Apartheid

147
as a majoritarian democracy is only a new requirement to apartheid elites, in Israel in
particular, but also in late apartheid South Africa. In both South Africa and Egypt,
demographic dominance was probably very consciously desired by the indigenous people,
especially the male elites, chiefly for military reasons, which, however, never turned out
decisive or successful, due to the vast relative superiority of the military technology used and
developed by the ethnic elites, along with their control or near-control over weapons
trafficking, and probably also because of their relatively successful repopulation of the land
by means of ethnicist immigration.
The ‘honor’ killing (murder) of the Palestinian girl, Yusra Al Azami, in her fiancé’s
car at a Gaza beach on April 10 2005 by Hamas gunmen, with the official Hamas justification
of ‘moral reasons and the fight against corruption’, was a planned action by the militant
group. Many gunmen were in the Hamas car, as if it were a militant operation against Israelis
or collaborators. This is a direct parallel to the execution of ‘witches’ in South Africa by
‘neck-lacing’, the method also used to execute collaborators with the apartheid regime. 282
But is there not a logical contradiction hidden here? How can Palestinians killing
Palestinians, or South African Blacks killing South African Blacks, or Egyptians killing
Egyptians, be part of strategies in demographic wars against their oppressors? Does not every
such killing imply a demographic loss for the ethnic group to which the victim belongs? The
answer is that this conflict has an additional aspect to it that works the following way: If
young women are allowed to follow their own hearts and start partnerships based on mutual
love and respect, then they would be unlikely to start producing children in their teens, but
rather realize and educate themselves and/or start professional careers before having
children 283 . And if some women in conservative communities embark on a new lifestyle in
this manner, then they could become role models to young women in the future, resulting
eventually in fewer teenage marriages and pregnancies overall and a lowering of the overall
birth rate. Thus, the sacrifice of independent-minded young women is apparently seen – by
their perpetrator relatives or neighbors and many other supporters – as a price society must
pay in order to keep growing at an unparalleled exponential rate. The same goes for the
sacrifice of middle-aged women and even of male allies of the women’s liberation struggle as
the South African example appears to show. They are targeted because of their actual or
potential influence on others. The young women, especially, must be protected from them, so
that they can get on with their task of producing ‘new soldiers’. In Egypt women’s lives were
not sacrificed as directly as in the other two countries, but still women’s health, happiness,
and sexuality were sacrificed – and still are being sacrificed – for the higher birth rate and for
(other) patriarchal interests.
This sexist, nationalist, socio- and psychopathological motivations, outlined above,
that are behind femicide are not necessarily the only ones. The value system behind ‘honor’
killings, for instance, is apparently powerful enough to prevent any negative effects for
murderers and it is perhaps even strong enough to reward them for their deeds. The same
applies to ‘witch’-burnings and FGM. There are deadly traditionalisms at work here.
Palestinian men (and many women) are thus keeping up the pressures on young
Palestinian women and girls. The exceptionally high Palestinian birth rate is a response to
Israeli aggression, as we have seen. But it is not only that. Women are being kept in line, and
indoors, for the simple reason of male dominance, as well as to fight the Israelis in the long
term by producing babies. The demographic war is not a one-dimensional conflict such as the
conventional armed conflict. Along one axis of the demographic war Israelis and Palestinians
are fighting each other, along the other it is patriarchy against women and human rights. In a
scathing comment on patriarchy in the anti-Zionist community, the Palestinian intellectual and
politician, Azmi Bishara, explains:
282 Al Haroub 2005; on South Africa, see footnote 223, above.
283 Bhabha: Love, Marriage in a Time of War, 2004