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Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid
Within the already heavily polarised debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, parallels between Israel and apartheid South Africa remain highly contentious. A number of prominent academic and political commentators, including former US president Jimmy Carter and UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard, have argued that Israel's treatment of its Arab-Israeli citizens and the people of the occupied territories amounts to a system of oppression no less brutal or inhumane than that of South Africa's white supremacists. Similarly, boycott and disinvestment campaigns comparable to those employed by anti-apartheid activists have attracted growing support. Yet while the 'apartheid question' has become increasingly visible in this debate, there has been little in the way of genuine scholarly analysis of the similarities (or otherwise) between the Zionist and apartheid regimes.
In Israel and South Africa, Ilan Pappé, one of Israel's preeminent academics and a noted critic of the current government, brings together lawyers, journalists, policy makers and historians of both countries to assess the implications of the apartheid analogy for international law, activism and policy making. With contributors including the distinguished anti-apartheid activist Ronnie Kasrils, Israel and South Africa offers a bold and incisive perspective on one of the defining moral questions of our age.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 15, 2015
About the author
Ilan Pappé
103 books1,872 followersIlan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies, and political activist. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa (1984–2007) and chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies in Haifa (2000–2008).
Pappé is one of Israel's "New Historians" who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel's creation in 1948, and the corresponding expulsion or flight of 700,000 Palestinians in the same year. He has written that the expulsions were not decided on an ad hoc basis, as other historians have argued, but constituted the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in accordance with Plan Dalet, drawn up in 1947 by Israel's future leaders. He blames the creation of Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East, arguing that Zionism is more dangerous than Islamic militancy, and has called for an international boycott of Israeli academics.
His work has been both supported and criticized by other historians. Before he left Israel in 2008, he had been condemned in the Knesset, Israel's parliament; a minister of education had called for him to be sacked; his photograph had appeared in a newspaper at the centre of a target; and he had received several death threats.
Pappé is one of Israel's "New Historians" who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel's creation in 1948, and the corresponding expulsion or flight of 700,000 Palestinians in the same year. He has written that the expulsions were not decided on an ad hoc basis, as other historians have argued, but constituted the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in accordance with Plan Dalet, drawn up in 1947 by Israel's future leaders. He blames the creation of Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East, arguing that Zionism is more dangerous than Islamic militancy, and has called for an international boycott of Israeli academics.
His work has been both supported and criticized by other historians. Before he left Israel in 2008, he had been condemned in the Knesset, Israel's parliament; a minister of education had called for him to be sacked; his photograph had appeared in a newspaper at the centre of a target; and he had received several death threats.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 9, 2023
The great Jewish historian Ilan Pappé pulls together a competent team of scholars to investigate similarities between the issues and proposed solutions to ethnic conflict in South Africa and Israel. Of course they deal with objections that the two situations “cannot be compared” (because “they are not the same”). They stress that “comparing” means discerning both similarities and differences, rather than simply equating different situations.
The contributors examine differences in the ways apartheid South Africa discriminated between races, and the ways Israeli policy discriminates between Arabs and Jews. They detail the differences in legal rights between Arab Israeli citizens (whose ancestors did not flee in the ethnic cleansing war of 1948), and Palestinians in the areas occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. They look at how South Africa and Israel have functioned as “ethnocracies,” with tensions between “ethno-nationalism” and “civic nationalism” in determining people's basic rights. They compare South Africa’s “Bantustans” with the Palestinian occupied territories. Probably the book’s most important comparison is between the strategies of human rights advocates in both countries, with their implications for what works for resolving social division.
Concerning the historical similarity between apartheid South Africa and Israel, Ilan Pappé quotes Israel’s former-Chief of the General Staff, Rafael Eytan: "Blacks in South Africa want to gain control over the white minority just like Arabs here want to gain control over us. And we too, like the white minority in South Africa, must act to prevent them from taking us over."
Steven Friedman explains how the problem of co-existence in South Africa seemed insoluble for decades: "For years, scholarship and common wisdom insisted that blacks and whites could not share a political space in peace. The struggle for the end of apartheid seemed to be ‘necessarily a zero-sum game’ in which white rule would endure or be violently overthrown: either way, a common society was not possible."
But clearly it was possible. It was not a zero-sum game. Peace with equalized rights was better than endless war.
The contributors examine differences in the ways apartheid South Africa discriminated between races, and the ways Israeli policy discriminates between Arabs and Jews. They detail the differences in legal rights between Arab Israeli citizens (whose ancestors did not flee in the ethnic cleansing war of 1948), and Palestinians in the areas occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. They look at how South Africa and Israel have functioned as “ethnocracies,” with tensions between “ethno-nationalism” and “civic nationalism” in determining people's basic rights. They compare South Africa’s “Bantustans” with the Palestinian occupied territories. Probably the book’s most important comparison is between the strategies of human rights advocates in both countries, with their implications for what works for resolving social division.
Concerning the historical similarity between apartheid South Africa and Israel, Ilan Pappé quotes Israel’s former-Chief of the General Staff, Rafael Eytan: "Blacks in South Africa want to gain control over the white minority just like Arabs here want to gain control over us. And we too, like the white minority in South Africa, must act to prevent them from taking us over."
Steven Friedman explains how the problem of co-existence in South Africa seemed insoluble for decades: "For years, scholarship and common wisdom insisted that blacks and whites could not share a political space in peace. The struggle for the end of apartheid seemed to be ‘necessarily a zero-sum game’ in which white rule would endure or be violently overthrown: either way, a common society was not possible."
But clearly it was possible. It was not a zero-sum game. Peace with equalized rights was better than endless war.
December 31, 2022
a toxic compendium of hate by a toxic bunch of hate mongers.
