Apartheid
Apartheid Apartheid
140 diplomatic and ideological support by the USA is even more important for Israel. It is the duty of the world community to prevent Israel from many of the human rights violations it commits, including the theft of land, the settlements and the attacks on civilians. But through diplomatic, political and ideological, as well as military and financial support, the US effectively disables the rest of the world from carrying out this duty.) The grand total cost of US state-supplied aid to Israel between 1949 and 1997 was $134,791,507,200. Apartheid is very expensive. In South Africa, it was largely financed by profits made from gold and diamond mining as well as by the white western or white South African military and business powers. Its continued survival is largely financed by the world’s sole superpower in Israel today. During the first 54 years of apartheid there, it was estimated (by an Israeli newspaper) that more than half a trillion, i.e. 500 billion dollars from government and private sources spent on its upkeep so far came from the USA. 263 Israel, however, is also a main producer and distributor of arms, including its own infamous Uzi machine guns, Kfir jet fighters, and Merkava tanks. A considerable portion of the South African apartheid government’s military hardware and technology was in fact imported from Israel (but much of it also came from the USA, Europe and Taiwan). After imposition of the UN arms embargo on South Africa in 1977, the imports continued illegally, mainly from Israel and Taiwan. The very extensive military cooperation between Israel and apartheid South Africa – in fact a military alliance, although most of it was covert – may also have included joint tests of nuclear weapons. Israel might indeed have learned about specific apartheid methods of oppression – such as (mainly) non-lethal, but debilitating and humiliating violence against large groups of unarmed youths – directly from the South Africans (possibly in return for the military hardware deliveries). Most likely, there was reciprocal assistance, certainly also involving the USA, with both military technology and ‘counterinsurgency’ measures. Furthermore, there were massive separate and joint efforts to keep both the alliance and the nature of the cooperation clandestine. 264 The South African and Israeli apartheid ‘Defense’ Forces, in fact: ‘Offense Forces’, are more like internationally organized, and exceptionally brutal crime groups than defensive in essence. They display remarkable parallels with regard to physical violence. They both reveal paranoid streaks and resort to indiscriminate shootings of unarmed civilians, including peaceful protesters, medical relief workers, and journalists. They even target, shoot, kill, and torture unarmed indigenous children, whose only ‘crime’ is to protest against being treated as second-, third-, or even fourth-class citizens. Of course, white South African and Israeli Jewish civilians are and have been legally armed to an exorbitant extent too, as opposed to the indigenous civilians once the invasions 263 N.N.: U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact, Summary, no date; Dubro: Payback Time, 2002; Judt: The Road to Nowhere, 2002; Goller: U.S. Asks Israel about Suspected Rights Abuses, 1998; Wright: U.S. Goes Back into Israeli-Palestinian Talks, 2001; Scheer: Israel Economic Reform Stymied by U.S. Aid, 2002; N.N.: Israel Readying US Aid Request, No Iraq Link-Source, October 21, 2002; N.N.: US Promises Israel $2.16 Bln Military Aid in 2004, November 21, 2002; N.N.: U.S. Will Seek $2.22 Bln Military Aid for Israel, November 3, 2003; N.N.: US Congress Panel Halves a Bush Foreign-Aid Request, June 23, 2004. Edward Said claimed that the US taxpayers were actually providing Israel with $5 billion a year. Said: Propaganda and War, 2001. He further estimated the entire input of US taxpayers’ funds into Israel at an unprecedented and unparalleled $92 billion. See Said: A Vision to Lift the Spirit, 2001. The Palestinian human rights organization, Miftah, refers to the additional $2 billion of which Said speaks as ‘federal loan guarantees’. See Miftah: US Foreign Aid to Israel, 2002. Dubro writes that the combined public and private payments from the US to Israel amount to over half a trillion US dollars. In Scheer’s article, a deflecting insult is levelled at socialism in the following manner: ‘[W]hile politicians love the extra cash, and exert energy lobbying for U.S. aid, analysts feel Israel relies too much on aid and that the infusion of money prevents the government from making much-needed reforms to its socialist style economy.’ Needless to say, many ‘socialist style’ economies have managed perfectly well for long periods of time without US-supplied tools of killing or any other kind of US aid, for instance Sweden from the 1930s until the ‘80s. 264 Chomsky 2 1999: 21, 26, 35f, 464ff; Beit-Hallahmi: The South Africa-Israel Alliance, 1986-1988: Public Relations and Reality, 1990: 57-66. See also Thompson 1990: 200.
