Apartheid

174
called ‘two-state solution’: “We have little time to lose before we face an old (apartheid)
South Africa situation where Palestinians would demand, ‘One man, one vote’. It would be
the end of Zionism.” 350
Another publicly proposed final Israeli solution for Jewish demographic concerns
today goes by the innocent-sounding name of ‘transfer’, the labeling of which is an attempt to
take the offensiveness out of ‘expulsion’, to which the plan really refers. In a March 2002
opinion poll, no less than 46 per cent of Israeli Jews said they favor some sort of ‘transfer’ of
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example to neighboring Jordan. The
simple calculation behind this kind of reasoning is the following: The expelled indigenous
population could now easily be replaced with imported workers, perhaps more easily than in
any previous apartheid society. This is mainly due to globalization making migrant labor more
readily available and in larger numbers than ever before. Many Jews in Israel also believe in
the necessity of ‘transfering’ Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, the so-called ‘Israeli Arabs’,
from Israel in the narrow sense. The term ‘transfer’ is being used increasingly by Zionists
instead of ‘expulsion’, because it expresses the perspective previously only propounded by
ultra-nationalist Israelis that ‘many’ Palestinians would leave ‘voluntarily’. 351 It could also
shield people from the obvious fact that expulsions of Palestinians have been ongoing since
1948. ‘Transfer’ of Palestinians from their home country would thus appear to be a new
phenomenon.
According to a more recent opinion poll, nearly 64 per cent of Israeli Jews wanted
their government to encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate. 55 per cent saw them as a threat to
national security, 45 per cent supported limiting Arab rights to vote, and 49 per cent said
Israel’s treatment of its Arab minority was ‘too favorable’. 352
Of course, the ‘transfer’ began long ago. By November 2002 it was seen to be
emptying Palestinian villages in the West Bank through terrorist actions by complicit Jewish
settler paramilitaries and the Israeli army. Rural areas in the West Bank in 2003 looked very
much indeed like many Palestinian villages and towns in Israel in 1948: ghost towns. People
were slowly but surely being removed forcibly, by direct violence, as well as indirectly, by the
destruction and removal of the infrastructure necessary for a dignified life and for long-term
physical survival. The first step here is forced urbanization. Many Palestinians can no longer
survive in rural areas, mainly due to Israeli terrorism, which targets the foundations of their
livelihoods, and they are therefore forced into the cities. There, too, chances of finding jobs
are slim, and, finally, emigration and exile become the ultimate, and seemingly logical,
solutions. 353
350
Quoted in Heinrich: Demographic Change Spurs New Mideast Peace Efforts, 2003 (parenthesized addition in
original quote).
351
Hammond: Mubarak Voices Palestinian Fears of Expulsion, 2002
352
Johnston: Israeli Jews Want to Encourage Arabs to Leave-Poll, 2004. The Center for National Security
Studies’ Gabriel Ben-Dor, who conducted the survey, spoke of a rising ‘level of xenophobia’ in Israel. This
choice of labelling for racism or ethnicism is in itself interesting and symptomatic for the whole problem.
Palestinians are apparently not just of a different ethnicity. The few who have citizenship are seen even by social
researchers – who are part of the recently arrived but dominant ethnicity – as foreigners in their own land.
353
Cook: Finishing the Job, 2002; Algazi & Bdeir: Transfer’s Real Nightmare, 2002; See also Reinhart:
Sophisticated Transfer, 2003, which describes Israeli army ‘rehearsals’ for the expulsion, involving the rounding
up of horrified Palestinians in refugee camps and loading them on to trucks. This is how many Palestinians were
expelled from ‘Israel proper’ in 1948. Both the Israeli decision-makers and the Palestinian victims are well aware
of this: ‘On April 2 [2003] at 3 AM, a large force raided the refugee camp of Tulkarem, blocked all the roads and
paths with barbed wires and announced on loudspeakers that all males aged 15 to 40 must go to a certain
compound at the center of the camp. At 9 in the morning, the army began to transport the gathered males to a
nearby refugee camp. This time it was only a staged scene, and the residents were allowed to return after a few
days.’ Note the intentional intimidation and the blatant disregard for elementary human rights apparent in this
‘rehearsal’.