A senior employee at right-wing organization NGO Monitor penned an interesting op-ed in Israeli daily Yisrael Hayom this morning (Sunday). NGO Monitor, which targets organizations and people who actively oppose the occupation, is obsessed with use of the term Apartheid. The piece by NGO Monitor's deputy director of communications, Lena Abayev, is a longwinded attack on those who compare the situation in the West Bank to that of Apartheid South Africa. Interestingly enough, there are only two sentences in which the author actually addresses reality on the ground in the West Bank. Sadly, they work against her argument: Israel is…

This week: May Day marches from Tel Aviv to Boston, reprisals for the stabbing death of a settler by a Palestinian, protests against domestic violence, demonstrations against settlement expansion, celebrations for hunger striker Samer Issawi, and demolitions of Palestinian properties continue.                            

This week: commemorations of Land Day across Israel and the West Bank, solidarity marches in the South Hebron Hills, clashes ensue after a prisoner's death, an Israeli draft refuser, and South Africans march for justice.                    

A link to a 2006 piece by Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal on the connection(s) between Israel and apartheid South Africa. I wish I had been a reader of the Guardian when this two-part article on the parallels between South Africa and Israel by veteran journalist Chris McGreal came out in 2006. Sadly, I was still a US-centric consumer of media and I missed it. Lucky to have come upon this article and share it with our readers, if you have the time to read one of the great pieces on this conflict by a journalist who was stationed in both…

F. W. de Klerk, South Africa's last white president, explains why the "multi-state solution" to apartheid didn't work in his country, and why it would probably fail in Israel/Palestine One of the ways the whites in South Africa tried to preserve the ethnic separation of apartheid was by introducing autonomous regions for the black minorities, known also as Bantustans. Some of the Bantustans even received "independence," and unlike the Israeli government, the South African actually tried to have the international community recognize them. It even wanted them to have a seat at the UN but the trick didn't work – the…

In the struggle to achieve justice and equality in a land that has yet to fulfill its promise, what role will be played by those from the iconic country of South Africa, which has transformed itself so remarkably towards justice and equality? By Hagai El-Ad I was recently in South Africa for a few days, and I didn't once bump into Judge Richard Goldstone. As an Israeli, that may be surprising, because in Israel the only recognizable face of South African Jewry is in fact Judge Goldstone – and the way his rough handling by the Jewish community in that…

Israeli liberals benefit from the occupation. Their support for withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories is a mirage In my previous posts, I argued that Israeli liberals are perceived by many commentators, of diverse viewpoints, as the most important target audience for those who wish to end the occupation. Then, by outlining my view of Israeli liberals and their place in society and politics, I tried to explain why I think that they are unlikely to be opponents of the occupation. In this post, I will try to reconcile the seeming paradox between this assessment and the overwhelming liberal support…

Following my proposal for artists playing in Israel to insist on Palestinian attendance at their gigs, one of the reader posted this video clip, showing Dusty Springfield's 1964 refusal to perform in front of segregated audiences in South Africa. According to her Wikipedia page, Springfield ended up being expelled from the country. She did, however, outlive Apartheid.