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Louis Proyect wrote: The answer is yes. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/greenstein220810.html Fred Feldman: Although I am completely in support of Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions against Israel, I have to ask: If Israel is an apartheid state, does that mean that South Africa was a Zionist state? And if Israel became specifically an apartheid state, a state based ideologically and physically on universal racial separation, when did this happen? I assume 1948, the same year the 100 percent apartheid forces won power in South Africa. In the years since, has Israel ever established the degree of rigid racial separation that Stridjom, Verwoerd, and others enthusiastically sought. Not just proposals in the parliament or positions of Liberman or polls of the racist-educated Israeli poll victims, but state institutions that are identical to apartheid? Is the weight of tribalism rather than nationalism, comparable in Israel to the situation in South Africa out of which Separate Development as the white ruling class solution emerged. I think not. I think the Palestinians were a developing though very weak developing nation in 1948. For Israel the true Bantustan option was never open, and isn't now. I am not convinced by the article Louis submitted, though it is very useful in developing the parallels, but very dismissive of every trace of difference. In my opinion, the equation of apartheid with every racist regime misses things that can be fundamental for revolutionary tactics, and especially the tactics to be followed within the country which, in my opinion, they tend to regiment excessively. I have always felt that these were two examples of the similar but not identical dynamic of settler-colonial states established under conditions of imperialist world dominance. (The imperialist countries of a settler-colonial character also tend to be different from these and from each other.) They tend to all be racist states -- as we are being reminded, in case we forgot, by the current campaigns against Muslims in the US and their religious institutions and (frankly) havens. Among other things, of course, the complex differences between the two racist settler-colonial states is reflected in the perspective of creating a Palestinian state out of whatever territory they still occupy and whatever colonial settlements they can force out. This was the perspective that Yasir Arafat stated at the UN in 1975 -- the establishment of a Palestinian state on any territory that can be liberated from the state of Israel's control. In the context of the apartheid version, most seem to the creation of a Palestinian Bantustan. It's nationwide victory now or nothing. But since nationwide victory now is impossible....What? Do we defend the independence of Gaza? It is a fact and it will not do to simply dissolve this development into terms like "prison camp" because of the imperialist-supported Israeli boycott, war, and its brutal consequences. Should the Gazans demand reintegration into Israel on the basis of one-man, one-vote? More importantly, should we call on them to do so? I don't have a problem with labeling the complexly different Israel system as apartheid as popular propaganda. There are more than enough parallels to justify the analogy. But I worry about the over-adaptation of the analysis to the propaganda. I want stress that I would have no trouble accepting the "apartheid" label (as a popular synonym for "racist regime") if I was convinced that comrades really grasped that the Palestinians have a right to fight not just for a single-state Palestine solution, but for whatever they are strong enough to take in their native land. Fred Feldman ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
