Apartheid

86
The executive decision by the UN in 1947 to guarantee Israeli statehood came after the
extent of the genocide of Jews in Europe had become known towards the end of World War
II. It was widely felt that the Jews needed to protect themselves with a state apparatus from
such persecution in the future. The number of displaced European Jews, people who had no
homes to which they could return after the war, was very high. These were two of the main
reasons why the UN Security Council members voted for the creation of a Jewish state in
1948. Other reasons included well-mobilized Zionist lobbies and an arrogant and partial or
total disregard among the decision-makers for the indigenous Arab population in Palestine
and for the needs and wishes of Arabs and other colonialized people in general. While the UN
mandate thus gives the existence of a modern state of Israel a certain degree of legitimacy, it
would be cynical to overlook the facts that speak for a reassessment of the situation from a
postcolonial and a post-apartheid human rights perspective. Theoretically speaking,
colonialism is the next-door neighbor of apartheid, and as we have seen, also eligible to
qualify as a crime against humanity. Jews owned only seven per cent of the territory of
Palestine when Israel was created. Most of the rest of what is today Jewish-owned land in
Historic Palestine was thus stolen.
[T]he expulsion of the Palestinians was an inescapable outcome of the
United Nations’ 1947 decision to partition Palestine into separate
Jewish and Arab states the following year. (The Arab state never
came into existence.) Before the partition, Jews comprised only onethird
of the population of Palestine, which held some 608,000 Jews
and 1,237,000 Arabs. Even within the area designated for Israel under
the U.N. partition plan, the population consisted of some 500,000
Jews and 330,000 Arabs. How could a country with such a large Arab
minority become a Jewish homeland? 130
The answer: around 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes and
villages during the 1948 war when Israel was created on the major part of the territory of the
then British-mandate Palestine, for a minority of Jews, most of them very recent immigrant
arrivals. Many Palestinians were also killed. The number of Palestinian refugees has since
swollen to over four million in camps in the West Bank, Gaza and Arab states. There was a
considerable increase in that number after the 1967 war, in which Palestine under nominal
Arab rule ceased to exist. Prior to that war, Palestinians still had 22 per cent of their land left,
afterwards they had nothing. Since then Israel has embarked on the longest military
occupation in modern history: more than 39 years of relentlessly increasing Jewish military,
paramilitary and civilian presence in the West Bank and Gaza. 131
Worldwide, the number of Palestinian refugees, including only those of their
descendants who qualify for UN refugee status, is currently estimated at over 4,500,000 – the
largest and longest existing such population in the world today. Refugees still make up about
60 per cent of all Palestinians. For some months after the 1967 war, Israel was ready to trade
all the territories occupied in that war, except east Jerusalem, for peace with the Arabs. The
latter refused and the gradual ethnic cleansing of Arabs started anew. At the same time,
however, the Palestinians delivered cheap labor welcomed by the Israeli business community
and a growing market for Israeli commodities, which the Palestinians were forced to purchase.
Arab-made products were not allowed to be imported into the territories. Military occupation
led to increasing encroachment on Palestinian land by both army and settlers. The Palestinian
population also grew, as their land continued to shrink. 132
130
Miller, R.: The Palestinians’ Right of Return, no date. See also Mearsheimer & Walt: The Israel Lobby and
U.S. Foreign Policy, 2006.
131
Said: Emerging Alternatives in Palestine, 2002
132
Hottelet: Heading toward Apartheid in Israel, 2000: 11