The world looks different from the southern tip of Africa. There a
courageous venture in nation-building is taking place after the
country liberated itself a decade ago from a racist, colonialist
regime. There a democratic constitution has evolved that officially
recognizes 11 languages within a multi-ethnic, multi-tribal and
multi-religious nation, on the basis of citizenship equality.
In South Africa, a revolution has been transformed into a state,
not only through struggle and perseverance but also through
negotiations and compromise solutions that made such a
transformation possible. These compromises have sometimes given
rise to contentions that, although the African National Congress
(ANC) has acceded to government, it has failed to gain economic or
political power. The descendants of the white settlers - the
children of the old order - still control the country's major
companies and a substantial share of the media. There are still
problems of land ownership, housing and chronic poverty among the
non-whites. The state is committed to repaying its former debts and
to respecting all the international agreements concluded by the old
regime, including those with Israel. On the other hand, the black
middle class is expanding and the country is undergoing a gradual
but radical change.
A Historic Deal
The victims of apartheid had to content themselves with public
confessions and pleas for forgiveness by the perpetrators of the
crimes against them before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Still, those whites who gave the orders that led to crimes against
humanity and those who executed them were brought to justice. But
some tried to take advantage of the spirit of reconciliation and
attempted to equate the ANC violence with the violence carried out
by the whites, and to call for ANC members guilty of civilian
deaths to also be brought to justice. In a debate over the erection
of a liberation monument in a Pretoria park, the request was made
to include the names of the "victims" of the white regime alongside
the names of the resistance fighters. In other words, the vestiges
of the previous regime would like to exploit the historic deal to
rewrite history by equating the persecuted with the
persecutors.
The ANC deal with the ruling apartheid elites was comprehensive and
far-reaching. It was predicated on the recognition of the justness
of equality and the rejection of racism. There could never be
parity between freedom and slavery, between resistance and
oppression, or a compromise between two rights: that of the victim
and that of the victimizer. The objective accomplished was the
disintegration of apartheid. And to allow this to take place
peacefully, the deal made it easy for the regime to dissolve
itself, and for the leadership to relinquish power without fear of
reprisals or, indeed, revenge against the whites in general. It
dealt with mechanisms of implementation, with timelines, and how to
bring the past to account. The deal did not incorporate forgiveness
for the system but for the people who were instruments of the
system, and for certain individuals who were in charge, as long as
they were not directly responsible for crimes against
humanity.
Transcending Narrow Domestic Concerns
It is interesting that these discussions in South Africa should
coincide with a stage when the Palestinians and their attempt to
end the apartheid system in Palestine are in a state of turmoil,
which has left the friends of the Palestinian people in South
Africa and elsewhere at a loss: Should they be more Palestinian
than the Palestinians? And should they support Hamas or Fateh?
Would it be possible to call for a boycott of Israel when the
Palestinian leadership is engaged in a process of normalization
with it? In Palestine normalization has preceded the conclusion of
a peace deal, which, in any event, will not bring an end to the
bigoted regime.
This did not happen in South Africa. And after making the
transition to statehood, South Africa now has the concerns of a
sovereign state. For example, realpolitik impels South Africa to
have staunch relations with the United States, in spite of its
objections to U.S. warmongering policies in the Gulf region, and in
spite of the fact that the U.S. joined the boycott against
apartheid only when its demise was imminent. South Africa has also
maintained its relations with Israel, although the military
treaties concluded with the former regime have not been renewed.
The supporters of Israel among the former regime invoke the same
political realism and transpose the arguments they advanced to the
Palestinian-Israeli case. They view the Palestinian problem as a
struggle between two sides over a land to which both have equal
rights. They talk about the necessity of South Africa to support
the peace process and the "moderates on both sides," and to adopt a
balanced position.