141 were complete. Due to this, Whites and Jews, respectively, have carried out many further avoidable human rights violations against Blacks and Arabs, respectively. Usually these crimes too go unpunished, again due to the elite use of a very elastic, and indeed acrobatic, sense of the concept ‘self-defense’. A corresponding state of affairs almost certainly holds for Egypt under Greek and Roman rule, at the very least prior to 217 BCE. The victimization of civilians, particularly of innocent civilians, is the essence of oppression, and apartheid is no exception to that. 265 Meanwhile, the ‘demographic war’ between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs is intensifying and gradually changing its character and form. In 1986 Janet Abu-Lughod’s article, ‘The Demographic War for Palestine’, identified the basic ‘weapons’ in this war, namely, ethnically selective immigration and expulsion policies in Israel and high Palestinian birth rates. However, the roles of patriarchy, i.e. systematic male sexism, in both the Israeli and Palestinian societies were left out of the picture in her article. 266 Four world records or peculiarities unique in the world, three of which are held by the state of Israel or by Israeli Jews, and one of which is held by Palestinians, are among the most conspicuous aspects of this war, although they are not generally known or much debated publicly: 1.) Israel does not allow civil marriage. Only marriages performed by religious authorities, who always refuse to wed members of different religions, are recognized by the state. Thus Jews will always marry Jews, Christians Christians, and Muslims Muslims in Israel. There are other governments and authorities in the region who do not provide the option of civil marriage, including the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), but it has often been said that Israel is the only ‘democracy’ with this legal peculiarity. (Although Israel is in fact very far from being truly democratic, it has made its claim to democracy successfully, at least with regard to the perception of its own Jewish population and to that of the ‘western’ powers. It also considers itself as one of the ‘western’ countries, which the PNA, in contrast, does not. None of the ‘western’ countries in common parlance, however, lack the institution of civil marriage.) 267 2.) Israel has the most ethnicist governmental immigration policy in the world, basing access to rights and privileges on legislation and policies referring to the ‘Jewish character’ of the state of Israel and of all of its most privileged citizens and citizenship applicants. It also spends considerable resources on getting Jews to immigrate to Israel and to Israeli-occupied territories. This overall policy, which is also supported by influential and wealthy nongovernmental agencies and organizations, such as the World Zionist Organization, the World Jewish Congress, and several important US lobby groups, is intimately related to the fact that Israel is the only country in the world without internationally declared borders, and it is also the only country in the world that is by law the home of an ethnic group, the Jews, rather than the home of its citizens. And so, the immigration policy is correlated with Israel’s ongoing territorial expansion and a slow but relentless policy of ethnic cleansing, of expulsion or killings of Palestinians, as well as with Palestinian resistance against that policy. The 265 Dadge (ed.): World Press Freedom Review, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, respectively, Article ‘Israel’; Goff (ed.): World Press Freedom Review 1999, 2000, respectively, Article ‘Israel’; Bathish, N. ez al.: IPI Intifada Report: Press Freedom Violations in Israel and Palestine, September 29, 2000 - September 28, 2004, 5 2004 (2000); N.N.: Israel Annual Report, 2002, Reporters Sans Frontières. See further, Chapter II.9.3, below. On the relative lack of arms among the indigenous in Graeco-Roman Egypt, see footnote 389, below. 266 Abu-Lughod: The Demographic War for Palestine, 1986 267 Chu: Religion Causes a Wedding Daze, 2003. On undemocratic, anti-democratic and apartheid aspects of the Jewish state, see Bishara, A. 2001; Avnery: Israel: The Jewish Demographic State? 2002; Evron: Demagography as the Enemy of Democracy, 2002; Palestine Solidarity Committee: Apartheid Israel and the Struggle for a Democratic Secular Palestine, 2001.
