Yesterday They Called Him a Terrorist

Nelson Mandela (L) in Robben Island prison.

Slightly expanded from a note I wrote on Facebook. I actually saw Mandela briefly, though an odd moving cage of glass. He visited New York City after his liberation, and was given a ticker-tape parade which I attended with my friend Pat. I still have the felt flag printed with ANC colors that we waved from the sidelines, amazed at the turning wheels of history.

As of this writing South African hero Nelson Mandela is hospitalized, in critical condition. While he is quite possibly near death, he has survived previous bouts of a lung ailment aggravated by his years in a white-supremacist prison.

But in advance of all the pretty, laudatory words sure to come upon his death, it's really important to remember that the biggest backers of the racist system of apartheid in South Africa were the United States, the UK, and the State of Israel. All the world's politicians will be crying crocodile tears for Mandela when he passes, but they all considered him a terrorist virtually up until the moment he was released from his life-stealing 27 years in prison. Much of the radical promise of Mandela's African National Congress was (predictably) set aside upon their assumption of power, but that pales, in the scale of political horrors, in comparison with the whitewashing of decades of racist lies, backed by massive amounts of money and weapons, that propped up the racist white minority regime in South Africa and made life desperate and dangerous for its black majority.

Reagan, Thatcher, and all their ilk believed Mandela deserved to rot in jail. The Israelis understood what Apartheid South Africa meant for them and studied its methods carefully as they exchanged military and financial aid. These are not accidents nor inconsistencies.

Back in the day the divestment movement met the same arguments that today's BDS movement meets. Don't be fooled, the companies and conglomerates and multinational corporations of international capitalism believe oppression is profitable. That's how they want the world organized.

The governments of the world believe they have a right to label freedom fighters terrorists.

The apartheid state in Israel believes that some people are not as human as others. If South Africa teaches us anything about humanity it teaches us about the justness of the struggle of the Palestinian people.

Who are tomorrow's Mandelas? Don't let the Reagans and Thatchers of today off the hook. The struggle continues; it's right to rebel.

Thank you Nelson Mandela for your part in changing history.

The Betrayal

"Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday presented the United Nations with his draft for a population and territory swap, as part of an eventual peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Under Lieberman's controversial scheme, part of Israel's Arab population would be moved to a newly created Palestinians state, in return for evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.'A final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has to be based on a program of exchange of territory and populations,' Lieberman told the United Nations General Assembly in New York."
— rightwing Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman advocating the ethnic cleansing of Israel, in 2010, quoted in Ha'aretz

"Or, we can say that this time will be different – that this time we will not let terror, or turbulence, or posturing, or petty politics stand in the way. This time, we will think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire. This time, we should draw upon the teachings of tolerance that lie at the heart of three great religions that see Jerusalem’s soil as sacred. This time we should reach for what’s best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”
— Barack Obama at the United Nations, September 2010

"Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, look out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied....And we will only succeed in that effort if we can encourage the parties to sit down, to listen to each other, and to understand each other’s hopes and each other’s fears. That is the project to which America is committed. There are no shortcuts. And that is what the United Nations should be focused on in the weeks and months to come."
— Barack Obama at UN, September 2011, effectively announcing that the U.S. will veto the application of Palestine to the UN Security Council for recognized statehood

'Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman congratulated President Barack Obama Wednesday on his speech at the United Nations General assembly, praising him for not stating that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians should be based on 1967 borders. “I congratulate President Obama, and I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands.”'
— Avigdor Lieberman on Obama's 2011 UN speech, reported in Ha'aretz

"I did not believe what I heard, it sounded as if the Palestinians were occupying Israel. There was no empathy for the Palestinians, he only spoke of the Israeli problems."
— Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian UN delegation

"Let's be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. [false] Israel's citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. [correct but this should be balanced by explaining that 10 times more Palestinians were butchered] Israel's children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. [Israelis teach hate 100 more times than the other way around and hate of the colonizer to the colonized is not the same as the reverse]. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. [That is nonsense; Israel wiped Palestine including 530 villages and towns and now is the fourth strongest country plus having you Obama and Congress as its lackeys]. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were. [Irrelevant and highly emotional: just study the history of Nazi-Zionist collaboration to see how absurd to link Apartheid Israel with "The Jewish People", itself a mistaken term no more valid than concepts of "The Christian People" or "The Muslim People"]. These facts cannot be denied [they are regurgitation of Zionist myths, irrelevant facts, and half truths]. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland [a racist apartheid state based on land theft and ethnic cleansing; is that your definition of success?]. Israel deserves recognition [no it does not, Israel deserves to be faced with the truth and pressured to transform just like Apartheid South Africa]..."
— Obama's speech with bracketed comments from blogger and Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh at Birzeit University in Palestine

"Palestinians have a better chance of getting a state on Craigslist than from Barack Obama... Not a word about settlements or occupation. Not a word about Palestinian conditions, or Palestinian nonviolent resistance, while he sang praises of the Arab spring. No sense of the strategic let alone moral urgency of ending the longest military occupation in modern history."
— Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss blog

"This morning Mr. President you are so popular in Israel. You are the king of Israel. You did great job. It will be such a shame if you lose the next elections after such a speech. While you where speaking at the UN, Ahed Wahdan, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot yesterday by Israeli soldiers with rubber bullet in his eye, listened to you....We listened to you when you talked about Israel’s citizens who have been killed by rockets fired at their houses, and that other children are taught to hate Israeli children. Do you not think that Israeli children hear what is said by rabbis who preach hate about Arabs? And we listened about Jewish suffering. No doubt Jewish people have suffered Mr. Obama, but let us put things in order: Jewish people are not the victims here. The Israeli state is not the victim; it is the occupier and the oppressor which continues to deny Palestinians living in their homeland and in exile ‘their universal right to live in freedom and dignity’. When you fail to mention Palestinian suffer under occupation, when you fail to consider Palestinian children as equal human beings who deserve a better future, who are also entitled to human rights, you might win elections, but you lose your integrity, and you make it clear to everyone why the ‘so called peace process’ should be out of your hands. We listened to you when you said “there are no shortcuts”, we couldn’t stop wondering, how come South Sudan deserved such a shortcut? A new precedent has been made with the case of South Sudan, UN recognition in five days. No need to answer, we understand that the interests there are different, and so are the standards and the values."
— Palestinian feminist blogger Abir Kopty

The Palestinian Delegation has promised to bring its application for statehood to the Security Council on Friday.

The white areas of the map at top show the areas of the West Bank "accessible" to Palestinians; this fragmented area is the basis for all the proposals made by Israel for a Palestinian micro-state. Note the lack of an international border. The colored areas on the map below show the Bantustans, fake "nations," that white-minority ruled apartheid South Africa was gradually granting "independence" before the establishment of majority rule and the dismantling of apartheid. Hmm....notice the similarities? Top map snagged from Zunguzungu.

Cancel Your Concerts! Shades of "Ain't Gonna Play Sun City"

Gaza Island from Albino Squirrel Channel on Vimeo.

Back in the era of apartheid South Africa, Sun City was a internationally-renowned concert venue in the white-minority-ruled country. It was set up in one of the hopelessly corrupt fake-independent Bantustans to lure international tourists. Eventually, boycotting the hypnotic lure of Sun City was a badge of honor for socially conscious musicians. Refusing offers to play for the profit of racists became an important part of the movement to isolate the apartheid regime economically and culturally. The video above is an amazing (and fun!) part of the campaign to extend that movement to the BDS (Boycott-Divestments-Sanctions) campaign against the Israeli apartheid state.

The video calls on artists like Paul Simon, Moby, Kiri Te Kanawa, Duran Duran and others to cancel their plans to play in venues in Israel. It also builds support for the upcoming Freedom Flotilla 2 to break the Israeli blockade against Gaza: author Alice Walker, who will be on the flotilla, calls the blockade runners "the freedom riders of our time." Intentionally ironically, the American vessel in this flotilla has been christened "The Audacity of Hope." Israel has already announced its plans to commit piracy and terrorism against the flotilla. It warned — hilariously? tragically? — that anyone who defends themselves against boarding by Israeli pirates will be seen as an "attacker" and dealt with accordingly.

The musicians who boycotted Sun City are remembered as heroes who did the right thing. It will be the same with today's musicians who are confronted with a choice: money or morality. This film clip is the work of Canadian filmmaker John Greyson. Major props to him for making such a clever and accessible vehicle communicating the importance of the BDS campaign.

