Middle East Report 253 Winter 2009
“Apartheid” is a word bomb. It explodes upon the page, laying bare memories of the regime of racial discrimination that prevailed in South Africa until 1994. So it was no small thing when the South African Human Sciences Research Council issued a report in 2009 concluding that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is a “colonial enterprise that implements a system of apartheid.” The winter 2009 issue of Middle East Report, “Apartheid and Beyond,” asks what it means that such language is gaining currency and whether it holds promise for bringing peace to the strife-torn land of Israel-Palestine.
As political geographer Oren Yiftachel demonstrates, it is increasingly difficult to speak of separate political systems in the country, a state of Israel “side by side” with a Palestinian proto-state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Rather, settlements, bypass roads and walls are creating one Israeli system of rule from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. But different groups of people living under that system have very different sets of rights and prerogatives. Anthropologist Julie Peteet traces the genealogy of the comparison between the post-1967 occupation and South African apartheid, finding in the differences between the two experiences reason to look for a new language to talk about Israel-Palestine.
One key difference is in the realm of labor: Whereas in white-ruled South Africa, the country’s economy was built on the backs of black workers, Israel is no longer dependent on the toil of Palestinians. Economist Jennifer Olmsted measures the growth of unemployment in the Occupied Territories and explains why the jobs have disappeared. There is also severe inequality within Israel, as Monica Tarazi shows in her essay on the dispossession of the Bedouin of the Naqab. Global protest against these inequalities is increasingly taking the shape of calls for various types of boycott. Ursula Lindsey reports on the efforts of Egyptian intellectuals to enforce a cultural boycott, as well as “anti-normalization.”
For further information, contact Chris Toensing at ctoensing@merip.org.
Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US and international policy for the region.
Middle East Report Online is a free service of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).
“Apartheid” is a word bomb. It explodes upon the page, laying bare memories of the regime of racial discrimination that prevailed in South Africa until 1994. So it was no small thing when the South African Human Sciences Research Council issued a report in 2009 concluding that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is a “colonial enterprise that implements a system of apartheid.” The winter 2009 issue of Middle East Report, “Apartheid and Beyond,” asks what it means that such language is gaining currency and whether it holds promise for bringing peace to the strife-torn land of Israel-Palestine.
As political geographer Oren Yiftachel demonstrates, it is increasingly difficult to speak of separate political systems in the country, a state of Israel “side by side” with a Palestinian proto-state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Rather, settlements, bypass roads and walls are creating one Israeli system of rule from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. But different groups of people living under that system have very different sets of rights and prerogatives. Anthropologist Julie Peteet traces the genealogy of the comparison between the post-1967 occupation and South African apartheid, finding in the differences between the two experiences reason to look for a new language to talk about Israel-Palestine.
One key difference is in the realm of labor: Whereas in white-ruled South Africa, the country’s economy was built on the backs of black workers, Israel is no longer dependent on the toil of Palestinians. Economist Jennifer Olmsted measures the growth of unemployment in the Occupied Territories and explains why the jobs have disappeared. There is also severe inequality within Israel, as Monica Tarazi shows in her essay on the dispossession of the Bedouin of the Naqab. Global protest against these inequalities is increasingly taking the shape of calls for various types of boycott. Ursula Lindsey reports on the efforts of Egyptian intellectuals to enforce a cultural boycott, as well as “anti-normalization.”
For further information, contact Chris Toensing at ctoensing@merip.org.
Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US and international policy for the region.
Middle East Report Online is a free service of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).
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