Apartheid

eflection of how far propaganda can go, and of how impunity rules. The conflict then
escalated far beyond the ramifications of the first Intifada. The Israelis started using tanks,
helicopter-borne and even jet fighter-borne missile and bombing attacks, mainly against the
indigenous civilians, but also against some of those Palestinians who had been involved in
armed attacks on Israelis, which was of course the only official reason why Israelis attacked.
In the following year, Palestinian militants embarked on a suicide attack campaign unrivalled
in the history of modern warfare. By the beginning of the fifth year of the Second Intifada, at
least 3,070 Palestinians and 940 Israelis had been killed, according to Reuters News Agency.
The non-governmental organization, Palestine Monitor, put the Palestinian death toll at 3,334
and the Israeli one at 1,008. Among the killed Palestinians according to the latter, 82 per cent
were civilian, and 19 per cent (621) were children under the age of 17. According to the
Israeli domestic secret police, Shin Beth, 69 per cent of the Israelis killed were civilians. Tens
of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis had also been wounded in the fighting. 140
The two sides are obviously very unequal in fire power and consequently in casualty rates.
It needs to be remembered that Israel is the only state in the world
today that has never had internationally declared borders; the only
state not the state of its citizens but of the whole Jewish people [most
of whom live abroad from Israel]; the only state where over 90 per
cent of the land is held in trust for the exclusive use of the Jewish
people. That it is also the only state in the world never to have
recognised any of the main provisions of international law…suggests
the depth and structural knottiness of the absolute rejectionism that
Palestinians have had to face. 141
The South African concept of apartheid mirrors the current situation in Israel, the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip quite accurately. Just as Blacks were denied self-determination as
well as several other basic human rights in South Africa, the Palestinians under Israeli military
occupation are also denied the vote along with several other basic human rights. Ever since
the beginning of the so-called ‘peace process’ with the 1993 Oslo accord, which led to a
division of the entire region, the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have not been
allowed to enter the rest of the country – many Palestinians work(ed) in Israel – without
special permits, issued by the Israeli government, allowing for their entry. These permits are
issued for a short period of time, sometimes as little as two hours. At the same time,
segregation exists in practice in other parts of the country, such as in east and west Jerusalem,
where the west is for the Israelis and the east is predominantly Arab with the exception of the
Old City of Jerusalem, which is divided between Arabs (Christian and Muslim), Armenians,
and Jews.
Although there is no apartheid law demanding physical separation within Israeli state
140 Tostevin: Israeli Death Toll Tumbles in 4th Year of Conflict, 2004; N.N.: Israelis, Palestinians Target
Children-Amnesty, September 30, 2002. See also N.N.: Palestinian Intifada – 4 th Anniversary, September 27,
2004. The passenger plane hijack-suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in
Washington in 2001 produced more casualties (nearly 3,000 dead) than the Palestinian suicide attackers have
achieved so far. Reuters counted 330 Israelis killed in around 60 suicide attacks during the Second Intifada until
May 19, 2003. But the combined number of attacks and Palestinian suicide attacker casualties were probably
unprecedented in history since World War II, i.e. since the Japanese Kamikaze air attack squads. As opposed to
the hundreds of Kamikaze pilots, however, the Palestinian suicide attackers were not pressured or coerced to
sacrifice their lives by a strong state. (Nevertheless there are pressures from the leaders of militant groups on
those who eventually sacrifice their own lives and murder others in this manner.) N.N.: UN Fears ‘War-Like’
Situation, December 2, 2001; N.N.: Suicide Bombers Strike Again in Israel, May 19, 2003; Robinson, A.:
Suicide Bomber Hits Israeli Mall, Peace Hopes Dim, 2003
141 Said: What Israel Has Done, 2002
89