It is a complement to "Anti-racist Jews Against Racist Zionism", an alphabetically ordered compendium of the opinions of outstanding anti-racist non-Jews opposed to racist Zionism, Apartheid Israel and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide:
http://jewsagainstracistzionism.blogspot.com/2011/01/anti-racist-jews-against-racist-zionism.html ).
BUCHANAN, Pat.
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan (born November 2, 1938) is an important conservative US political commentator, author, columnist, political candidate and broadcaster. Pat Buchanan was a senior advisor to American presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and was a host on CNN’s Crossfire (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan ).
Pat Buchanan on what the Catholic Church has described as a “concentration camp” (2009): ““And they [Gaza rockets] triggered a blitzkrieg against the Palestinians in Gaza, which in my judgment is an Israeli concentration camp where a million and a half people are locked up.” [1].
[1]. Partial transcript from a Pat Buchanan interview video, “Pat Buchanan: Israel turning Gaza into a “concentration camp””, Prison Planet, 9 January 2009: http://www.prisonplanet.com/pat-buchanan-israel-turning-gaza-into-a-%E2%80%98concentration-camp%E2%80%99.html .
CARTER, Jimmy.
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize (the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office). Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the Georgia senate followed by the governorship of the State of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and was a peanut farmer and naval officer (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter ).
Jimmy Carter in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2006): “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land…The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.” [1, 2].
Jimmy Carter speech about his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2006): “Some people have said the title is provocative, and I accept that categorization, but I don’t consider the word “provocative” to be a negative description, because it’s designed to provoke discussion and analysis and debate in a country where debate and discussion is almost completely absent if it involves any criticism at all of the policies of Israel. And I think the book is very balanced.
Secondly, the words “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” were carefully chosen by me. First of all, it’s Palestine, the area of Palestinians. It doesn’t refer to Israel. I’ve never and would imply that Israel is guilty of any form of apartheid in their own country, because Arabs who live inside Israel have the same voting rights and the same citizenship rights as do the Jews who live there.
And the next word is “peace.” And my hope is that the publication of this book will not only precipitate debate, as I’ve already mentioned, but also will rejuvenate an absolutely dormant or absent peace process. For the last six years there’s not been one single day of good faith negotiations between Israelis and their neighbors, the Palestinians. And this is absolutely a departure from what has happened under all previous presidents since Israel became a nation. We’ve all negotiated or attempted to negotiate peace agreements. That has been totally absent now for six years. So “peace.”
And then the last two words, “not apartheid.” The alternative to peace is apartheid, not inside Israel, to repeat myself, but in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian territory. And there, apartheid exists in its more despicable forms, that Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights. Their land has been occupied and then confiscated and then colonized by the Israeli settlers. And they have now more than 205 settlements in the West Bank itself. And what has happened is, over a period of years, the Israelis have connected settlements with highways, and those highways make the West Bank look like a honeycomb and maybe a spider web. You can envision it. And in many cases, most cases, the Palestinians are prevented from using the highways at all, and in many cases, even from crossing the highways.
I’d like to make one other point. When Israel was founded back in 1948 by the United Nations, Israel was allocated 56% of what we would call “the holy land” between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. After the wars, when the Arabs tried to destroy Israel, treaties were worked out, and Israel wound up with 77% of the holy land. 22% was designated as the West Bank, and 1% only, Gaza. So at the optimum case, as recognized by all the United Nations resolutions, Israel would wind up with 77% of the area, and the Palestinians only 23%, including Gaza and the West Bank. And remember that Gaza is on the sea coast, where the Philistines lived during the time of King David, and it’s separated by 40 kilometers, about 30 miles, from the rest of Palestinian territory. So in order for a Palestinian to go from Gaza to the West Bank, they have to go through 30 miles of Israeli land, though that’s just a geographical description.
