This report appearing in the Jerusalem Post (London) on February 22, 2007, South African Jewish minister sends support to Israeli Apartheid Week organizers, appears to give further support to Jimmy Carter’s thesis that, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is a valid admonition.
Ronnie Kasrils, who is South Africa’s Minister for Intelligence, sent the letter to the Palestinian Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Kasrils said that he was writing in his personal capacity, and not on behalf of the South African government, but as a representative of a society steeped in the vile tradition of Apartheid, his message carried a particular weight.
Kasrils, furthermore, is a Jewish member of South Africa’s cabinet, for which reason the Jerusalem Post presumably took notice. The occasion was last week’s Israeli Apartheid Week at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Israeli Apartheid Week conducted earlier this month through activities at various universities in Canada (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa), the UK (Oxford, Cambridge), and the United States (New York) to highlight Israel’s apartheid policies.
Kasrils’ position was summarized in a letter which he titled, “A Message of Support from South Africa”. In his letter, he stated,
Please convey to all involved my wholehearted support for your week of solidarity with the Palestinian people in your appropriately entitled Israeli Apartheid Week.
This year sees the 60th anniversary of the UN Partition Plan that set in motion the monstrous Zionist plot to violently dispossess the Palestinian people of their land and rights, and their dispersal through serial ethnic cleansing that has continued in one form or another to this day.
To any fair minded person, this process of colonial-style dispossession is the fundamental cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is certainly akin to the racist-style humiliation and brutality of the notorious apartheid system under which South Africa’s landless and dispossessed people suffered.
Kasrils has been the South African Minister for Intelligence Services since 2004, has been a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress since 1987, and has been a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party since 1986.
With the many negative reactions to Jimmy Carter’s book after publication from various quarters including members of Congress, it was obvious that his intent was misunderstood. These criticisms obviously came from people who necessarily avert their eyes to the reality of life on the ground in the West Bank, or who just blindly support Israel’s right wing government.
That a South African official would confirm similarities between Israel’s military occupation and the South African Apartheid system suggests that the comparison is a valid if not exact one as some apologists have indicated. There is an apartheid system in place in the West Bank, and from the observation of South African experts, it exceeds the Apartheid system of the now defunct Africaaner government of South Africa.
Crossposted at My Left Wing, Eternal Hope, Evenhanded Democrats
