A Freedom Ride

Uri Avnery

20.1.07

MAHATMA GANDHI would have loved it. Nelson Mandela
would have saluted. Martin Luther King would have been
the most excited - it would have reminded him of the
old days.

Yesterday, a decree of the Officer Commanding the
Central Sector, General Yair Naveh, was about to come
into force. It forbade Israeli drivers from giving a
ride to Palestinian passengers in the occupied
territories. The knitted-Kippah-wearing General, a
friend of the settlers, justified this as a vital
security necessity. In the past, inhabitants of the
West Bank have sometimes reached Israeli territory in
Israeli cars.

Israeli peace activists decided that this nauseating
order must be protested. Several organizations planned
a protest action for the very day it was due to come
into force. They organized a "Freedom Ride" of Israeli
car-owners who were to enter the West Bank (a criminal
offence in itself) and give a ride to local
Palestinians, who had volunteered for the action.

An impressive event in the making. Israeli drivers and
Palestinian passengers breaking the law openly, facing
arrest and trial in a military court.

At the last moment, the general "froze" the order. The
demonstration was called off.

THE ORDER that was suspended (but not officially
rescinded) emitted a strong odor of apartheid. It joins
a large number of acts of the occupation authorities
that are reminiscent of the racist regime of South
Africa, such as the systematic building of roads in the
West Bank for Israelis only and on which Palestinians
are forbidden to travel. Or the "temporary" law that
forbids Palestinians in the occupied territories, who
have married Israeli citizens, to live with their
spouses in Israel. And, most importantly, the Wall,
which is officially called "the separation obstacle".
In Afrikaans, "apartheid" means separation.

The "vision" of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert amounts to
the establishment of a "Palestinian state" that would
be nothing more than a string of Palestinian islands in
an Israeli sea. It is easy to detect a similarity
between the planned enclaves and the "Bantustans" that
were set up by the White regime in South Africa - the
so-called "homelands" where the Blacks were supposed to
enjoy "self-rule" but which really amounted to racist
concentration camps.

Because of this, we are right when we use the term
"apartheid" in our daily struggle against the
occupation. We speak about the "apartheid wall" and
"apartheid methods". The order of General Naveh has
practically given official sanction to the use of this
term. Even institutions that are far from the radical
peace camp did relate it to the Apartheid system.

Therefore, the title of former President Jimmy Carter's
new book is fully justified - "Palestine - Peace not
Apartheid". The title aroused the ire of the "friends
of Israel" even more than the content of the book
itself. How dare he? To compare Israel to the obnoxious
racist regime? To allege that the government of Israel
is motivated by racism, when all its actions are driven
solely by the necessity to defend its citizens against
Arab terrorists? (By the way, on the cover of the book
there is a photo of a demonstration against the wall
that was organized by Gush Shalom and Ta'ayush.
Carter's nose points to a poster of ours that says:
"The Wall - Jail for Palestinians, Ghetto for
Israelis".)

It seems that Carter himself was not completely happy
with the use of this term. He has hinted that it was
added at the request of the publishers, who thought a
provocative title would stimulate publicity. If so, the
ploy was successful. The famous Jewish lobby was fully
mobilized. Carter was pilloried as an anti-Semite and a
liar. The storm around the title displaced any debate
about the facts cited in the book, which have not been
seriously questioned. The book has not yet appeared in
Hebrew.

BUT WHEN we use the term "Apartheid" to describe the
situation, we have to be aware of the fact that the
similarity between the Israeli occupation and the White
regime in South Africa concerns only the methods, not
the substance. This must be made quite clear, so as to
prevent grave errors in the analysis of the situation
and the conclusions drawn from it.

It is always dangerous to draw analogies with other
countries and other times. No two countries and no two
situations are exactly the same. Every conflict has its
own specific historical roots. Even when the symptoms
are the same, the disease may be quite different.

These reservations all apply to comparisons between the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the historical
conflict between the Whites and the Blacks in South
Africa. Suffice it to point out several basic
differences:

(a) In SA there was a conflict between Blacks and
Whites, but both agreed that the state of South Africa
must remain intact- the question was only who would
rule it. Almost nobody proposed to partition the
country between the Blacks and the Whites.

Our conflict is between two different nations with
different national identities, each of which places the
highest value on a national state of its own.

(b) In SA, the idea of "separateness" was an instrument
of the White minority for the oppression of the Black
majority, and the Black population rejected it
unanimously. Here, the huge majority of the
Palestinians want to be separated from Israel in order
to establish a state of their own. The huge majority of
Israelis, too, want to be separated from the
Palestinians. Separation is the aspiration of the
majority on both sides, and the real question is where
the border between them should run. On the Israeli
side, only the settlers and their allies demand to keep
the whole historical area of the country united and
object to separation, in order to rob the Palestinians
of their land and enlarge the settlements. On the
Palestinian side, the Islamic fundamentalists also
believe that the whole country is a "waqf" (religious
trust) and belongs to Allah, and therefore must not be
partitioned.

