Israel, Palestine, and Apartheid.

• Author: Greenstein, Ran
• Position: ARTICLE - Report

Introduction: What Is Apartheid?

What do we mean when we speak about apartheid? On the face of it the answer is obvious: apartheid was a South African system of social and political domination between 1948 and 1994. During that period government policies imposed conceptual, legal, and geographical distinctions between people on the basis of race. Legislation divided the population into white and black groups, and the latter were further divided into sub-groups. Black African people were classified into ethnic groups, each with its 'own' homeland in which to exercise political rights and meet social needs. At the same time, in the key area of labor, black people worked for and served white people, a principle that shaped economy and society throughout South African history.

In a useful summary, historian William Beinart identified seven pillars of apartheid. None of these were new, but they were tightened and made more difficult to evade with the rise of the National Party to power in 1948: (i) Stark legal definition of races; (ii) Exclusive white participation in and control of central political institutions; (iii) Separate institutions and territories for black African people; (iv) Spatial segregation in town and countryside, (v) Control of the movement of African people into the cities; (vi) Tight division in the labor market; (vii) Segregation of amenities and facilities of all kinds. (1)

Conceptually, apartheid referred to a three-pronged regime combining colonial dispossession, class exploitation, and racial discrimination. Its three core dimensions--land, labor, race--reinforced each other initially, but over time the legal machinery associated with race became an obstacle to socio-economic stability and growth. That machinery was eventually discarded, removing the racial-political logic that made South Africa unique. Inequalities on the basis of land and labor remain central to post-apartheid society, though. It is possible to speak about apartheid today in the social or class sense but not in the racial sense of the past.

Two notable attempts to expand the notion of apartheid beyond South Africa were made: The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 1973, defined apartheid as "a crime against humanity" and a violation of international law. Apartheid meant "similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa... committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

Moreover, the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court omitted all references to South Africa in its definition of 'the crime of apartheid.' In its Article 7 on crimes against humanity, the Rome Statute defines the crime of apartheid as "inhumane acts... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." These acts include "deportation or forcible transfer of population" and "persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender... or other [inadmissible] grounds." Persecution in turn is defined as "intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity."

With the passage of time and the unfolding political transition in South Africa, apartheid has acquired a legal meaning that could be applied anywhere, though its association with the historical South African regime remains strong. No other political system has been formally defined as an apartheid state by international bodies. However, adding the international legal dimension to the analysis means we can evaluate the term against that benchmark rather than solely against the practices of pre-1994 South Africa, even though these remain of interest.

What (and Where) Is Israel?

We need to consider which Israel is our topic of concern: Israel today, a regime which extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River or Israel before 1967, along the Green Line? Are the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 part of it? What about the Palestinian Diaspora? The central question in this respect is the relationship between three components: (i) Israel proper (within its pre-1967 boundaries); (ii) Greater Israel (within the post-1967 boundaries); and (iii) Greater Palestine (a demographic rather than geographic concept, covering all Arabs who trace their origins to pre-1948 Palestine).

It is only by considering the three components together that we can explore fully the meanings of Israeli apartheid. We cannot take for granted realities that became entrenched through conquest and dispossession--the exclusion of the 1948 refugees--and ignore other realities, such as the permanent 'temporary' occupation of 1967, which incorporates land under Israeli control but excludes its Palestinian residents.

Israel Proper

Israel proper within the Green Line from 1948 to 1967 had a large Jewish majority (80-85 percent of the population) and a Palestinian-Arab minority, an outcome of two combined processes. UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947 partitioned Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish state was meant to accommodate 400,000 Arabs, who would have been 45 percent of its population. The bulk of the rest (725,000 Arabs) were to become residents of the Arab state. This plan never materialized. The country was plunged into war that ended with the conquest by Jewish forces of additional territories that had been home to 500,000 Arabs before the war, a figure that would have transformed the Jewish population from a small majority (55 percent according to the UN plan) into a minority of 40 percent in their 'own' state. (2)

That prospect -unacceptable from an Israeli-Zionist point of view--led to a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Together with war-related hardships and fears for the future, it resulted in the depopulation of Israeli-controlled territories. At least 80 percent of their Arab residents fled or were expelled in what became known as the Nakba (catastrophe). They were prevented from returning to their homes and have been refugees ever since.

The demographic outcome of the war was a unified and growing Jewish population in the new state of Israel, and a fragmented Palestinian-Arab population, which was dispersed in several territories. About 15 percent of Palestinians remained in Israel and were granted citizenship, including people forced out of their homes and villages who stayed within state boundaries (known as 'present absentees'). A further 25 percent remained in Palestinian territories occupied by Jordan and Egypt, which became known as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The rest--60 percent of the total--were refugees inside Palestine and in neighboring Arab countries.

Only those in the first group--variously referred to as Israeli Arabs or Palestinian citizens or the Arabs of 1948--acquired citizenship rights in their homeland and place of residence. Their rights are real but subject to various qualifications as second-class citizens. Only two of the seven pillars of apartheid identified above by Beinart apply to them (i.e., legal definition of groups and effective spatial segregation). It is crucial to keep in mind though, that this group is a rump community, representing only a segment of the original Arab residents of what became Israel. The rights to which they have access are denied to the majority who hail from there but became refugees in 1948. For this reason, we cannot speak about 'Israel proper' in isolation. It is misleading to discuss any aspect of Israeli ethnic policies and practices in its 1948 territory without realizing that they are all premised on the dispossession of the refugees. The erasure of the legacy of this 'excluded presence' was not a once-off event but is an ongoing project that shapes Israeli practices to this day.

Greater Israel

Greater Israel came into being with the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which continues to this day though in different ways. These territories have not been formally annexed to Israel but fall under its overall system of control. If the state is a body that claims monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force in a territory, Israel effectively is the only state in the entire area. This means we are looking at a single integrated regime in all the post-1967 territories, even if its rule is applied in an internally differentiated manner.

The Israeli position is that the Palestinian Territories are disputed rather than occupied and will remain so until their final status is decided through negotiations. In practice, over the last 53 years Israel has kept Arab residents subject to military rule while allowing hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to settle on land confiscated or illegally bought from the original owners. Israel has built hundreds of Jewish-only settlements whose residents enjoy citizenship rights, have access to services funded from the state budget, and are armed and defended by Israeli military. It has constructed segregated roads for its own citizens, built the 'separation fence' (aka Apartheid Wall), erected hundreds of road blocks to restrict the movements of Palestinian residents, and put in place thousands of military regulations that affect the daily lives of local people, their access to resources and...