July 28, 2019
I struggled for a few days thinking about how to review this book. Part of that struggle stems from the book’s format: a series of chapters on related topics written by ten different authors. Another part of that difficulty was the variety and complexity of the content; in order to review the content of this book I would have to engage an explanation of the different aspects of the book that may be a bit tedious for people reading the review (and for the person writing it, to be honest). In brief, there were four major sections in which the authors compared and contrasted the system of apartheid in South Africa with the oppression of Palestinians (which some refer to as apartheid): Historical Roots, Boundaries of Comparison, Nuanced Comparisons, Future Models and Perspectives. I am not going to go into these in detail – which I hope will entice some to read this book. Suffice it to say, the contributing writers went to great effort to identify ways in which apartheid in South Africa was analogous to the treatment of Palestinians by Israel. While that treatment may not strictly fit the definition of apartheid, I really don’t think that is going to matter much in the long run.
Since its publication in 2015, events have unfolded that none of the authors predicted in their chapters. One was the the recognition by the United States of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Another consequence the writers did not seem to anticipate was the United States Congress would overwhelmingly pass House Resolution 246 condemning the global movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) which is seen as a step toward making illegal any concerted economic pressure against Israel to comply with International Law. One of the important things that authors tended to agree on in this book was the effectiveness and importance of sanctions in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. They also seemed to agree that similar pressure could be expected in finding a remedy for the oppression of Palestinians. I wonder how the various authors would now respond.
While I was thinking about this review, I happened to be reading another thought-provoking book: The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya. (Expect a review in a few days). Ms. Wamariya provided me with the key that I was so desperately seeking to interpret my feelings about what I read in the Israel and South Africa book. She says, “The word genocide cannot help the civilians. It can only help the politician sitting in the UN discussing with all the other politicians in suits. How are we going to fix this problem?”
Throughout the book, with all the details and comparisons between the Israelis and Palestinians to the Afrikaners and Africans in South Africa I kept thinking how little all of the esoteric definitions and factual nuances would mean to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. So I would replace one word and Ms. Wamariya’s thoughts would fit my thoughts about this book exactly: apartheid. “The word apartheid cannot help the civilians. In can only help the politician sitting in the UN discussing with all the other politicians in suits. How are we going to fix this problem?” One other thing that Ms. Wamariya said that also fits perfectly here is, “You cannot line up the atrocities like a matching set. You cannot bear witness with a single word.” So there you have it, another author in another book has captured the essence of my reaction to this book. While interesting and very informative the ideas in this book are but abstract concepts to the Palestinian people who are being subjected to atrocities and inhumane conditions.
For some time I have been moved to study the issue of the Israel-Palestinian relationship. It wasn’t until I read Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the United States Was Used to Create Israel by Alison Weir I was not too aware of the origins of the Israeli state. After reading that book I became interested in the question of justice and the impact of the policies of the Israeli state on Palestinians. I had read Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid a few years ago. Altogether, these three books have left me with little hope that there will be any justice for the Palestinians. I recommend this book as a complement to the others mentioned above as it is a valuable learning tool for people outside of the Palestinian reality. In closing I feel compelled to say the only thing that is left for me here, I support the global BDS movement.
Since its publication in 2015, events have unfolded that none of the authors predicted in their chapters. One was the the recognition by the United States of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Another consequence the writers did not seem to anticipate was the United States Congress would overwhelmingly pass House Resolution 246 condemning the global movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) which is seen as a step toward making illegal any concerted economic pressure against Israel to comply with International Law. One of the important things that authors tended to agree on in this book was the effectiveness and importance of sanctions in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. They also seemed to agree that similar pressure could be expected in finding a remedy for the oppression of Palestinians. I wonder how the various authors would now respond.
While I was thinking about this review, I happened to be reading another thought-provoking book: The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya. (Expect a review in a few days). Ms. Wamariya provided me with the key that I was so desperately seeking to interpret my feelings about what I read in the Israel and South Africa book. She says, “The word genocide cannot help the civilians. It can only help the politician sitting in the UN discussing with all the other politicians in suits. How are we going to fix this problem?”
Throughout the book, with all the details and comparisons between the Israelis and Palestinians to the Afrikaners and Africans in South Africa I kept thinking how little all of the esoteric definitions and factual nuances would mean to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. So I would replace one word and Ms. Wamariya’s thoughts would fit my thoughts about this book exactly: apartheid. “The word apartheid cannot help the civilians. In can only help the politician sitting in the UN discussing with all the other politicians in suits. How are we going to fix this problem?” One other thing that Ms. Wamariya said that also fits perfectly here is, “You cannot line up the atrocities like a matching set. You cannot bear witness with a single word.” So there you have it, another author in another book has captured the essence of my reaction to this book. While interesting and very informative the ideas in this book are but abstract concepts to the Palestinian people who are being subjected to atrocities and inhumane conditions.
For some time I have been moved to study the issue of the Israel-Palestinian relationship. It wasn’t until I read Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the United States Was Used to Create Israel by Alison Weir I was not too aware of the origins of the Israeli state. After reading that book I became interested in the question of justice and the impact of the policies of the Israeli state on Palestinians. I had read Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid a few years ago. Altogether, these three books have left me with little hope that there will be any justice for the Palestinians. I recommend this book as a complement to the others mentioned above as it is a valuable learning tool for people outside of the Palestinian reality. In closing I feel compelled to say the only thing that is left for me here, I support the global BDS movement.
May 9, 2026
A collection of essays that do the important scholarly work for comparing and analyzing and contrasting forms of apartheid in South Africa with Israel. Some essays are very academic and hard to read leisurely but the content is still excellent.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews