Israel’s vicious apartheid
I AM writing to thank SocialistWorker.org for its ongoing commitment to publishing the compelling analysis of Prof. Haidar Eid ("Massacre in slow motion").
The emergence of an increasingly confident boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement here in the United States--by far Israel's most important source of support, both politically and militarily--has led to a full-scale counter attack organized by an array of Zionist organizations aimed at discrediting and demobilizing such a movement.
In this context, the eventual success of the BDS movement depends (in part) on introducing activists to the real history of Oslo and the bankrupt "framework for peace" model that the 1993 talks produced. In a larger sense, the success of the BDS movement hinges on drawing increasing numbers of students and workers into the struggle for justice in Palestine.
Part of this process includes strengthening the BDS movement's ability to educate activists and its capacity to provide a political perspective that emphasizes the linkages between the current struggle to end apartheid in Israel and the (successful) fight to end South African apartheid during the 1980s and early 1990s.
One of the many highlights of Prof. Eid's recent interview is the manner in which he is able to draw those important connections as part of a larger argument about the need to reintroduce principled internationalism to the struggle for Palestine.
This is key, I think, especially since there are significant structural differences between South Africa in the 1980s and Palestine in 2009. The absence of a large Palestinian workforce in Israel, for instance, means that stay-at-homes and boycotts like those organized by anti-apartheid groups like the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) aren't possible in the case of Palestine. (Not to mention the impossibility of success that would face a parochial "armed struggle" against a nuclear power.)
As a consequence, the trajectory of class struggle in countries like Egypt need to be seen (as many Egyptians already do) by BDS activists as absolutely vital to the project of dismantling the colonial Israeli state.
I raise this only because I think that Prof. Eid slightly mischaracterizes the role of armed struggle in forcing the white government in South Africa to the negotiating table. By the mid-1980s, even Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), South African Communist Party, and African National Congress elements that were previously advocating an expansion of the "armed struggle" at home began to recognize that the most important of the "four pillars" was actually the expansion of the mass mobilization of workers, students and others that emerged in response to the state's attempts at expanding South African industry with the aid of large amounts of foreign capital; white leaders attempted to introduce neoliberal "reforms" to South Africa while simultaneously tightening the white minority's grip on political power.
The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and abroad (in the form of BDS) was able to exploit the contradictions opening across South Africa society as a result to great effect.
In short, thank you for continuing to be one of the best resources for activists in the new struggle for BDS against Israel. Solidarity to Prof. Eid! L'chaim Intifada!
James Fiorentino, Amherst, Mass.