BDS is not just for famous people: it's something everybody can participate in by boycotting consumer products — such as Sabra (& Shattila) hummus — with ties to the Israeli state and forces of repression.

"Because Separate Has Never Meant Equal"

Watch this powerful PSA from Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. PQBDS have also issued a excellent statement about BDS that also addresses how Israel's liberal laws on homosexuality shouldn't discourage lesbian and gay activists from taking a stand for solidarity with the Palestinian people. An excerpt:

"We believe that, as Queer communities, we must pay close attention to any grave human rights violations on our way to support the LGBTQ struggle, especially in a context where the country in question that oppresses, discriminates, and implements an apartheid system. We should question the ethics and the values of Queer organizations or groups that voice fervent support for and participate in an apartheid state’s institutions. Human rights should not be compartmentalized, and the human rights of a certain group should not be more important than others’. We, as Palestinian queers, cannot ignore the struggle and the rights of the Palestinian people. To us, the two struggles go side by side.

For 62 years, the Israeli occupation and expanding apartheid system has denied the Palestinian people their basic human rights. Palestinians in the West Bank have been living under a brutal military occupation manifested by illegal Israeli colonies, checkpoints, and a system of walls, barriers and roads accessible solely to Israeli settlers. Palestinians living inside Israel are continuously facing discriminatory policies. There are currently over 25 laws which specifically target them as non-Jewish and reduce them to second class citizens of Israel. Palestinians in the Diaspora and in UN administered refugee camps are by default denied their UN-sanctioned right to return to their lands. Finally, over 1.8 million Palestinian in the Gaza Strip are living in an open air prison under an illegal siege, described by many prominent international experts as “slow genocide.” Israeli oppression, racism, and discrimination does not distinguish between Queer Palestinians and Heterosexual Palestinians."

Read the whole statement here.

Right-wing Porn Magnate Gets Humanitarian Activists Kicked Out of Gay Community Center

Siegebusters is a local New York City lesbian and gay Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions group in solidarity with the Palestinians and building opposition to the Apartheid blockade of Gaza. It's been meeting at New York City's LGBT Community Center, and was planning an upcoming event for Israeli Apartheid Week. The people behind Siegebusters are not random disinterested parties, but well-known activists in the lesbian and gay community.

Israeli-American gay porn magnate and conservative activist Michael Lucas has just succeeded in getting Siegebusters booted out of the gay community center by falsely equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Siegebusters have mounted an online petition campaign, "Save New York’s LGBT Center! Don’t Let Wealthy Bigots Shut Down Free Speech." I urge Cahokian readers who support basic fairness to sign this petition. Disgustingly equating defenders of Palestinian rights with hate groups, Lucas said, "If the LGBT Center wants to host a fundraising and awareness party for anti-semites, they might as well go all the way and host a tea dance for Fred Phelps." The petition protesting Lucas's campaign to shut down discussion and democracy says in part, "If activists allow this decision to stand, the Center will go from being a liberated space of democracy and free speech to yet another occupied, homogenized venue where wealthy and powerful voices can squelch all the rest. Lucas’s accusation that the March 5 event and groups organizing to build it are “anti-Semitic” is not simply an odious lie, it is an attempt to manipulate hatred of anti-Semitism to draw attention away from the ongoing Israeli crimes of dispossession, systematic racism, collective punishment and wholesale warfare on a population guilty of nothing other than their own existence. An international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel has global support, including diverse voices from queer theory icon Judith Butler and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Auschwitz survivor and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network spokesman Hajo Mayer."

Details on Israeli Apartheid Week events can be found here.


Lucas's efforts are part of the international propaganda campaign known as "pinkwashing," using Israeli's liberal laws on homosexuality to buy support from the lesbian and gay community at the expense of the Palestinian people. Pinkwashing is usually accompanied by disgusting racist fear mongering about Muslim and Arab countries. Needless to say, when Israel attacked Lebanon and Gaza in recent years, they didn't bother to ask any of the thousands of innocent people they killed whether they were gay first. Israel's liberal laws for its gay citizens are irrelevant when the Israeli state is built on a foundation of racism, and when its Arab citizens are given second-class rights and the residents of the occupied territories are denied rights altogether.