(c) In SA, a White minority (about 10 percent) ruled
over a huge majority of Blacks (78 percent), people of
mixed race (7 percent) and Asians (3 percent). Here,
between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there
are now 5.5 million Jewish-Israelis and an equal number
of Palestinian-Arabs (including the 1.4 million
Palestinians who are citizens of Israel).

(d) The SA economy was based on Black labor and could
not possibly have existed without it. Here, the Israeli
government has succeeded in excluding the non-Israeli
Palestinians almost completely from the Israeli labor
market and replacing them with foreign workers.

IT IS important to point out these fundamental
differences in order to prevent grave mistakes in the
strategy of the struggle for ending the occupation.

In Israel and abroad there are people who cite this
analogy without paying due attention to the essential
differences between the two conflicts. Their
conclusion: the methods that were so successful against
the South African regime can again be applied to the
struggle against the occupation -  namely, mobilization
of world public opinion, an international boycott and
isolation.

That is reminiscent of a classical fallacy, which used
to be taught in logic classes: an Eskimo knows ice. Ice
is transparent. Ice can be chewed. When given a glass
of water, which is also transparent, he thinks he can
chew it.

There is no doubt that it is essential to arouse
international public opinion against the criminal
treatment by the occupation authorities of the
Palestinian people. We do this every day, just as Jimmy
Carter is doing now. However, it must be clear that
this is immeasurably more difficult than the campaign
that led to the overthrow of the South African regime.
One of the reasons: during World War II, the people who
later became the rulers of South Africa tried to
sabotage the anti-Nazi effort and were imprisoned, and
therefore aroused world-wide loathing. Israel is
accepted by the world as the "State of the Holocaust
Survivors", and therefore arouses overwhelming
sympathy.

It is a serious error to think that international
public opinion will put an end to the occupation. This
will come about when the Israeli public itself is
convinced of the need to do so.

There is another important difference between the two
conflicts, and this may be more dangerous than any
other: in South Africa, no White would have dreamt of
ethnic cleansing. Even the racists understood that the
country could not exist without the Black population.
But in Israel, this goal is under serious
consideration, both openly and in secret. One of its
main advocates, Avigdor Lieberman, is a member of the
government and last week Condoleezza Rice met with him
officially. Apartheid is not the worst danger hovering
over the heads of the Palestinians. They are menaced by
something infinitely worse: "Transfer", which means
total expulsion.

SOME PEOPLE in Israel and around the world follow the
Apartheid analogy to its logical conclusion: the
solution here will be the same as the one in South
Africa. There, the Whites surrendered and the Black
majority assumed power. The country remained united.
Thanks to wise leaders, headed by Nelson Mandela and
Frederick Willem de Klerk, this happened without
bloodshed.

In Israel, that is a beautiful dream for the end of
days. Because of the people involved and their
anxieties, it would inevitably turn into a nightmare.
In this country there are two peoples with a very
strong national consciousness. After 125 years of
conflict, there is not the slightest chance that they
would live together in one state, share the same
government, serve in the same army and pay the same
taxes. Economically, technologically and educationally,
the gap between the two populations is immense. In such
a situation, power relations similar to those in
Apartheid South Africa would indeed arise.

In Israel, the demographic demon is lurking. There is
an existential angst among the Jews that the
demographic balance will change even within the Green
Line. Every morning the babies are counted - how many
Jewish babies were born during the night, and how many
Arab. In a joint state, the discrimination would grow a
hundredfold. The drive to dispossess and expel would
know no bounds, rampant Jewish settlement activity
would flourish, together with the effort to put the
Arabs at a disadvantage by all possible means. In
short: Hell.

IT MAY be hoped that this situation will change in 50
years. I have no doubt that in the end, a federation
between the two states, perhaps including Jordan too,
will come about. Yasser Arafat spoke with me about this
several times. But neither the Palestinians not the
Israelis can afford 50 more years of bloodshed,
occupation and creeping ethnic cleansing.

The end of the occupation will come in the framework of
peace between the two peoples, who will live in two
free neighboring states - Israel and Palestine - with
the border between them based on the Green Line. I hope
that this will be an open border.

Then - inshallah - Palestinians will freely ride in
Israeli cars, and Israelis will ride freely in
Palestinian cars. When that time comes, nobody will
remember General Yair Naveh, or even his boss, General
Dan Halutz. Amen. --

_____________________________________________

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