Apartheid

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The fantastically cruel confinement of 1.3 million people jammed like
so many human sardines into the Gaza strip, plus the nearly two
million Palestinian residents of the West Bank, has no parallel in the
annals of apartheid or colonialism. F-16 jets were never used to bomb
South African homelands. They are used against Palestinians towns
and villages. All entrances and exits to the territories are controlled by
Israel (Gaza is completely surrounded by a barbed wire fence), which
also controls the entire water supply. 233
How did this situation evolve? The 1948-49 war was followed by a UN-brokered
armistice, which resulted in more land gain for the Israeli Jews and a large number of
Palestinian refugees. The remaining parts of Palestine were divided between Jordan (the West
Bank) and Egypt (the Gaza Strip). Israel attacked Egypt in 1956, and in the 1967 and 1973
wars Israel conquered the rest of the Arab areas of Historic Palestine, adding the Sinai (which
was given back to Egypt in return for a peace treaty in 1978) and the Golan Heights, which
were taken from Syria. Israel also invaded Lebanon in 1982 and set up a ‘Security Zone’ in
the south of the country before unilaterally withdrawing in 2000, apparently more due to
military and image losses than to goodwill or for ‘peace process’ negotiating strength. Since
long before the establishment of the state of Israel, the Jewish-Arab conflict has cost many
lives, in several ways more intensely than in South Africa’s long apartheid history (in the
wide sense). But there has never really been any peace in or around Israel since the British
took the country from the Turks in 1922.
Violence within Israeli-controlled areas became more visible internationally from
1987, with the start of the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising. In spite of continued Israeli
military censorship, international news organizations and others were able to record human
militia involved in the massacre, announced that in order to prove his innocence he would testify against Sharon
in Belgium. He repeated the offer to visiting Belgian senators on January 23, 2002 and was assassinated outside
his home in Beirut on the following day. Lebanon’s president, Emile Lahoud, its prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri,
its information minister, Ghazi al-Aridi, and its minister of displaced people, Marwan Hamadeh, all accused
Israel of being behind the assassination in order to save Sharon from being found guilty in Belgium and also to
create a state of anxiety in Lebanon, due to the ongoing Palestinian Intifada. In a statement issued in Brussels,
Belgian senators who had met Hobeika the day before he was killed called him a ‘key protagonist who had
offered to assist the inquiry’ and described his death as ‘an evident attempt to undermine the case.’ Later, a
hitherto unknown, allegedly Lebanese group saying it opposed Syria’s continued grip on the country claimed
responsibility, calling Hobeika a traitor for his allegiance to Damascus. (Hobeika had switched from supporting
Israel to backing Syria in the mid-1980s.) Major anti-Syrian groups in Lebanon, however, made no such claims,
and could not identify the group named in the statement. N.N.: Lebanon Minister Fingers Israel in Hobeika
Killing, January 24, Oweis, 2002; Logan: Bomb Kills Warlord Accused of Beirut 1982 Massacres, 2002;
Nguyen: Lebanese Warlord Was Key Witness in Sharon Case, 2002; Oweis: Lebanon Accuses Israel of Killing
Warlord Hobeika, 2002; Spetalnick: Fresh Spiral of Bloodshed in Mideast Conflict, 2002; Logan: Assassination
Conjures up Lebanon’s Bloody Past, 2002; Linnebank & Moody: Lebanon Says Peace Impossible with Sharon,
2002. On June 26, 2002, a Brussels appeals court threw out the lawsuit against Sharon, ruling that the ‘presumed
author’ of the crimes has not ‘been found in Belgium’. This ruling appears to be in direct contradiction to the
1999 law. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International consequently protested the decision, and a lawyer
representing the Palestinian plaintiffs brought the case to appeal at Belgium’s Supreme Court on September 26.
Nguyen: Belgian Court Dismisses Sharon War Crimes Suit, Reuters, 2002; N.N.: Amnesty Wants Justice for
Beirut Massacre Victims, September 25, 2002. On February 12, 2003, the Belgian Supreme Court called a halt to
all proceedings against Sharon, but it also ruled that Sharon may be charged once his term as prime minister has
ended, i.e. once his diplomatic immunity as head of government is lifted. Israel responded by immediately
withdrawing its ambassador from Belgium and summoning Belgium’s ambassador in Israel to a meeting to
protest the ruling. Miles, T.: Belgian Court Says Sharon Can Be Probed after Office, 2003; Batrawi: A State
Above the Law, 2003. However, in September 2003, after much pressure from Israel and the USA, the appeals
court finally threw out the war crimes case against Sharon, ruling that it was beyond the jurisdiction of Belgian
courts. N.N.: Belgium Mends Israel, US Ties after War Crimes Spat, November 18, 2003
233 Said: Occupation Is the Atrocity, 2001