Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid

Great collection of essays, articles compiled by Pappe that compare these 2 places...South Africa and israel....well Done!

Excellent

Another work of courage by Ilan Pappe and friends

i highly recommend this book. I enjoyed reading this. Gives a deeper insight of the current reality of modern day coloniasm which needs much greater attention, this book delivers on curing obliviousness syndrome.

"In Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid, Ilan Pappé offers us a collection of essays that works to expand upon the comparisons between contemporary Israel and the political system of segregation in apartheid South Africa.Ilan Pappé asserts at the commencement of The Many Faces that the collection does not aim to make a case for Israel’s operation of an apartheid state and instead considers it to be a starting point whereby evident demonstrations of apartheid in Israel justify the use of South Africa in the comparative model of apartheid. Specifically, Pappé sets out two questions that are answered by each author. The first question concerns the territorial and geographical boundaries of the comparison and whether the analogy refers to Israel as a whole or just the Occupied Territories. The second question is whether this analogy will help us to understand the Israeli case study or whether it can also work to inspire future solutions and predictions. Readers are warned that the book does not intend to question the validity of the comparison, and instead sets out to modify the study of the differences and similarities that characterize the comparison. Pappé makes use of a diverse range of contributors which results in an original and in-depth contribution to the debate and looks at less popularly discussed areas of comparison. For example, Pappé includes a chapter by Anthony Löwstedt that discusses femicide in apartheid and how the interplay between sexism and racism can be understood in the apartheid struggle in South Africa and in the Palestine-Israel context. The inclusion of this essay is Pappé’s attempt of including the overlooked aspect of “[…] the double oppression of women in [ ] comparative studies.” Pappé’s inclusion of neglected topics is important since the debate of whether Israel is an apartheid state is one that has only been around for around twenty years, but already perpetuates one of the greatest issues in academia by silencing marginalized voices. By setting out to incorporate these voices Pappé asks academia and those who support and offer aid in Palestine’s struggle to not repeat the mistakes of sidelining those who are important and useful to not only understanding the comparison, but as form of assistance to the liberation struggle.Extending the analysis of the Löwstedt essay which is found in the ambiguously titled section Nuanced Comparisons. This section explores the topic of narrative control in the South African and Israeli apartheids. As aforementioned, Löwstedt provides an analysis of the intersectionality of sexism and racism in the instrumentalizing process of femicide narratives. For example, arguments that the societal backwardness of Palestinians can be combatted through Israeli social dominance and control are distorted by the fact that non-Palestinian control over the communities is sometimes exerted via threats based on the narratives of the honour system. Löwstedt states that “[t]he Palestinian preoccupation with morals, from courting and sexual morals to the ethics of punishment, prevention and protection, keep the genders from dealing with the apartheid oppression ad liberation from it.” Even though this claim by Löwstedt holds a degree of validity he fails to emphasize that this type of rhetoric is influenced by racist attempts to sabotage and infiltrate the overarching struggle of Palestinians to emancipate themselves worldwide. Löwstedt does not draw our attention to the fact that Palestinian communities have the agency to move away and diverge from the honour narrative that he perpetuates in his essay. Nevertheless, this does not completely mitigate the realities of the bigotry and misogyny that are disguised as outrage on behalf of women as part of the realities of today’s Islamaphobic sentiments that affect Muslim women around the world. In other words, the outcry and support for Muslim Palestinian women who may be at risk of traditional practices of honour may be part of a more insidious attempt to undermine Islam. Due to this fact, one must be wary of statements like Löwstedt’s which make no real attempt to point out the intricacies and socio-politico realities of claiming such practices as unchanging cultural and traditional realities of “indigenous” Palestinians.Löwstedt is problematic in his explanation of the justification of femicide in South Africa and attempts to attest that “culture” was at the heart of the perpetration violence against women. This also comes off as an argument that is lacking in more analytical investigation of various factors that may have perpetuated the predominate killing of women through witch burnings. Löwstedt in the case of South Africa does not take into account how colonial rule affected the status of women and how the elevation of men and disenfranchising of women and the role they played in society most likely played a major role in how the apartheid regime valued women. Since