This book is designed to restimulate the prospect for peace. And I’m going to just read three options that Israelis face. And I’d like to say at the beginning that none of them are completely acceptable to all Israelis. But for the last 40 years, a strong majority of Israelis have preferred to relinquish Arab land in return for peace. And this sentiment prevailed until the time when Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by an irate Israeli who didn’t like what Rabin and Shimon Peres had done at Oslo in negotiating a peace agreement for which they both received the Nobel Peace Prize.” [1].
[1]. Jimmy Carter, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (Simon & Schuster; 2006): http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Peace_Not_Apartheid .
[2]. Jimmy Carter, quoted in interview, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid… Jimmy Carter in his own words “, Democracy Now, 30 November 2006: http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/30/palestine_peace_not_apartheid_jimmy_carter .
CORRIGAN, Edward.
Edward Corrigan is one of the top Immigration and refugee lawyers in Canada and has written extensively on Jewish opposition to racist Zionism (see: http://www.opednews.com/author/author43305.html ).
Edward Corrigan on false racist Zionist allegations of anti-Semitism against those criticizing Israeli human rights abuses (2010): “It must be recognized that there is a wide range of opinion on Zionism within the Jewish community. We must reject specious arguments and false allegations of anti-Semitism. We need to fight for freedom of speech, academic freedom, critical inquiry and democratic debate, at all universities and colleges, in the media, in the halls of political power and all across North America. Individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves questions regarding Zionism and the Palestinians based on open debate, the facts, and informed opinion, not on suppression of debate, intimidation and censorship.” [1].
[1]. Edward Corrigan, “Is it anti-Semitic to defend Palestinian rights?”, OpEd News, 12 January 2010: http://www.opednews.com/articles/4/Is-It-Anti-Semitic-to-Defe-by-Edward-Corrigan-100112-428.html .
FEDERATION OF UNIONS OF PALESTINIAN UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS & EMPLOYEES.
The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees is an association of Palestinian professors and other university staff.
Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (2006): “At this time of escalating colonial repression, coupled with a particularly inhumane and illegal siege, Palestinians will be eagerly following Natfhe's national conference when it convenes on May 27. They are heartened by the growing movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions.
“ The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel salute the British academics who have proposed a motion to boycott Israel, to be tabled at the conference in Blackpool. We believe that this is a courageous initiative. It comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the international community, as represented by the centres and institutions of global power, is incapable of delivering justice to the Palestinian people. The only hope rests with initiatives from international activists for justice in Palestine to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of Palestinians.
Israeli academic institutions are implicated in the various forms of oppression exercised against Palestinians. Israeli research institutes, think-tanks and academic departments have historically granted legitimacy to the work of academics who advocate ethnic cleansing, apartheid, denial of refugee rights and other discriminatory policies against Palestinians, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, inside Israel or in exile.
Collaboration and co-operation with the intelligence services, the Army and other agencies of the occupation regime is part of the routine work of the Israeli academy.
Furthermore, no Israeli academic body or institution has ever taken a public stand against the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor have academic institutions or representative bodies of Israeli academics criticised their Government's longstanding siege of Palestinian academic institutions. Indeed, the current regime of economic sanctions and other collective punishments imposed upon an entire society by the Government of Israel, with grave complicity from the US and the European Union, have gone without notice in the business-as-usual world of the Israeli academy. Nor has the academy raised its voice against racism within Israel, as exemplified by the recent ruling of the Israeli High Court upholding a ban on the reunification of Palestinian citizens of Israel with their spouses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and therefore infringing, on ethnic grounds, on the basic human right to choose one's partner.
The Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is endorsed by the most important federations and associations of academics and professionals and is supported by dozens of civil society institutions in Palestine. Like the Palestinian civil society's widely endorsed call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, it is based on the same moral principle embodied in the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa: that people of conscience must take a stand and use civil resistance to bring an end to oppression. Palestinians are appealing to academics, professionals, artists and other activists to work towards bringing an end to a regime that practises colonial oppression and discrimination against its Palestinian citizens and that denies the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland.
We hope that Natfhe members will join the growing international movement by showing that business cannot be conducted with the Israeli academy until it takes an unequivocal stand against the forms of oppression practised by the Israeli state. This is what conscientious British academics did more than 20 years ago during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; this is what we hope they will do to help resist Israel's version of apartheid.
Until it effectively ends its complicity, the Israeli academy - as a major institutional upholder of the prevailing order - cannot expect exemption from the boycott. Boycott and divestment are the only non-violent forms of action available to people of conscience the world over. We salute those who recognise that, since justice for Palestinians cannot be expected from the international centres of world power, they must organise to further the cause of justice and genuine peace.” [1].
[1]. Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, “A Nobel laureate and Palestinian academics on Natfhe's proposed boycott of Israel”, Times Higher Education, 26 May 2006: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=203404§ioncode=26 .
GALLOWAY, George.
George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a UK politician, author, broadcaster, anti-war activist and human rights activists who has been a British MP since 1987. He was formerly a Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead and then for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the Labour Party in October 2003. He became a founding member of RESPECY and since 2005 has represented Bethnal Green and Bow. He has been courageous and outspoken in his opposition to the violent occupation of Muslim countries, notably Occupied Palestine, Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway and http://www.georgegalloway.com/ ).
George Galloway on the Aid Convoy to Gaza (2009): “Yes, fifty-five [Aid convoy members] , in fact, were injured, some of them quite severely. Ten of them had to go to hospital. All of them entered Gaza with us, but we have a collection of broken heads and plaster casts and bloodied faces and clothes. It’s quite a testimony to the role that the government of Egypt is playing in this siege that you have just admirably described. It was entirely unprovoked. It was an attack on unarmed civilian people. And it was very frightening and brutal. And, of course, it was of a piece with the way that the Gaza Freedom Marchers were treated in the center of Cairo in the middle of the tourist season just days before… Well, the good news is that nobody watches the Egyptian media in Egypt. All of them watch the pan-Arabic stations like Al Jazeera, satellite stations, which have broken the censorship walls of the dictatorships in the Arab world. And so, everybody in Egypt knows what happened in that little port of Al-Arish, and the vast majority of them, I’m sure, completely disapprove of it, indeed denounce it. The Egyptian people are entirely behind the Palestinians under siege. Unfortunately, they are ill-served by a government that is playing a quite despicable role, actually, just few yards from where I am now. The Egyptians are building what we call the wall of shame, which is being done in conjunction with the United States military, to try and choke off the tunnels, which are the only other means of bringing life into Gaza, in which sheep and chickens and petrol and gas and the other means of staying alive, other than medicine—because if I may correct something you did say in the introduction, you said we were bringing food and medicine, but we were only bringing medicine, because food is actually not allowed to come through the Rafah gate from Egypt into Gaza. Food must pass through the Israeli lines, because, of course, they say they are concerned about the safety of the food. They don’t want to cause any food poisoning in Gaza, you understand… It’s desperate. If I give you a tiny example only to give you an example, I’m here in quite a nice hotel, except there is no food in the hotel. There’s no food for breakfast, there’s no food for lunch. Now I make that point only to illustrate that if there’s no food in the best hotel in Gaza, imagine what the people are suffering. I’ve watched with my own eyes Palestinian women and girls in the early morning mists on top of garbage heaps, combing through the garbage heaps looking for food. In an Arab Muslim country in 2009 and ’10, it’s a absolutely scandalous situation. And, Amy, remember why and how it came about. It’s been imposed by men. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s been imposed by men to punish the people of Palestine for voting for a party in a free election that the big powers, including yours and mine and Israel, don’t like. Now, I myself would not have voted for them; I’m not a Hamas supporter. But the only people entitled to choose the leadership of the Palestinians are the Palestinians themselves… Well, I’m glad to say that at every stage we insisted on all of our convoy entering Gaza, and we refused to leave Al-Arish without our prisoners, six people who were being held prisoner by the Egyptian government’s forces. And we refused to accept the exclusion from Egypt of some of our convoy members, all of whom were initially excluded, but all, in the end, were let in and are with me in Gaza. So, in terms of solidarity, I’m proud of what we have achieved. No, there’s no explanation from the Egyptian regime at all. How could there be, in a way? How do you explain to anyone that Egypt, once the heart of the Arab world, is now playing a part in building an iron wall of shame around a suffering people who are being effectively starved, they hope, into surrender, but if not into surrender, then into death?” [1].
