometimes....

it's clear that both the palestinians and the non white sounth africans have clearly had a bad time in the hands of their controllers. Given that Israel gets such huge backing from the US in particular, and that there isn't a wide spread boycott of Israeli goods and services (except from a relatively small minority), I suppose it's not surprising that the Palestinians feel forgotten. Did the non white s africans feel better knowing that there was international support for their cause out there? Nelson Mandela, despite the iffy behaviour of his wife, had strong international support, and there doesn't appear to be anyone like that for the Palestinians just now. Edward Said is no more, and anyway he was seen more as an academic even though he was fairly unequivocal in his politics. Hanan Ashrawi is extraordinary but not a politician per se, and now it's Hamas who are seen as representative. Very easy to bash them for all the obvious reasons, but they are only doing the exact job that the PLO used to do in the 1970's & onwards (and Hezbollah in Lebanon now), which is provide a much needed social infrastructure for ordinary people (education, healthcare, etc).
I'm ranting now, must stop...!

I agree. For a people who suffered so appallingly at the hands of the Nazis to then cause the suffering of another race is incomprehendable. It should make the average Israeli more sympathetic to the Palestinians not less imho. I also boycott Israeli produce.

this is an interesting website to look at from time to time for anyone who is interested. They send out regular email updates as well if you register....

I guess there are always going to be comparisons. The truth is tha tfor some reason the west are ignoring Israels behavour towards the palistinains. Why is this?