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October 22, 2004
Apartheid comparison fails
Academics mostly agree: the Middle East conflict is not South
Africa.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Though it has become popular in recent years to compare Israeli
policies toward the Palestinians as similar to apartheid, a conference
in Vancouver last weekend largely debunked the idea. The Simon Fraser
University conference was titled Negotiating Compromise in Divided
Societies: Lessons from South Africa for Israel/Palestine. It brought
together some top thinkers from around the world on the topic, though
five invited Palestinian academics were not able to attend, due
to scheduling conflicts, according to organizers.
Simon Fraser University Prof. Heribert Adam launched the conference
by outlining some of the limitations and possibilities of comparing
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with apartheid-era South Africa.
Adam first criticized the accepted wisdom that anti-Semitism is
increasing globally, noting that polls in Europe indicate favorable
ratings of Jews are higher now than a decade ago.
The professor also directed himself to the question of why activists
and academics are so concerned about Israel's behaviors at all,
when the world is rife with nations whose human rights records are
far worse than Israel's.
Adam thinks this incongruity is fair because Israel claims to be
a western-style democracy and so must live up to the standards that
apply to such societies. In addition, he said, Diaspora Jews help
make it an issue by actively supporting Israel in what Adam described
as "blind group loyalty." The fact that the United States
is a strong ally of Israel is a further factor, he said, as is the
fact that Jewish historical experience has led to an expectation
that Jews should be especially sensitive to issues of racial inequity.
Despite all this, Adam maintained that comparing Middle East policies
to apartheid is largely inappropriate.
"The apartheid analogy has more propagandistic than analytical
value," he said. By attempting to apply an external template
on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, we risk fostering
illusions, ignoring uniqueness and retarding potentially valuable
new approaches. Among the most obvious areas of divergence between
the South African and Middle Eastern situation, he said, are that,
in South Africa, the blacks and whites were significantly economically
interdependent, something that is far less true of the Palestinian
and Israeli economies. The African National Congress and the National
party regime both "eschewed third party intervention,"
said Adam, while both Israelis and Palestinians have invited external
forces to attempt to resolve the conflict. Both white and black
South Africans had unified and respected leaderships, which had
the widespread support of their respective peoples, something Adam
said does not typify either the Palestinians or the Israelis. In
the South African context, suicide bombings were never employed
and martyrdom was never celebrated. Finally, Adam said, the costs
of occupation of the Palestinians is borne by outside forces, including
the United States and Diaspora Jews, while the South African regime
was largely on its own.
Breyten Breytenbach, a famed South African poet and anti-apartheid
activist, offered the keynote address, in which he warned that such
direct comparisons as that of apartheid with the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict are likely to be "insidious, if not odious ... easy,
hackneyed, emotional and lazy."
However, Breytenbach, who noted "at heart, I am a Palestinian,"
said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the defining conflict
of our time, on par with the Vietnam conflict or the Spanish civil
war.
Breytenbach is a strong proponent of a single-state solution to
the conflict and, though he acknowledged such a concept is utopian,
expressed the view that an imaginative solution involving some sort
of federalist compromise provides the likeliest chance for a lasting
peace.
Prof. Laetitia Bucaille of the University of Bordeaux spoke during
one of the Saturday workshops. She has interviewed African National
Congress veterans, as well as Palestinian terrorists. Central to
the differences between the two, she said, is their reaction to
victimhood. Interviewing South Africans, she said, she witnessed
a traumatic effect, in which the victims of apartheid violence were
personally traumatized and wounded by their experiences. The Palestinians,
she summarized, tended to demonstrate a pride at the amount of humiliation
they were able to withstand.
"One is crying," she said. "And the other one is
showing off."
An example of this difference, Bucaille said, is the immense risks
Palestinians take in provoking Israeli forces.
"They're taking very strong risks shooting against the Israeli
army," she said. "None of them wear bulletproof vests
because they want to show they are heroes ... that they are not
afraid of death."
As a result of this accommodation with death and violence, Bucaille
warned, the rampant violence of Palestinian society is now turning
inward, becoming reflected in social and criminal violence.
The conference wrapped up with a comprehensive review of Canada's
policy toward the Palestinians and Israelis, by Sam Hanson, deputy
co-ordinator of the Middle East peace process for Foreign Affairs
Canada.
According to Hanson, Canada has credibility with both sides in the
conflict, which is based on a recognition that Canada's approach
is balanced and based on principle.
"Canadian policy is to take a fair-minded approach to both
perspectives," said Hanson.
Canada has supported a two-state solution, Hanson said, since 1947.
It has funded Palestinian refugee aid through UNRWA, the UN body
that has provided care and aid for the Palestinian refugees for
more than a half-century. Canada opposes extra-judicial killings
by Israel, acknowledges Israel's right and obligation to defend
its citizens and abstains from UN votes that Canada believes unfairly
singles out Israel for condemnation.
Canada does not oppose Israel's security barrier in principle, Hanson
said, but opposes its location behind the Green Line, the pre-1967
borders with the West Bank.
"The location is the key issue," said Hanson.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan is viewed
by the Canadian government as a step in the right direction, said
Hanson, but problems remain in terms of Israeli plans to maintain
control of the border areas between Egypt and Gaza.
Though some participants clearly had strong positions on the issues
being addressed, the conference remained civil and respectful, something
one speaker noted was significant in a Canadian context where one
campus has seen violence and intimidation preclude civil discourse.
Concordia University, in Montreal, has struggled to maintain peace
on its campus as visits from Israeli former prime ministers have
resulted in violent demonstrations and the effective banning of
discussion of Mideast affairs on campus.
The SFU event took place Friday night and Saturday, meaning that
observant Jews could not attend. It was also scheduled on the first
day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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