[1]. George Galloway interviews by Amy Goodman, “Viva Palestina Aid Convoy arrives in Gaza, George Galloway describes “desperate” situation”, Democracy Now, 7 January 2010: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/7/viva_palestina_aid_convoy_arrives_in .
GANDHI, Mahatma.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), a Gujarati lawyer, was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian Independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha (“truth insistence”, “satya” meaning "truth" and “agraha” meaning "insistence", or "holding firmly to") which was launched on 11 September 1906 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Satyagraha involved resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy based upon “ahisma” or total non-violence and led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi ).
For a recent article on Gandhi’s opposition to Zionism see Professor A. K. Ramakrishnan, “Mahatma Gandhi rejected Zionims”, The Wisdom Fund, 15 August 2001: http://www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0815-GandhiZionism.html .
Gandhi on the Jews, Palestine and Zionism (Harijan, 26 November 1938): “Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.
My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.
But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.
The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.
But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and coloured races including Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis is from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.
And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world`s literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronised. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.
Segaon, November 20, 1938.” [1].
[1]. Mahatma Gandhi, “The Jews”, Harijan, 26 November 1938.
MAGUIRE, Máiread.
Mairead Maguire (neé Máiread Corrigan) (born 27 January 1944) , also known as Máiread Corrigan-Maguire, was the co-founder, with Betty Williams of the Community of Peace People, an organization which attempts to encourage a peaceful resolution of the Northern Ireland Troubles, for which they were awarded the the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. Máiread Corrigan became active with the peace movement after three children of her sister, Anne Maguire, were run over and killed by a car driven by Danny Lennon, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) man who was fatally shot by British troops while trying to make a getaway. Anne Maguire later committed suicide.Betty Williams had witnessed the event, and soon after the two co-founded "Women for Peace", which later became the "Community for Peace People". In 1981 she married Jackie Maguire, the widower of her sister Anne. She was imprisoned by the Israelis (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairead_Corrigan ).
Mairead Maguire on Israel’s Gaza Massacre (2009): “I lament every single life, but you can’t really make a comparison here. Israel has a war machine which is supported by the American government and the Palestinians have homemade rockets….We’re talking about David and Goliath... “The people of Gaza are not allowed cement, building materials; children have returned to schools with no pencils and no writing material: all of these things have been prohibited by the Israelis from being allowed into Gaza. We have to break the siege of Gaza that Israel is putting on because the children are suffering… “I am a pacifist. But when you make comparisons here, with the occupation, we’re not talking about an equal playing field.” [1].
[1]. Mairead Maguire, quoted by Travis Lupick, “Gaza shocks Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire”, Straight.com, 24 September 2009: http://www.straight.com/article-258796/gaza-shocks-nobel-laureate .
MAJDALANY, Gabran.
Gabran Majdalany, Arab Baath Socialist (see: http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/holy_war_stone.html ) .
Gabran Majdalany on Israeli racism: "[Israel] is a racist state founded from its start on discrimination between Jew and non-Jew… [ comparing the Zionists to the Muslim Brotherhood who] "dream of a Muslim Israel in which the non-Muslims will be the gentiles, second class citizens sometimes tolerated but more often repressed…Some people admit the inevitably racist character of Israel but justify it by the continual persecutions to which the Jews have been subjected during the history of Europe and by the massacres of the Second World War. We consider that, far from serving as justification, these facts constitute an aggravating circumstance; for those who have known the effects of racism and of discrimination in their own flesh and human dignity, are less excusably racist than those who can only imagine the negative effects of prejudice. [1].
[1]. Gabran Majdalany quoted in I.F. Stone, “Holy War”, Les Tempes Modernes, Paris, June 1967: http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/holy_war_stone.html .
MANDELA, Nelson.
Nelson Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is a former President of South Africa (the first to be elected in fully democratic election) 1994 to 1999. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-Apartheid activist and the leader of the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela supported reconciliation and negotiation, and helped lead the transition towards multi-racial democracy in South Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela ).
1. Nelson Mandela, Letter to Thomas L. Friedman (columnist New York Times) (March 2001):
“March 30, 2001
To: Thomas L. Friedman (columnist New York Times)
From: Nelson Mandela (former President South Africa)
Dear Thomas,
I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what's on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964. Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then:
"I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Today the world, black and white, recognise that apartheid has no future. In South Africa it has been ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. That mass campaign of defiance and other actions could only culminate in the establishment of democracy.
Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column "Bush's First Memo" in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.
You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established "normally" and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a "state" but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.
In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.
Israel was not thinking of a "state" but of "separation". The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.
Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of "I hate Arabs" and "I wish Arabs would be dead". If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against
Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognised as private property because it can be confiscated.
As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called "Palestinian autonomous areas" are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.
The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a "Jewish" state.
Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.
The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its apartheid policies.
Thomas, I'm not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I'm not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you. When you figure out what you're about, give me a call.” [1].
2. Nelson Mandela speech on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians (excerpt) : "The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own. We can easily be enticed to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice. Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others faces. Yet we would be less than human if we did so.
It behooves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice.
Even during the days of negotiations, our own experience taught us that the pursuit of human fraternity and equality -- irrespective of race or religion -- should stand at the centre of our peaceful endeavours. The choice is not between freedom and justice, on the one hand, and their opposite, on the other. Peace and prosperity; tranquility and security are only possible if these are enjoyed by all without discrimination.
It is in this spirit that I have come to join you today to add our own voice to the universal call for Palestinian self-determination and statehood." [2].
[1]. Arjan El-Fassed, “Letter from Nelson Mandel to Thomas Friedman”, Bint Jbeil, March 2001: http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/mandella.html .
[2]. Edward. C. Corrigan, “Israel and apartheid: a fair comparison?”, rabble.ca, 2 March 2010: http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison .
MARTINO, Renato.
Cardinal Renato Martino is the head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace and a former Holy See envoy to the United Nations (see: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5473588.ece )
Cardinal Renato Martino in remarks to the Italian website Il Sussidario (2009): “Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay. Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp… [Gaza rockets were] “not confetti”…{Israel ] certainly has the right to defend itself…We need willingness from both parties because both are guilty. No one sees the interests of the other, only their own benefit. The consequences of this egoism is hatred for others, poverty and injustice. Those who pay are always the local people – just look at the conditions in Gaza.” [1].
Cardinal Renato Martino responding to Israeli protests over his “Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp” remarks (2009): “They can say what they want. I say look at the conditions in which people live; conditions that run contrary to human dignity. What is happening in these days causes horror.” [1].
[1]. Cardinal Renato Martino quoted by Richard Owen, “”Concentration camp” remark threatens Pope’s visit to Israel’, Times Online, 8 January 2009: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5473588.ece .
MCKINNEY, Cynthia.
Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the US House of Representatives In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President. She was the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House. In 2009, taking medical supplies to the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp, she was illegally arrested on the high seas by Israelis and imprisoned in Apartheid Israel (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinney ).
Cynthia McKinney on Gaza and her illegal arrest on the high seas by Apartheid Israel while taking medical and related supplies to the Israeli Gaza Concentration Camp (2009): “Gaza lives. The people are vibrant and alive despite F-16 bombings, deformed children, depleted uranium. I didn’t think about what could happen to me before going. I’ve been involved in life-threatening political activity for some time, so when I got the call I didn’t think about my safety. Operation Cast Lead sickened me. I just went, and I’m so happy I did, even when my boat was rammed and I was kidnapped by the Israelis. They took us to Israel and then charged us with illegal entry! I spent seven days in prison with Ethiopian immigrants facing similar charges. Meanwhile, the Congress and White House said nothing. We had a boatload of $500,000 worth of trucks, cars, medical supplies for Gaza, but Egypt denied entry. They’re still sitting in the port right now.” [1].
[1]. Cynthia McKinney quoted in “In spite of siege, “Gaza lives, ” Cynthia McKinney”, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media, 26 August 2009: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/26/18619489.php .
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS IN FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION (NATFHE).
The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) was the British trade union and professional association for people working with those above statutory school age, and primarily concerned with providing education, training or research, notably in universities. In 2004 NATFHE celebrated 100 years since the London-based Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes was formed. ATTI grew and became NATFHE on 1 January 1976. As of 2005 it had 67,000 members. A new union called the University and College Union (UCU) was formed in 2005 from the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and NATFHE. . On the last day of its final conference NATFHE passed motion 198C, a call to boycott Israeli academics complicit in Israeli crimes against Palestinians (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Teachers_in_Further_and_Higher_Education ).
In May 2006, on the last day of its final conference, NATFHE passed motion 198C, a call to boycott Israeli academics who did not vocally speak out against their government. The following are key portions of the resolution : “"The conference invites members to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and non-discrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals, and to consider the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies…The conference notes continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices. It recalls its motion of solidarity last year for the AUT resolution to exercise moral and professional responsibility." [1].
[1]. NATFHE motion quoted in Wikipedia: “Academic boycotts of Israel”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycotts_of_Israel .
PALESTINIAN CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACADEMIC & CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was launched in Ramallah in April 2004 by a group of Palestinian academics and intellectuals to join the growing international boycott movement. The Campaign built on the Palestinian call for a comprehensive economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel issued in August 2002 and a statement made by Palestinian academics and intellectuals in the occupied territories and in the Diaspora calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions in October 2003 (see: http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=868 ).
Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (2006): “At this time of escalating colonial repression, coupled with a particularly inhumane and illegal siege, Palestinians will be eagerly following Natfhe's national conference when it convenes on May 27. They are heartened by the growing movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions.
“ The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel salute the British academics who have proposed a motion to boycott Israel, to be tabled at the conference in Blackpool. We believe that this is a courageous initiative. It comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the international community, as represented by the centres and institutions of global power, is incapable of delivering justice to the Palestinian people. The only hope rests with initiatives from international activists for justice in Palestine to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of Palestinians.
Israeli academic institutions are implicated in the various forms of oppression exercised against Palestinians. Israeli research institutes, think-tanks and academic departments have historically granted legitimacy to the work of academics who advocate ethnic cleansing, apartheid, denial of refugee rights and other discriminatory policies against Palestinians, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, inside Israel or in exile.
Collaboration and co-operation with the intelligence services, the Army and other agencies of the occupation regime is part of the routine work of the Israeli academy.
Furthermore, no Israeli academic body or institution has ever taken a public stand against the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor have academic institutions or representative bodies of Israeli academics criticised their Government's longstanding siege of Palestinian academic institutions. Indeed, the current regime of economic sanctions and other collective punishments imposed upon an entire society by the Government of Israel, with grave complicity from the US and the European Union, have gone without notice in the business-as-usual world of the Israeli academy. Nor has the academy raised its voice against racism within Israel, as exemplified by the recent ruling of the Israeli High Court upholding a ban on the reunification of Palestinian citizens of Israel with their spouses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and therefore infringing, on ethnic grounds, on the basic human right to choose one's partner.
The Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is endorsed by the most important federations and associations of academics and professionals and is supported by dozens of civil society institutions in Palestine. Like the Palestinian civil society's widely endorsed call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, it is based on the same moral principle embodied in the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa: that people of conscience must take a stand and use civil resistance to bring an end to oppression. Palestinians are appealing to academics, professionals, artists and other activists to work towards bringing an end to a regime that practises colonial oppression and discrimination against its Palestinian citizens and that denies the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland.
We hope that Natfhe members will join the growing international movement by showing that business cannot be conducted with the Israeli academy until it takes an unequivocal stand against the forms of oppression practised by the Israeli state. This is what conscientious British academics did more than 20 years ago during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; this is what we hope they will do to help resist Israel's version of apartheid.
Until it effectively ends its complicity, the Israeli academy - as a major institutional upholder of the prevailing order - cannot expect exemption from the boycott. Boycott and divestment are the only non-violent forms of action available to people of conscience the world over. We salute those who recognise that, since justice for Palestinians cannot be expected from the international centres of world power, they must organise to further the cause of justice and genuine peace.” [1].
[1]. Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, “A Nobel laureate and Palestinian academics on Natfhe's proposed boycott of Israel”, Times Higher Education, 26 May 2006: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=203404§ioncode=26 .
PILGER, John.
John Pilger, renowned investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, is one of only two to have twice won British journalism's top award; his documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the US. In a New Statesman survey of the 50 heroes of our time, Pilger came fourth behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. "John Pilger," wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy truth. I salute him." (see New Statesman: http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/10/obama-pilger-war-peace ).John Pilger on the Palestinian Genocide (25 January 2007): “A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. “Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide”, wrote senior UN relief official Jan Egeland and Jan Eliasson, then Swedish foreign minister, in Le Figaro. They described people “living in a cage”, cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water, and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes… “Looking from the side” is what those of us do who are cowed into silence by the threat of being called anti-Semitic. Looking from the side is what too many Western Jews do, while those Jews who honour the humane traditions of Judaism and say, “Not in our name!” are abused as “self-despising”. Looking from the side is what almost the entire US Congress does, in thrall to or intimidated by a vicious Zionist “lobby”. Looking from the side is what “even-handed” journalists do as they excuse the lawlessness that is the source of Israeli atrocities and suppress the historic shifts in the Palestinian resistance, such as the implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas. The people of Gaza cry out for better.” [1].
John Pilger on Western lying and holocaust ignoring (January 2009): ““When the truth is replaced by silence”, the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “the silence is a lie”. It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on Al Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia’s incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why. They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, “Israel’s right to exist”. They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine’s right to exist was canceled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous “Plan D” resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as “ethnic cleansing”. Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them'. The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war … we are appalled." Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land … In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50% of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention. Holocaust in the making.” [2, 3].
[1]. John Pilger, “John Pilger: genocide in Gaza”, Green Left Weekly, 25 January 2007: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/696/36148 .
[2]. John Pilger, “John Pilger: holocaust denied”, Green Left Weekly, 17 January 2009: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/779/40192 .
[3]. John Pilger, “Holocaust denied. The lying silence of those who know”, Antiwar.com, 8 January 2009: http://www.antiwar.com/pilger/?articleid=14015 .
SAID, Edward.
Edward Said (1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was an eminent Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in post-colonialism (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said ).
