Veteran South African activist Denis Goldberg: Israel 'an apartheid state'

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/20070-veteran-south-african-activist-denis-goldberg-israel-an-apartheid-state


South African Jewish anti-apartheid stalwart Denis Goldberg believes the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the use of separate laws for different groups of people makes Israel an apartheid state.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Israel is an apartheid state," Goldberg, who fought alongside late South African President Nelson Mandela and other activists against apartheid, told a gathering in Johannesburg.

"Having lived through apartheid in South Africa, I cannot allow in my name the same kind of oppression to go on," Goldberg said at an event discussing lessons for the Palestine-Israel conflict from those who struggled against apartheid.

He said these actions showed an attitude that Palestinians were considered lesser people, which is similar to what happened in South Africa during the apartheid era when blacks were barred from voting.

[Igel]

1. I presume that were he alive in 1946

he'd have wanted Germans in the American zone to have freedom of movement in the US, Social Security benefits, and the right to vote the federal elections until the occupation ended in 1955. I wonder if the Nurnburg defendants were given all their US Constitutional rights?

Otherwise we had two sets of laws in the US: One for US citizens and one for Germans in US-occupied territory. And while Jim Crow was bad, in many ways the Germans had it worse.

And then we repeated it under "apartheid-era Iraq". Oddly, while people protested the occupation I don't recall any anti-apartheid posters.

You can't claim both "occupation" and that treating people in occupied territory as distinct from citizens is "apartheid." You get one or the other. Apartheid entails separateness within a single state with a single citizenry. Occupation entails two different territories, one with citizens and one with and those under occupation; those under occupation are going to be treated differently--perhaps fairly, perhaps not, but that's a matter different from apartheid.

[oberliner]

3. He claims apartheid is going on inside of Israel itself

Not just in the occupied territories.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. Your presuptions are fallacious.

You have no way to make your first claim about WWII Germany, and the OPT don't bear any relation to pre / post WW II Germany.

Americans were not illegally colonizing post WWII Germany. Israel IS colonizing the OPT; which any hasbarist knows is outside of Israel's borders. Yes, Israel has borders. It should practice using them instead if making excuses.

Americans in post WWII Germany were not passing "Germany is the American State" laws: disenfranchising the Germans to second class status.

You can't claim both "occupation" and that treating people in occupied territory as distinct from citizens is "apartheid."

And to your ridiculous claim that you can't do that all I can answer is that INDEED that is what Israel does on a daily basis, but it's not called occupation. It's called illegal colonization.

...and that is what Israel does, but when I point that out to the arm chair hasbarists they point to their book of newspeak and shamelessly hawk colonization as harmless occupation: an act of overt bigotry and illegality.

[FarrenH]

5. According to the South African Apartheid government

The bantustans which Black South Africans were formally citizens of were independent states.

According to the rest of the civilized world they weren't, because their airspace, borders and trade were pretty much controlled by SA - even though - unlike the occupied territories - they actually had small, ineffectual militaries of their own that were formally recognized as defense forces by the SA government.

Also, it was recognized that their existence provided a legal fiction which allowed the Apartheid government to claim that whites were the majority in SA and deprive black people of the vote in a government that controlled their lives.

I would say the situation in the OTs is indistinguishable, except that the nominal occupied territories actually have *less* control of their own territory than the South African bantustans did. Israel controls and allocates many of the West Bank's resources and even it's population registry. This is why several stalwarts of South Africa's struggle have called the situation in the OTs "worse than Apartheid" - including two Nobel Peace Price winners.

And according to the letter of international law, specifically the Crime of Apartheid under the Rome Statute, Israel's occupation/border control of Gaza and the West Bank constitutes Apartheid. Furthermore, this situation has now persisted longer than it persisted in South Africa.

In short, Israel, thanks to it's control of the OTs, is an Apartheid state. Any occupation which specifically prejudices one ethnic group in favour of another, does not give them a say in the controlling government, and installs a permanent machinery of control without foreseeable end automatically becomes an Apartheid state. This is fact. You don't get to redefine what Apartheid is. The only ways for it to stop being an Apartheid state is to either annex the territory and give Palestinians the vote in a single state, or relinquish all external control over the affairs of the OTs, permit them to have their own military forces and relinquish control of their borders and airspace.

[oberliner]

2. I wonder which countries he means when he says "feudal Arab states"

Which are the feudal ones and which are the non-feudal ones?

[6chars]

6. he is entitled to his opinion