men’s labour was more important to the regime, they were used for mining migration for example, then it should come as no surprise that a man would be let off for “cultural practices” since his life holds more value than a woman’s life. This is just one example of a missing piece in which Löwstedt and many of the authors in The Many Faces could have taken to provide a more enriched analysis of the cases of Israel, South Africa, and Palestine.Soske and Jacobs Comparative Academic ActivistsThe main objective of Apartheid Israel is to be a launching point for those who wish to understand and further discuss the apartheid of Israel-Palestine and the politics of analogy involved in this dialogue. Soske and Jacobs edit a collection that does not solely focus on how the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state resembles the state policies of racial hierarchy and segregation that existed in pre-1989 South Africa, or even if the situation fits into the United Nations’ definition of apartheid–––instead they set out to make the case that the relationship between Israel and Palestine is inherently settler-colonial in the way the Israeli state regime has been established and has ruled.A key difference that sets out this comparative piece from the many others that exist in academia is the fact that Soske and Jacobs are able to move away from the common fallacies of the apartheid analogy discourse whereby too much focus is placed on the existence of similarities between the two types of apartheid. In this collection we are presented with essays that give the reader the space to delve into the crucial differences between the Israel-Palestine and South Africa cases. A space is opened up which thus allows for a discussion of the problems and successes of anti-apartheid movements, both domestically and internationally, and how they can be changed and used in the Israel-Palestine context. The analysis of difference leaves us with two vital differences that are useful for alerting us to the need to tailor the activist efforts used to liberate Palestine. The first difference is the difference between the settler colonial framework in the case of Israel because the Zionist narrative is a Jewish liberation movement and not one of oppression as was the case in the white supremacist rhetoric of Afrikaner Nationalism. The second difference is found in the differing nature of labour relationships that Black South African and Palestinian populations have had with the subjugating regimes economy. The exploitation of Black South African’s labour and the removal of Palestinian’s from Israeli labour operations also creates a hurdle when it comes to the comparative analogy. The contention of these differences is analyzed in the contribution to the collection by Ran Greenstein, Andy Clarno, and Achille Mbembe. All three offer convincing and well-researched arguments, but one argument that is not addressed by the anthology relates to the politics of land redistribution.Apartheid Israel is a strong collection of essays but has two areas which could have rounded out the books efforts to offer a guide for successful activism. The issue of land redistribution is hinted at but goes largely unexplored in the book. It is important to take this contemporary effort by South Africans into consideration for Palestine since it can offer a framework for Palestine to use in order to address the right of return. This nuanced and thoughtful collection though extremely informative struggles to satisfy the desire of readers who are looking for lessons to apply to the Palestinian solidarity movement through evaluation of the impact of the anti-apartheid global solidarity movement in South Africa. Even though it is necessary to discuss the politics of apartheid analogy and its utility for informing and inspiring Palestinian solidarity activism today, it is crucial to understand the differing timescales required for change in South Africa. For example, the first calls for economic isolation of South Africa came during the 1960s, but it was not until the early 1980s that university divestment campaigns began to gain real traction. In the case of Israel-Palestine, there were calls by the PACBI for academic and cultural boycott in 2004 and a broader call for BDS one year later. By 2013/2014 we have hundreds of universities voting in favour of divestment and a major drop in foreign direct investment to Israel. This is just one example of how time spans are longer and shorter in the actions taken by the apartheid South Africa and Palestine activists. Nevertheless, by moving past the question of whether or not the analogy is accurate, Soske and Jacobs offer a piece of work that allows us to dwell on far more useful and helpful questions when attempting to understand and outline the best steps to take towards helping Palestinian rights."

This is the go-to resource for people wishing to understand the trouble with the current 'setup' in Israel and how it disenfranchises the Palestinians both within and without.A range of articles by different writers who are all experts in their respective field provide a rich collection of comparative material for those who wish to understand how South African Apartheid can explain and help us better understand what is unfolding in Palestine, a stone’s throw from Europe's borders.

Great book.Excellent writer.Fast and efficient service