There's a great account of the recent speaking tour of Palestinian Queer Activists at the Al Qaws website of lesbian/gay/queer Palestinians. (The New York event was filled to capacity and I was unable to get in). Maggie Sager reports, "Queer Palestinians, like Afghan and Iraqi women, have consistently found their discourse co-opted by neo-conservative hawks and progressives alike in order to justify war and occupation under the assumption that such actions will ‘liberate’ the oppressed. It is this cynical manipulation that the forum’s speakers work to disparage. Claiming their own voices and movement, queer Palestinian activists are clamoring to be heard and wish for their American brothers and sisters to spread their message. So what is it they have to say? The clearest message resounding from all three speakers was that if one actually cares about LGBT rights within Palestine, one should be working to end the occupation. That Israel has cultivated a vibrant and open gay enclave is laudable, yet such accomplishments do not give the ‘Jewish State’ a free pass to violate human rights, including the rights of the gay Palestinians they allegedly care for. As Haneen dryly explained, “It doesn’t matter what the sexual orientation of the Soldier at a checkpoint is, whether he can serve openly or not. What matters is that he’s there at all.” Sami echoed the same sentiment, jibing that “the apartheid wall was not created to keep Palestinian homophobes out of Gay Israel, and there is no magic door for gay Palestinians to pass through.”


(The photos on this post are from last year's Gay Pride Parade in Istanbul, Turkey, in June. See a whole portfolio of these photos at Radikal.com. Thanks to Joe.My.God. for making me aware of them.)

Sabra Hummus -- Now with the Taste of Murder!

"As part of its donations program, the Sales Division of Strauss Israel has made a contribution to the men and women who serve in the Golani brigade. The funds are designated for welfare, cultural and educational activities, such as pocket money for underprivileged soldiers, sports and recreational equipment, care packages, and books and games for the soldiers' club. Yotvata, our dairy in the south, contributes likewise to the southern Shualei Shimshon unit."
--Strauss Foods Website

What is the Golani Brigade? It is a division of the Israel Defense Force based in the north of occupied Palestine. It has participated in ethnic cleansing and attacks on Palestinian civilians since 1948. Heavily involved in the murderous attacks on South Lebanon in 2006 and on Gaza in 2009, as well as in numerous so-called reprisal raids, the Golani brigade is dedicated to attacking Palestinian and other Arab fighters and civilians and to smashing the Palestinian resistance movement.

Since 2006, Sabra Hummus is majority owned by the Strauss Group quoted above. If you're buying Sabra Hummus, some of your money is going to the murderers of the Golani Brigade.

I actually love Sabra Hummus. It's got a nice smooth and creamy consistency, a wide variety of delicious flavors, and is readily available all over the New York area, even in my Brooklyn neighborhood not known for its middle-eastern-food consumption. But I am now proud to endorse the consumer boycott of Sabra hummus. Sabra Hummus is in part locally made and it saddens me to think that a part local business creating a delicious product needs to be boycotted. But the reasoning behind the boycott is sound: I won't be shopping for Sabra any more.

The boycott of Sabra hummus is gaining notoriety. (The Angry Arab has been running angry--and funny--posts about it for months.) Even the NY Times has picked up on it. It's part of the BDS -- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions -- for Palestine movement. Like the previous boycott and divestment movement against Apartheid South Africa, this movement against the apartheid State of Israel's economic interests seeks to raise consciousness and participation in the fight for justice for the Palestinians.

Of course those of us in the United States are contributing to the Golani Brigade simply by paying our income taxes. It's a sad fact that the State of Israel, especially its child-murdering ethnic-cleansing war machine, continues to be heavily bankrolled by American taxpayers. The sad truth is there's not much we can do about that in the short term. But there is something we can do about the money we do control:

Boycott Sabra Hummus!

