Monday, November 27, 2006
"Peres’ Apartheid Past"Brutal Honesty
By Jeff PurcellCORNELL DAILY SUN
Cornell University
Nov 27 2006
"Hours before the British occupation of Palestine ended, 23 members of the Vaad Leumi signed the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. It’s a fantastic document. Decades ahead of its time, the State of Israel’s founders pledged to 'ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.'
"This, in 1948, was something else, but Israel’s relationship with Apartheid South Africa shows that the rhetoric was more powerful than the sentiment.
"Announcing 'national rebirth' in light of the 'catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people,' the document intended to 'restore their political freedom.' The authors wrote that Nazi 'wickedness' and the 'homelessness' of Jews who 'never ceased to pray and hope for their return' demanded fulfillment of U.N. resolutions and (what they claim are) Providential endowments. A community just moments from complete annihilation established its State to bring 'the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants.' Immediately from its inception, then, Israel was committed to opposing Final Solutions, codified racism and ethnic cleansing. Its signatories demanded that Israel '[would] be based on freedom, justice and peace.'
"Yet, Israel’s deep history of Apartheid support and collaboration mocks the Declaration. First, Israel welcomed South African Prime Minister D.F. Malan in 1953, though Malan and his ruling National Party sided with the Nazis. Malan was treated as any other head of state, although he led South Africa’s (successful) efforts to refuse European Jews during World War II. In 1937, he told the world, 'I have been reproached that I am now discriminating against the Jews as Jews. Now let me say frankly that I admit that it is so.' This visit was six years after Malan’s master plan, Apartheid, was enacted, crushing millions of black South Africans.
"Apartheid’s heinousness wasn’t lost on Israel. In 1961, its U.N. ambassador condemned the system as 'reprehensible and repugnant to the dignity and rights of peoples and individuals.' And we’ve seen that Israel’s founding document pledges its opposition to racism and support of peace, two ideals that Apartheid fought. Even though Israel’s relations with Apartheid are antithetical to its stated goals, the story of collaboration only intensified as Apartheid’s massacres, torture and terrorism increased.
"In the 1970s, as the planet recoiled from South African atrocities (the Sharpsville Massacre in 1960, for instance) and brutality (like the murder of hundreds of students in Soweto in 1976), Israel moved closer to the state whose goal was the exact opposite of what Israel claimed to embody.
"Jailed for his active support of the Nazis during World War II, South African B.J. Vorster visited Jerusalem in 1976 and signed a series of secret trade and military pacts. South Africa considered the relationship this way: 'Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.' Though Israel had voted against Apartheid in the U.N. several times in the 1960s, by the 1970s it was absenting itself from the same votes.
"Many Israelis protested their government’s decision to embrace the barbarism of Apartheid. 'He who opens his arms [to South Africa] becomes a partner to crime; a collaborator with a hated and cruel regime,' wrote one Israeli observer in 1976 in Al-Hamishmar. One Israeli saw his country’s persistent ties, particularly military, as presenting 'the potential to undercut' 'international efforts … to apply economic pressure on South Africa to force it to dismantle apartheid.'
"Nonetheless, the Israelis spent the next decade openly violating the U.N. Security Council’s 1977 unanimous arms embargo on Apartheid. Israeli and South African military advisors regularly collaborated throughout these years, though the most appalling acts were yet to come. The Vorster-Rabin meetings in 1976 expanded military sales — the arming of Apartheid.
"While the planet moved from arms embargoes to divestment, Israel supplied Apartheid with at least six warships, patrol boats, military electronics, aircraft computers, tanks, submachine gun technology, missiles, warplanes, air-to-air rockets, assault rockets and radar bases. Israeli arms killed black South Africans. These weapons were used, as well, to destabilize Southern Africa and fund terrorist organizations like UNITA and RENAMO.
"Other collaborations included the Kibbutz Beit Alfam, which built anti-riot vehicles that the Apartheid police used to mow down protesters. Shimon Peres, who will visit campus tomorrow, was Israeli Defense Minister during the Nazi supporter’s visit. Recalling the transactions with South Africa, earlier this year he told London’s The Guardian, 'I never think back. Since I cannot change the past, why should I deal with it?'
"These words are distant from those enshrined in the Declaration. The brutal repression, torture and murder of thousands of South Africans are surely incompatible with the policies Israel claimed its existence would demand. Nothing could justify selling guns and missiles to a regime so discredited and committed to beating its opponents to death. Given that the bullets and bombs would be used to murder and intimidate people who were in so many ways similar to the people who signed the Declaration in 1948, nothing can excuse Peres’ actions.
"So much was said in 1985 after Zulu Chief Buthelezi visited Jerusalem, meeting with Peres twice. Then Prime Minister, Peres said, 'We are serious, we are definite, we are determined not to accept the policy of discrimination under any circumstances,' concluding at nearly the same time, 'The Israeli government unconditionally disassociates itself form South Africa’s apartheid government.'
"Weeks later, The Washington Post reported that despite the 'unconditional' condemnation, Israeli 'ministers said the government would make no move to sever diplomatic ties or end the commercial and arms trade between the two countries.'
"Only after the U.S. Congress prohibited military aid to any country arming Apartheid did Israel cease loading the guns of white supremacy. Therefore, few things are more offensive to South Africans than calling Shimon Peres a 'man of peace,' given that he personally oversaw their suffering. Tomorrow, ask Peres why his country is considered a moral degenerate in South Africa and force him to 'think back' to Apartheid and the Declaration he abandoned."
"Jeff Purcell is a graduate student in Africana Studies. He can be reached at jlp56@cornell.edu. Brutal Honesty appears Mondays."
On the Web at:
http://www.cornellsun.com/node/20203___________________________________________________
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