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CounterPunch
October
17, 2002
Of Occupation
and Apartheid
Do I Divest?
by DESMOND TUTU
The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning
accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded
without the help of international pressure-- in particular the
divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months, a
similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end
to the Israeli occupation.
Divestment from apartheid South Africa
was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots. Faith-based
leaders informed their followers, union members pressured their
companies' stockholders and consumers questioned their store
owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling
universities to change their portfolios. Eventually, institutions
pulled the financial plug, and the South African government thought
twice about its policies.
Similar moral and financial pressures
on Israel are being mustered one person at a time. Students on
more than forty campuses in the U.S. are demanding a review of
university investments in Israeli companies as well as in firms
doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city
councils have debated municipal divestment measures.
These tactics are not the only parallels
to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African
township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied
Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather
waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency
is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip
to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor
to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security
closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities,
dependence and anger are all too familiar.
Many South Africans are beginning to
recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils
and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle,
recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name."
Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans,
the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current
Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also
pointed out the relevance of the South African experience.
To criticize the occupation is not to
overlook Israel's unique strengths, just as protesting the Vietnam
War did not imply ignoring the distinct freedoms and humanitarian
accomplishments of the United States. In a region where repressive
governments and unjust policies are the norm, Israel is certainly
more democratic than its neighbours. This does not make dismantling
the settlements any less a priority. Divestment from apartheid
South Africa was certainly no less justified because there was
repression elsewhere on the African continent. Aggression is
no more palatable in the hands of a democratic power. Territorial
ambition is equally illegal whether it occurs in slow motion,
as with the Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories, or
in blitzkrieg fashion, as with the Iraqi tanks in Kuwait.
The United States has a distinct responsibility
to intervene in atrocities committed by its client states, and
since Israel is the single largest recipient of U.S. arms and
foreign aid, an end to the occupation should be a top concern.
Almost instinctively, the Jewish people
have always been on the side of the voiceless. In their history,
there is painful memory of massive roundups, house demolitions
and collective punishment. In their scripture, there is acute
empathy for the disfranchised. The occupation represents a dangerous
and selective amnesia of the persecution from which these traditions
were born.
Not everyone has forgotten, including
some within the military. The growing Israeli refusenik movement
evokes the small anti-conscription drive that helped turn the
tide in apartheid South Africa. Several hundred decorated Israeli
officers have refused to perform military service in the Occupied
Territories. Those not already in prison have taken their message
on the road to U.S. synagogues and campuses, rightly arguing
that Israel needs security but that it will never have it as
an occupying power.
More than thirty-five new settlements
have been constructed in the past year. Each one is a step away
from the safety deserved by the Israelis, and two steps away
from the justice owed to the Palestinians.
If apartheid ended, so can this occupation,
but the moral force and international pressure will have to be
just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first,
though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for
his work against apartheid. This piece was written in collaboration
with Ian Urbina of the Middle East Research and Information Project
in Washington D.C.
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