Thieves' Charade

A shameful spectacle is infolding in the Middle East and Washington. Much lauded by the press, President Obama's round of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is near collapse. The issue is simple, these surrender negotiations whereby the United States is trying to force the Palestinians to accept a neutered microstate in a tiny portion of historic Palestine in return for eternal gratitude to the U.S. and the abandonment of international law and any Palestinian aspirations for justice and civil rights, are being jettisoned by the Israeli refusal to stop stealing more land from the people it already enslaves in a vice-like Apartheid-style grip. President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are making truly embarrassing entreaties to Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, offering lavish arms deals with thrown-in free jet fighters and all sorts of other perks to Israel not for peace, but just to extend the "settlement" construction moratorium for a few months. Netanyahu and his racist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman can't be bothered watching America crawl around at his feet, they're discussing instituting new loyalty oaths for Israeli citizens--including non-Jewish ones like the Palestinian Arabs who remained within Israel's pre-1967 borders as second-class citizens--demanding recognition of Israel as a Jewish entity. Lieberman would rather expel all Arabs from all of Greater Israel, but hey, what are you gonna do. Lieberman is all about population transfers, codeword for the ethnic cleansing of as much historic Palestine as he can reach.

Meanwhile the accommodationist Fatah/PLO leader Abu Mazen is meeting with Arab leaders in Libya trying to strike the right militant posture while avoiding doing anything that might actually either help the Palestinians nor jeopardize the relationships of the corrupt Arab regimes with the United States. Israel and the U.S. have so poisoned this whole process that the alleged defiance of the Palestinians and Arab leaders is not about substantive issues like the rights of Palestinians to determine their own future or about land or about refugees or about justice or about occupation but about begging the thieves to take a brief pause in their thieving. And meanwhile Mazen's corrupt rump Palestinian Authority has already cut loose the people of Hamas-ruled Gaza, turning a blind eye to Israel's blockade and repression. There's speculation that whatever deal Mazen the U.S. and Israel are cooking up it won't apply to Gaza at all.

Abu Mazen took a mildly principled stand at the beginning of the negotiations that if Israel let its construction moratorium lapse, the Palestinians would walk out. The moratorium lapsed weeks ago and while nobody's talking, nobody's walking out either. This is not a negotiation it's a route, with Israel leading the charge. Whatever comes out of this thieves' charade is most certainly not going to be actual peace.

Obama spoke at the United Nations General Assembly session and devoted a large portion of his speech to his peace efforts. "When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel." But what he is talking about in such exalted terms isn't an independent sovereign state according to the definitions anybody would recognize. It's a rump demilitarized fragment of an already small country with its best land, its resources, and its capital city clawed away by the Zionist state.

Here's the harsh truth. There can be no real peace while the State of Israel exists. It is a fundamental injustice in the landscape of the Middle East. Let it be said, it is not the presence of Jewish people in historic Palestine that is the problem, it is the presence of a racist, colonialist state. It is this state with its loyalty oaths, with its ethnic cleansing, with its brutality, with its racist laws, with its core rejection of secular law, with its murderous intent against its neighbors, that must go. As long as it stays there will be injustice. The dismantling of the state of Israel in favor of a democratic, secular nation where people of all faiths and ethnicities live together under the rule of law would be a blow against not only the colonialist holdover of Zionism but against the authoritarianism and corruption of neighboring countries like Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and crucially, against terrorism; removing the emotional resonance that allows reactionary terrorists to capitalize on injustice for their own anti-democratic ends.

Obama is still giving lip service to the cause of peace and justice for Palestinians, but ironically he redefines peace and justice to be near meaningless. The two-state solution is no longer a solution, but a posture that allows the Israeli State, the PLO leadership, the Arab regimes, and the U.S. all to pursue their own ends while solving absolutely nothing at all.

It's time for the charade to end.

(Top photo shows an IDF soldier confronting a demonstrator during protests this July over ethnic evictions in Israel from Yossi Gurvitz' blog "Wish You Orwell." I saw it first on the excellent information/opinion site on the Middle East Mondoweiss.)

The Forgotten Truth About Racism

"Those who know, define racism as discrimination by a group against another for the purposes of subjugation or maintaining subjugation. In other words one cannot be a racist unless he has the power to subjugate.” -- Steve Biko, I Write What I Like.

Steve Biko, 1946-1977, was a black South African revolutionary killed by the forces of apartheid in prison. And by "forgotten," I mean erased.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

Speaking of Apartheid in Israel, the Toronto Gay Pride committee has decided to exclude Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from its upcoming Gay Pride events. From QuAIA: "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) is a Toronto-based organization that was formed to work in solidarity with queers in Palestine and Palestinian resistance movements around the world. We support the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law. As queers, we recognize that homophobia exists in Israel, Palestine, and across all borders, but queer Palestinians face the additional challenge of living under occupation, subject to Israeli state violence and control. We also recognize that as part of its Rebranding Campaign, Israel is cultivating an image of itself as an oasis of gay tolerance in the Middle East. QuAIA works to out this ‘pinkwashing’ of Israeli apartheid." The City of Toronto apparently threatened to cut funding to the parade if QuAIA was not banned, and the official pride committee knuckled under.