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141<br />
were complete. Due to this, Whites and Jews, respectively, have carried out many further<br />
avoidable human rights violations against Blacks and Arabs, respectively. Usually these<br />
crimes too go unpunished, again due to the elite use of a very elastic, and indeed acrobatic,<br />
sense of the concept ‘self-defense’. A corresponding state of affairs almost certainly holds for<br />
Egypt under Greek and Roman rule, at the very least prior to 217 BCE. The victimization of<br />
civilians, particularly of innocent civilians, is the essence of oppression, and apartheid is no<br />
exception to that. 265<br />
Meanwhile, the ‘demographic war’ between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs is<br />
intensifying and gradually changing its character and form. In 1986 Janet Abu-Lughod’s<br />
article, ‘The Demographic War for Palestine’, identified the basic ‘weapons’ in this war,<br />
namely, ethnically selective immigration and expulsion policies in Israel and high Palestinian<br />
birth rates. However, the roles of patriarchy, i.e. systematic male sexism, in both the Israeli<br />
and Palestinian societies were left out of the picture in her article. 266<br />
Four world records or peculiarities unique in the world, three of which are held by the<br />
state of Israel or by Israeli Jews, and one of which is held by Palestinians, are among the most<br />
conspicuous aspects of this war, although they are not generally known or much debated<br />
publicly:<br />
1.) Israel does not allow civil marriage. Only marriages performed by religious authorities,<br />
who always refuse to wed members of different religions, are recognized by the state. Thus<br />
Jews will always marry Jews, Christians Christians, and Muslims Muslims in Israel. There are<br />
other governments and authorities in the region who do not provide the option of civil<br />
marriage, including the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), but it has often been said that<br />
Israel is the only ‘democracy’ with this legal peculiarity. (Although Israel is in fact very far<br />
from being truly democratic, it has made its claim to democracy successfully, at least with<br />
regard to the perception of its own Jewish population and to that of the ‘western’ powers. It<br />
also considers itself as one of the ‘western’ countries, which the PNA, in contrast, does not.<br />
None of the ‘western’ countries in common parlance, however, lack the institution of civil<br />
marriage.) 267<br />
2.) Israel has the most ethnicist governmental immigration policy in the world, basing access<br />
to rights and privileges on legislation and policies referring to the ‘Jewish character’ of the<br />
state of Israel and of all of its most privileged citizens and citizenship applicants. It also<br />
spends considerable resources on getting Jews to immigrate to Israel and to Israeli-occupied<br />
territories. This overall policy, which is also supported by influential and wealthy nongovernmental<br />
agencies and organizations, such as the World Zionist Organization, the World<br />
Jewish Congress, and several important US lobby groups, is intimately related to the fact that<br />
Israel is the only country in the world without internationally declared borders, and it is also<br />
the only country in the world that is by law the home of an ethnic group, the Jews, rather than<br />
the home of its citizens. And so, the immigration policy is correlated with Israel’s ongoing<br />
territorial expansion and a slow but relentless policy of ethnic cleansing, of expulsion or<br />
killings of Palestinians, as well as with Palestinian resistance against that policy. The<br />
265 Dadge (ed.): World Press Freedom Review, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, respectively, Article ‘Israel’; Goff<br />
(ed.): World Press Freedom Review 1999, 2000, respectively, Article ‘Israel’; Bathish, N. ez al.: IPI Intifada<br />
Report: Press Freedom Violations in Israel and Palestine, September 29, 2000 - September 28, 2004, 5 2004<br />
(2000); N.N.: Israel Annual Report, 2002, Reporters Sans Frontières. See further, Chapter II.9.3, below. On the<br />
relative lack of arms among the indigenous in Graeco-Roman Egypt, see footnote 389, below.<br />
266 Abu-Lughod: The Demographic War for Palestine, 1986<br />
267 Chu: Religion Causes a Wedding Daze, 2003. On undemocratic, anti-democratic and apartheid aspects of the<br />
Jewish state, see Bishara, A. 2001; Avnery: Israel: The Jewish Demographic State? 2002; Evron: Demagography<br />
as the Enemy of Democracy, 2002; Palestine Solidarity Committee: <strong>Apartheid</strong> Israel and the Struggle for a<br />
Democratic Secular Palestine, 2001.
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