By Ronnie Kasrils, South African Minister of Intelligence
Travelling into Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited
recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency.
It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints -- more than 500 in the
West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim,
tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger. Fortunately for me,
travelling in a South African embassy vehicle with official documents and
escort, the delays were brief.
Sweeping past the lines of Palestinians on foot or in taxis was like a view of
the silent, depressed pass- office queues of South Africa’s past. A journey from
one West Bank town to another that could take 20 minutes by car now takes seven
hours for Palestinians, with manifold indignities at the hands of teenage
soldiers.
My friend, peace activist Terry Boullata, has virtually given up her teaching
job. The monstrous apartheid wall cuts off her East Jerusalem house from her
school, which was once across the road, and now takes an hour’s journey. Yet she
is better off than the farmers of Qalqilya, whose once prosperous agricultural
town is totally surrounded by the wall and economically wasted. There is only
one gated entry point. The key is with the occupation soldiers. Often they are
not even there to let anyone in or out.
Bethlehem too is totally enclosed by the wall, with two gated entry points. The
Israelis have added insult to injury by plastering the entrances with giant
scenic posters welcoming tourists to Christ’s birthplace.
The “security barrier”, as the Israeli’s term it, is designed to crush the
human spirit as much as to enclose the Palestinians in ghettoes. Like a reptile,
it transforms its shape and cuts across agricultural lands as a steel-and-wire
barrier, with watchtowers, ditches, patrol roads and alarm systems. It will be
700km long and, at a height of 8m to 9m in places, dwarfs the Berlin Wall.
The purpose of the barrier becomes clearest in open country. Its route cuts huge
swathes into the West Bank to incorporate into Israel the illegal Jewish
settlements -- some of which are huge towns -- and annexes more and more
Palestinian territory.
The Israelis claim the purpose of the wall is purely to keep out terrorists. If
that were the case, the Palestinians argue, why has it not been built along the
1967 Green Line border? One can only agree with the observation of Minister in
the Presidency Essop Pahad, who has stated: “It has become abundantly clear that
the wall and checkpoints are principally aimed at advancing the safety,
convenience and comfort of settlers.”
The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine, has shrunk to perhaps 10% to 12%
of living space for its inhabitants, and is split into several fragments,
including the fertile Jordan Valley, which is a security preserve for Jewish
settlers and the Israeli Defence Force. Like the Gaza Strip, the West Bank is
effectively a hermetically sealed prison. It is shocking to discover that
certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try
in vain to recall anything quite as obscene in apartheid South Africa.
Gaza provides a desolate landscape of poverty, grime and bombed-out structures.
Incon- gruously, we are able to host South Africa’s Freedom Day reception in a
restaurant overlooking the splendid harbour and beach. Gunfire rattles up and
down the street, briefly interrupting our proceedings, as some militia or other
celebrates news of the recovery from hospital of a wounded comrade. Idle fishing
boats bob in long lines in the harbour, for times are bad. They are confined by
Israel to 3km of the coast and fishing is consequently unproductive. Yet,
somehow, the guests are provided with a good feast in best Palestinian
tradition.
We are leaving through Tel Aviv airport and the Israeli official catches my
accent. “Are you South African?’ he asks in an unmistakable Gauteng accent. The
young man left Benoni as a child in 1985. “How’s Israel?” I ask. “This is a
f**ked-up place,” he laughs, “I’m leaving for Australia soon.”
“Down under?” I think. I’ve just been, like Alice, down under into a surreal
world that is infinitely worse than apartheid. Within a few hours I am in
Northern Ireland, a guest at the swearing in of the Stormont power-sharing
government of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.
Not even PW Botha or Ariel Sharon were once as extreme as Ian Paisley in his
most riotous and bigoted days. Ireland was under England’s boot for 800 years,
South Africa’s colonial-apartheid order lasted 350 years. The Zionist
colonial-settler project stems from the 1880s. The Israeli ruling class, corrupt
and with no vision, can no longer rule in the old way. The Palestinians are not
prepared to be suppressed any longer. What is needed is Palestinian unity behind
their democratically elected national government, reinforced by popular
struggles of Palestinians and progressive Israelis, supported by international
solidarity.
South Africa’s stated position is clear. The immediate demands are recognition
of the government of national unity, the lifting of economic sanctions and
blockade of the Palestinian territories, an end to the 40-year-old military
occupation and resumption of negotiations for a two-state solution.
On a final note, the invitation to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as head of a
national unity government was welcomed by President Mahmoud Abbas, and will be
dealt with by our government.
As they say in Arabic: “Insha ’Allah [God-willing].”
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