Again from QuAIA: "This follows a year of intense pressure from Toronto City Hall (one of Pride’s main funders) and Israel lobbyists, who claim that criticisms of the Israeli government amount to hate and discrimination. By caving to their demands, Pride Toronto has not only silenced the voices of queer Palestinians and human rights activists — they have set a dangerous precedent for free expression in our community."

It's disturbing to me how many gay people are duped by Israel's claim to be both the only middle-east democracy and some kind of beacon of gay rights. Gay rights cannot be divided from overall human rights: whatever legal protections lesbians and gays have in Israel are deeply compromised by Israel's overall policies and by its deprivations of the rights of all (non-Israeli) people--gay and straight--on the West Bank and in Gaza. Gay people, acutely sensitive to injustices against us, should be standing on the right side of history and welcome groups like QuAIA that carry forward the banner of interconnected social justice.

While at my age I'm not so interested in marching in pride parades anymore--I put in my time--I think it's really key that political issues not be excluded from what started out as a political celebration of gay identity.

I recommend this interview with a Queer Palestinian activist in the Haaretz newspaper: "It´s really pathetic that the Israeli state has nothing besides gay rights to promote their liberal image," says [Haneen] Maikey. "Ridiculous, and in a sense hilarious, because there are no gay rights in Israel....Stop speaking in my name and using me for a cause you never supported in the first place. If you want to do me a favour, then stop bombing my friends, end your occupation, and leave me to rebuild my community. I'm aware that my society has a long way to go in terms of human rights and social issues, but it's my responsibility, not yours."

Don't Forget This Axis of Evil: USA, Israel & Apartheid South Africa

This is an interview from the RT network with Sasha Polakow-Suransky of the Council on Foreign Relations discussing his revelation that Israel tried to sell nuclear weapons to the white racist apartheid regime of South Africa in 1975. Polakow-Suransky details the relationship that began under the Peres-Rabin Labor government in Israel and deepened during the subsequent Likud government. His information is detailed and fairly nuanced; he does not suggest that in the end South Africa purchased the nukes. Of course Israel is denying these reports.

But something needs to be said that seems forgotten these days. At the height of apartheid in the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa had two main allies and defenders, and they were the State of Israel...and the United States of America.

I found this 1986 column from Carl Rowan: "The more President Reagan talks about South Africa, the clearer it becomes that his heart and mind are with the white minority that is holding power through brutal oppressions. During his Tuesday press conference in Chicago, it became obvious that Mr. Reagan could not have been a blinder ally of the Afrikaners if he had been a puppet with Pretoria's President Pier Botha pulling the strings. There was Both Tuesday afternoon telling the congress of his ruling National Party that communism is at the root of all the evils and woes of South Africa. Then came Mr. Reagan that same evening asserting that the Communist Party of South Africa 'joined with and just moved into, the African National Congress...And right now...the ones we're hearing from and that are making the statements, are the members of the African Communist Party." President Reagan tried to veto sanctions against apartheid South Africa; basically called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, and spent millions backing South Africa's proxy wars against Cuban/Soviet backed governments in Mozambique and Angola. Meanwhile South Africa became the star client of Israel's armaments industry, purchasing billions of dollars worth of hightech weapons and fighter jets. In return South Africa supplied uranium to Israel's nuclear power plant.

The United States sacrificed the black majority in South Africa to its cold-war strategy. Ironic, of course, since apartheid was US-style Jim Crow segregationism taken to dramatic new levels. All the separation laws of the American south and its defacto deprivation of rights for black people were made government policy in South Africa. It was racial separation writ large and legal. Eventually the South African regime set up puppet black microstates in tribal areas as showcases of plausible deniability that everything they did was motivated by racism. The truth is that the spirit of Apartheid is kept alive today in one place and that place is Israel. The Arabs in the so-called occupied territories are subject to separation and deprivation of rights...and once again, despite its occasional protestations, the main backer of the new apartheid regime is the USA.