I recently participated in part of these discussions in South
Africa between current ministers who had been prominent figures in
the liberation movement - ranging from the more ideologically
inclined to the staunchest pragmatists. Yet even those leaders who
most champion realism assert that South Africa cannot remain
neutral in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but
condemns the occupation and affirms the right of the Palestinian
people to self-determination. But what is on the table as far as it
is concerned is a peace process that would lead to a two-state
settlement and with which it has to deal. As one prominent ANC
personality told me: "We advised them [the Palestinians] at the
time not to accept Oslo. As you know, we do not like ethnic-state
solutions to a problem of this kind, but this was your choice. We,
too, did not want any African or friendly country to interfere in
our affairs." Another resistance leader and current a minister told
me that Israel is viewed as an apartheid regime and this is a
matter of concern to South Africa, regardless of the geographical
distance, for the struggle against racism defines its
identity.
Furthermore, the two-state solution that is being promoted today
will not lead to two states or to a truly sovereign Palestinian
state, but to the solidification of the Israeli state on the ruins
of the Palestinian people and to Bantustans - and in South Africa
they know only too well the meaning of "Bantustan." The former
South African regime had set up political entities of this kind and
placed them under the tutelage of puppet rulers in order to get rid
of the demographic burden of the non-whites. In the case of a
Palestinian-Israeli solution, there is no room for a historic deal
that would facilitate the dismantlement of the Zionist regime and
the assimilation of the Israelis into the region. Nor is there a
deal that could lead to a secular democratic bi-national or
multi-ethnic state, as advanced by certain political forces as a
viable alternative to the two-state solution.
A Time for Decisions
So what can the friends of the Palestinian people do if they wish
to express their solidarity because they view discrimination and
colonialism as issues of universal moral importance and not only of
national or domestic concern? There are preparations for a
conference that the Americans call "a meeting" - to avoid
embarrassment and unrealistic expectations of what is only an
exercise in public relations. The outcome of the "conference" will
not be a surprise as the contours of a final settlement have begun
to emerge: they do not include the right of return for the
Palestine refugees, or East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital,
or the dismantlement of Jewish settlements or the withdrawal to the
June 4, 1967 borders. The Zionist regime, on the other hand, will
remain fully intact, although the issue of discrimination will then
become an internal matter.
The time has come to make a decision:
1) To accept this settlement that will take years to implement.
During this time Israel will wrest normalization with every Arab
country in the region, and won't keep a shred of unity among the
Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Water and
air will be turned into matters to be settled through political
concessions, and the question of the prisoners will itself become
the issue instead of the cause for which they were imprisoned.
Or:
2) To propose an alternative solution that allows those opposed to
the settlement to define their demands and to let people understand
what it means to stand against occupation and to aspire to national
liberation within the context of a democratic political
program.
Let us consider one example. The boycott against apartheid was the
chief weapon that led to its collapse. While it is clearly
difficult to boycott Israel, it is equally clear that Israel is
hypersensitive to the slightest hint of a boycott, for Israel does
not survive through normal relations as South Africa used to do; it
relies on preferential treatment and prerogatives. A boycott is
also disconcerting to certain Palestinian leaders who are engaged
in the normalization process with Israel even before a settlement
has been reached. They are embarrassed by the British universities'
decision to boycott Israeli universities; and the same goes for
Palestinian institutes that have joint projects with Israeli
universities. Naturally, some democratic Israeli academics are
opposed to the boycott, not necessarily out of nationalistic or
personal motives. They do not realize, however, that the only
decisive action against occupation is not the demonstrations on a
Saturday, or discussions with Palestinian intellectuals, but the
readiness to pay the price for their stand.
A unified national liberation plan opposed to the current
developments in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating arena is a
Palestinian imperative. The alternative program must tell the
Palestinian people and the world what Hamas really wants. Does it
only wish to go back to power-sharing with Fateh? And what do the
Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
want? And, for that matter, what does a large segment of Fateh
want? All these forces have to assume their responsibilities before
it is too late. They have to set aside their diverging ideologies
and to emerge as a strong, unified force, and present to the world
an alternative democratic national program. This is the role of
leadership.
This article was originally published in the Arabic daily Al-Quds
on August 10, 2007. This translation was published with the
author's permission.