South Africa’s Democratic Transition And What It Means For Israel

As Israel Apartheid Week finally winds to a close across campuses around the world, allow me to take a look back at the demise of the original Apartheid in South Africa.  Though South Africa’s Apartheid and Israel’s occupation are two wholly different animals, at their core they are very much alike.  In both, the government denies a sizable portion of the population – one without any political sway, mind you – of certain rights.  Insurrections are put down quickly and often violently, and for all intents and purposes, the government is little more than a security apparatus in the eyes of the subjugated, who face nighttime raids, random arrests, and increased surveillance.

For both Palestinians and South Africa’s non-whites under Apartheid, the final aims were freedom and self-determination.  In South Africa, these aims were eventually met; in Israel, they haven’t been.  Yet.  Indeed, most would agree that eventually Palestinians will be granted their freedom.  Bibi himself is even receptive to the two-state solution (though revealingly, only under his own terms).  Realistically, the situation as it stands is nearly untenable.

Like there was in Pretoria, there’s a sense here that the inequalities cannot last forever.   Inevitably, some form of a Palestine will be established, though within which borders remains to be seen.  The question is ‘when?’

This is where the South Africa comparison really comes into play.  There, the ruling National Party spent decades ignoring and persecuting the country’s blacks.  It was only after much revolt – some nonviolent, some not so much – coupled with international pressure that brought the nation’s white power brokers to the negotiating table.  Only after realizing they could no longer call Nelson Mandela a terrorist, only after the PR disasters piled up nonstop could they hand over control.

The romantic notion is that Mandela’s ANC grew so strong that it forced the government to accede to their demands.  The reality was much bleaker.  Surprising his own party, not to mention his own people, President F.W. de Klerk agreed to sit down with the black leadership with the mission of arranging a peaceful handover of the nation’s rule.  But in doing so, de Klerk had an ace up his sleeves: while politically, the dynamic would change irrevocably, economically, the situation would only improve for the country’s elite.  On the ground and in the townships, nothing changed aside from maybe an increase in people’s self-esteem.

Indeed, in South Africa, the powers that be ensured a smooth transition, writing economic legislation that in the long run would further impoverish the country’s marginalized.  In that country, such hoodwinking passed with little disruption; Mandela was no economist, and the constant yearning for sovereignty far outweighed any concern with the technical jargon of economic legislation.

In Israel, the situation’s different.  The issue here is geographic: borders.  And as hard as the leadership may try, the legislation governing them cannot be hid away in lengthy, indecipherable policy.  It’s my belief that eventually Palestinians will be granted a state.  I’m just anxious to see what form that state takes, or rather what Bibi, like De Klerk before him, has hidden up his sleeve.

Sam Melamed is a Masa participant, participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel‘s 160 programs.