While on a lengthy trip to South Africa — and three adjoining states noted for their safaris and the picturesque Victoria Falls — I came across a lead article in the Star, a Johannesburg newspaper established in 1887, which devoted a whole page to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including a lead article by Ronnie Kasrils, a former minister for Intelligence Services, titled “the veil needs to be lifted on the true nature of an historic struggle.”
Next to the impressive column was a lengthy letter headlined “Dear Friends, Let’s Espouse Humanism” signed by 77 South Africans of Jewish descent which recalled “the devastating (51-day Israeli) assault last year” on the Gaza Strip in which 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including 490 children. It underlined that “millions of people across the world were mobilized to take action (and) Cape Town saw its largest protest march ever recorded, with participation of different political and civic organisations including the newly-formed Jewish Voices for a Just Peace (JVJP)”.
The page also ran a short item from The Washington Post that described Gaza “as one of the worst spots on Earth”.
“One year later”, the letter from African Jews continued, “Gaza is not in the headlines any more, but the people are still being systematically oppressed and denied fundamental human rights.”
But what Kasrils, whose Jewish grandparents were from Latvia and Lithuania had fled from Czarist pogroms at the end of the 19th century, had to say about Israel’s “offensive into Gaza” is that the Palestinians still find themselves “in quandary on their arduous journey in search of freedom”.
In his extensive column, Kasrils echoes a view by an Egyptian scholar, Abdul Wahab Al Messiri, about Britain’s aim in creating the Union of South Africa in 1909 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (vis-a-vis Palestine). He continued, “In implanting and backing white settlers in South Africa and Zionist settlers [colonists] in Palestine, the British empire was founding two little pockets of settler-colonists who would owe allegiance to the imperial metropolis and would serve as bases of operation when the need arose”.
However, 50 years later, “the British, shrugging off Jewish terrorism, had left the Zionist militia vast supplies of arms and equipment. Many had served in Britain’s war-time forces and they numbered more than the combined Arab armies dispatched to protect 45 per cent territory apportioned to the Palestinians by the 1947 UN Partition Plan”.
He added: “The year 1948 was one of the darkest for both the Palestinian and South African people; truly an annus horribilis. For South Africans, May 1948 marked the election of the apartheid government and the prelude to a 46-year maelstrom for the African people. For the Palestinians, May 1948 marked the Nakbah — the catastrophic dispossession and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the rampant Zionist project.”
Thereafter, Kasrils noted, former US president Jimmy Carter had identified the Occupied Palestinian Territories as being akin to apartheid where “a horrible example of apartheid is being perpetrated against the Palestinian people who live there” in the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Kasrils recalled a secret statement by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, in which he said: “After we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish the partition and expand into the whole of Palestine.” This was revealed by his confidante Nahum Goldman in The Jewish Paradox.)
In other words, the former South African minister continued, “given the consistence of such statements through to (the late Israeli prime minister Ariel) Sharon and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, it becomes obvious that Israel’s existence has been based on colonial conquest and, as had been the case in apartheid South Africa, a reliance by the state on brute force and terror”.
He continued, “Lift(ing) the veil on the true nature of this historic struggle requires full national self-determination and independence for the Palestinian people before all else. This is fundamental and the basis for solving the national question which, among other key elements calls the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees as per United Nations resolutions and the handing back of their homes and property; and rejecting the Law of Return, which allows any Jew anywhere in the world to claim a place in Palestine and supplant the indigenous populous.
“It is only on the basis of the freedom, independence and equality of the colonised nation that the [colonists] and their dependents find security ... It demolishes Israel’s attempts at divide and rule. It unites all contingents in their millions in a clear vision for their undivided land and with correct leadership and action can dramatically alter the balance of forces so long stacked against the Palestinians.”
There is no doubt that Palestinians of all walks of life would appreciate the support that Kasrils has voiced publicly. However, his column underlines the failure of Palestinians in telling their side of the story internationally. For example, lately, the American media has hardly had any significant coverage of the issue despite the fact that Netanyahu has been derided over his stance towards the Arab-Israel conflict and especially the new positive deal with Iran over its nuclear policy.
Many pro-Israeli supporters have published full-page advertisements in American newspapers, defending the disgusting Israeli position. Much as this may not be affordable for the Palestinian National Authority to undertake, they can still urge Arab governments and other wealthy Arabs in the region to share the financing of this much-needed effort. Moreover, they also urge Arab intellectuals to write Op-Eds on this serious subject that has lasted for too long while Israel remains reticent in offering any positive step — a view that is shared by many in the West.
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com
