Apartheid

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that seriously) for the fenced-in natives, yet it insisted on keeping its control over them,
among other measures, by completely controlling all borders and the coastline around, and the
airspace above the 1.3 million-strong mostly refugee Palestinian population. The Gaza
withdrawal did nothing from the perspective of international law with regard to ending the
status of the Gaza Strip as illegally occupied by Israel. The arrogant disdain among the rulers
for democratic decisions became embarrassingly obvious when Sharon decided to ask, not the
inhabitants of Gaza, nor the Palestinians as a whole, nor the Israeli people (who would have
supported full withdrawal), nor the parliament, but the members of his own right-wing Likud
party for their permission to clear Gaza of Jewish invaders on the ground. Not even the ruling
South African National Party sank that low, although it had a much larger percentage of
voters than Likud ever had. In 1992 the NP under De Klerk asked the entire white electorate
(but not one black person) for permission to extend voting rights to the Blacks and erase
racism from the Constitution. 382
Whether the Palestinian Bantustans are eventually recognized by Israel or not is
basically unessential. They already exist, for all practical purposes, especially for the supreme
apartheid purposes of violence and repopulation. Palestinian criminals, non-criminals, and
police are killing each other, while Israelis are killing Palestinians as well. Meanwhile, the
Israelis are slowly but surely taking over the territory of Historic Palestine.
382 Eldar: Bantustan in Gaza, 2004; Steele: Israel’s Attacks, 2004. De Klerk received a 69 percent vote in favor of
reform through the referendum. Mandela 1995 (1994): 598f. Likud, on the other hand, voted against so-called
‘Gaza withdrawal’. Sharon went on to form a new party, Kadima, without a political program, to win voters from
both Likud and the ‘leftist’ parties.