[1] A letter to the editor of Ha'aretz by R. Levi, published Feb. 19, 1991, translated by Dr. Israel Shahak:
Yo'av Karni drew an interesting comparison between the dismantling of Communism under perestroika and the process of dismantling apartheid by De Klerk. But how is it that his train of thought did not lead him to draw a comparison between the apartheid laws in South Africa, which he dealt with in detail, and the laws and bureaucratic traditions which are taken for granted in Israel?
The 1913 Land Act [in South Africa] is not essentially different from the procedures employed by the Israel Lands Authority regarding state land (for Jews only) in Israel: be they the principles laid down in the Koenig report (the master plan for the Judaization of the Galilee); the activities of the Green Patrol in enforcing the law in the Negev and rounding up the bedouin in ethnic enclaves north of Beersheba; or the process for expropriating land and turning it over to Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.
Birth registration in accordance with the population census act of 1950 in South Africa (White, Black, Colored, Indian) is amazingly similar to the registration of religion and nationality in birth certificates and ID papers in Israel (Jew, Arab, Druze, Circassian, etc.) save for the slim possibility of changing one's entry by converting. (In practice, however, this is limited to European [who convert and become] Jews, or Jews who convert to another [religion]. An Arab always remains an Arab when it comes to the entry for nationality, even if he has converted to Judaism.)
The act governing living accommodations, which also dates back to 1950, is reminiscent of the ban on Arab workers spending the night in Jewish settlements. Or to the rulings of the Supreme Court and both national and local restrictions legitimizing racial discrimination, be it in regard to selling homes in the Jewish Quarter or plots of land in Zichron Yakov to non-Jews.
All this is in sharp contrast to public pronouncements about equality and freedom to live wherever one chooses when Jews purchase property rights in Arab areas or the Christian Quarter. Both we and [the South Africans] prohibit mixed marriages, and in effect there is a social taboo on joint accommodations.
It's true that in South Africa the white rulers constitute a small minority which, for the meantime, has the vote and control over 86 percent of the land, while we Jews are the majority both within the Green Line, or within Israel and the territories. In these areas, only Jews have the vote. And in the territories themselves, especially in Gaza, the demographic balance is totally different, as it is in the Galilee, Wadi Ara and the Negev. When, if ever, will apartheid come to an end in Israel?
[2] A letter to the editor of Ha'aretz by Uzi Oman, published Feb. 10, 1991, translated by Dr. Israel Shahak:
Regarding Eliyahu Salpeter's "Journal," it is amazing how closely the discriminatory laws of South Africa-which began to be legislated in 1913 and which are now about to be abolished-resemble the discriminatory laws which began to be legislated in the state of Israel in 1948-and who knows when they will be abolished.
The ownership of the land in Israel is legally the preserve of the Israel Lands Authority-and in accordance with an agreement worked out with the Keren Kayemet - it imposes all the restrictions of the Keren Kayemet on the land under its control, i.e., land which is not sold but leased out. This method allows the officials of the authority to decide (in accordance with the "regulations") to whom to lease land, or homes, or a flat in a block of flats. The authority does this (in Salpeter's terms) by applying a clear "fundamental criterion" overseen by the ministry of the interior. In the registration entries for "religion" and "nationality" in the national census, those registered as "Jews" have full rights in regard to most of the land, cities and settlements. Those who are not registered as "Jews" are barred from owning real estate in most sectors of the country. So it is that the law and various regulations enforce what Mr. Salpeter refers to as "physical separation both in regard to local individual habitations and in regard to the establishment of separate 'bantustans."'
What the Jews (who are supposedly smart) don't understand is that a state in which all the residents do not have full equality cannot survive in the long run. The South Africans apparently realized this. The Maonites in Lebanon did not, and we are at present witnessing the consequences.
Amazingly enough, the majority of Israeli left-wing groups have failed to understand this. Rather than fight for full equality for all Israelis, they have focused their energies on the "Palestinian question," i.e., how to remain separate at any price from those who aren't Jewish. Similar to their friends on the right, they support what is referred to in Afrikaans as "apartheid," i.e., separateness.
[The late Dr. Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and professor of chemistry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was chairman of the Israeli League of Human and Civil Rights in Jerusalem. The above items are from Dr. Shahak's translations "From the Hebrew Press."]
On Sat, 16 Aug 2003, Luke Weiger wrote:
> Despite their exclusionary immigration policies (which ought to be
> opposed but shouldn't be a matter of great international concern),
> neither Germany nor Israel is a "racist" state in the same sense as
> the Jim Crow south or apartheid South Africa. Further, though the
> occupation is both brutal and wrong, I don't think it's "racist."
>