The end of apartheid stands as one
of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would
not have succeeded without the help of international pressure --
in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past
six months a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at
an end to the Israeli occupation.
Divestment from apartheid South
Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots.
Faith-based leaders informed their followers, union members
pressured their companies' stockholders and consumers questioned
their store owners. Students played an especially important role
by compelling universities to change their portfolios. Eventually,
institutions pulled the financial plug, and the South African
government thought twice about its policies.
Similar moral and financial
pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time.
Students on more than 40 US campuses are demanding a review of
university investments in Israeli companies as well as in firms
doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city
councils have debated municipal divestment measures.
These tactics are not the only
parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South
African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the
Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a
grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an
emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns
a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their
squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when
security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The
indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.
Many South Africans are beginning to
recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils
and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle,
recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name." Signed by
several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter
drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli
policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out
the relevance of the South African experience.
To criticize the occupation is not
to overlook Israel's unique strengths, just as protesting the
Vietnam War did not imply ignoring the distinct freedoms and
humanitarian accomplishments of the United States. In a region
where repressive governments and unjust policies are the norm,
Israel is certainly more democratic than its neighbors. This does
not make dismantling the settlements any less a priority.
Divestment from apartheid South Africa was certainly no less
justified because there was repression elsewhere on the African
continent. Aggression is no more palatable in the hands of a
democratic power. Territorial ambition is equally illegal whether
it occurs in slow motion, as with the Israeli settlers in the
Occupied Territories, or in blitzkrieg fashion, as with the Iraqi
tanks in Kuwait. The United States has a distinct responsibility
to intervene in atrocities committed by its client states, and
since Israel is the single largest recipient of US arms and
foreign aid, an end to the occupation should be a top concern of
all Americans.
Almost instinctively, the Jewish
people have always been on the side of the voiceless. In their
history, there is painful memory of massive roundups, house
demolitions and collective punishment. In their scripture, there
is acute empathy for the disfranchised. The occupation represents
a dangerous and selective amnesia of the persecution from which
these traditions were born.
Not everyone has forgotten,
including some within the military. The growing Israeli refusenik
movement evokes the small anti-conscription drive that helped turn
the tide in apartheid South Africa. Several hundred decorated
Israeli officers have refused to perform military service in the
Occupied Territories. Those not already in prison have taken their
message on the road to US synagogues and campuses, rightly arguing
that Israel needs security, but that it will never have it as an
occupying power. More than 35 new settlements have been
constructed in the past year. Each one is a step away from the
safety deserved by the Israelis, and two steps away from the
justice owed to the Palestinians.
If apartheid ended, so can the
occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will
have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is
the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that
direction.
[Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work against apartheid. Ian
Urbina is associate editor with the Middle East Research and
Information Project.]