Edward Said on the genocidal racism of Israeli and American Zionists (2001) : “Every Israeli will readily admit and knows perfectly well that all of Israel was once Palestine, that (as Moshe Dayan said openly in 1976) every Israeli town or village once had an Arab name. And Benvenisti says openly that "we" conquered, and so what? Why should we feel guilty about winning? American Zionist discourse is never straight out honest that way: it must always go round and talk about making the desert bloom, and Israeli democracy, etc., completely avoiding the essential facts about 1948, which every Israeli has actually lived. For the American, these are mostly fantasies, or myths, not realities. So removed from the actualities are American supporters of Israel, so caught in the contradictions of diasporic guilt (after all what does it mean to be a Zionist and not emigrate to Israel?) and triumphalism as the most successful and most powerful minority in the US, that what emerges is very often a frightening mixture of vicarious violence against Arabs and a deep fear and hatred of them, which is the result, unlike Israeli Jews, of not having any sustained direct contact with them. For the American Zionist, therefore, Arabs are not real beings, but fantasies of nearly everything that can be demonised and despised, terrorism and anti-Semitism most specially.” [1].
[1]. Edward Said, “American Zionism – the real problem”, Media Monitors, 14 March 2001: http://www.mediamonitors.net/edward12.html .
TONGE, Jennifer.
Dr Jennifer Louise Tonge, Baroness Tonge (born Jennifer Louise Smith, 19 February 1941), is a medical doctor and was Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, London, UK from 1997 to 2005. She was Liberal Democrat spokesman on International Development from 1999 to 2003, and then the spokesperson for children from 2003 to 2004. In 2002 she asked PM Blair if he was "happy to allow the teaching of creationism alongside Darwin's theory of evolution in state schools" - to which he readily agreed, triggering a row over the issue. On 23 June 2005 she was made a life peer as Baroness Tonge. In 2006 she commented on the disproportionate influence of the Israeli Lobby in the West (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Tonge ).
Dr Jennifer Tonge on comparison of besieged Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto (2003): "You are almost getting a situation like the Warsaw ghetto - people can't get in or out. They can't work, they can't sell anything. There is this gradual squeeze…I feel it was an apartheid system and it is certainly getting worse - the area where the Palestinians live is getting smaller…Israel says everything it does is for security but they are not addressing the cause of terrorism, only terrorism itself.” [1].
Baroness Tonge in the House of Lords Tonge asked about investigations into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza (12 January 2009): "Is the Minister aware that Mrs Pillay, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has spoken of war crimes being committed in Gaza? Will the Government, therefore, show leadership and call for the immediate—and I mean immediate—establishment by the United Nations Security Council of an independent fact-finding commission to Palestine to investigate all breaches of international law?” [2].
[1]. Dr Jennifer Tonge quoted in “MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto”, Guardian, 19 June 2003: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jun/19/foreignpolicy.israel .
[2]. Jennifer Tonge, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Tonge .
TUTU, Desmond.
Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of Apartheid. In 1984, Tutu became the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town and primate of the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Tutu chaired the post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu is vocal in his defence of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. Tutu also campaigns to fight disease, poverty and racism. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu ).
Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Occupation, Apartheid and Divestment from Apartheid Israel (2002): “The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure-- in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months, a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation.
Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots. Faith-based leaders informed their followers, union members pressured their companies' stockholders and consumers questioned their store owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change their portfolios. Eventually, institutions pulled the financial plug, and the South African government thought twice about its policies.
Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time. Students on more than forty campuses in the U.S. are demanding a review of university investments in Israeli companies as well as in firms doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city councils have debated municipal divestment measures.
These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.
Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name." Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out the relevance of the South African experience.” [1].
South African Nobel Laureate and celebrated anti-apartheid activist, Archbishop Desmond Tutu on occupation and divestment (2002): “the end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure– in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s…a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation…“if apartheid ended, so can this occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.” [1, 2].
[1]. Desmond Tutu, “Of Occupation and Apartheid. Do I divest?”, Counterpunch, 17 October 2002.
[2]. Archbishop Desmond Tutu quoted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel (PACB), “Open letter to Bono : entertaining Apartheid Israel… U2 Bono?”, International Solidarity Movement, 13 January 2010: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/01/10627 .
