I defended Israel from claims of apartheid – no longer
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Benjamin Pogrund, a renowned and courageous journalist, put the reality of South African’s apartheid regime on the map from the late fifties to the eighties, despite much harassment which included having his passport removed, being put on trial several times, imprisoned once.
He emigrated to Israel in the late eighties to launch the Yakar Centre for Social Concern.
For the past two decades and more decades, Pogrund was one of the most vocal opponents of attempts to label Israel an apartheid state.
Here he explains why he has changed his mind.
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Thu 10 Aug 2023. Read the original here.
For decades, I defended Israel from claims of apartheid. I no longer can
In Israel, I am now witnessing the apartheid with which I grew up in South Africa. The Israeli government’s fascist, racist power-grab is the gift Israel’s enemies have long awaited
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Devastating. Though Mr Pogrund appears to have only made half a journey, as he still denigrates BDS and earlier anti-Zionist activities which he calls ignorant or malevolent. It’s very hard for elderly Jews who ‘made aliyah’ from South Africa partly or wholly to escape apartheid (I’ve known a few) to accept that maybe they were wrong all along and that the Zionist project was always about dispossession and displacement and racial discrimination, as well as whatever values of Jewish ‘self-determination’ and cultural expression attracted them. The massacres of the Naqba weren’t an aberration.
It’s also strange that Mr Pogrund cannot see that while apartheid South Africa had to be overthrown, a new South Africa was born, complete with 10 other official names. The feared bloodbath of all the whites did not happen (although there were individual attacks). In fact, whites retained more economic power and privilege than they should, but that’s another discussion. Zionist Israel must end in the same way. States do not have rights to exist in the abstract, people do. The existence of Israelis is not the object of BDS or any Palestine Solidarity movement.
Pogrund says that “It’s like watching the replay of a horror movie.”. I suggest that it would seem he has just watched the last five minutes of this horror movie. How is it possible for someone who was so understanding of apartheid in South Africa to decide to emigrate to Israel? Israel has not suddenly morphed into an apartheid state, it has always been one right from its very inception. The only difference is that now it is so blatantly in your face that even with the best pr in the world the likes of Pogrund, Jonathan Friedland and Tom Friedman can no longer justify its behaviour.
I take great exception to his insulting comments accusing BDS activists of spreading lies about Israel, either out of malevolence or ignorance. It would have been good for him to produce some evidence for that statement. Maybe he will see the light after a few more years of blinkered support for this fascist settler colonial state he chose to live in.
His concluding lines are ridiculous re the BDS campaign and it’s a shame he tries to malign them this way — the usual denial at work:
“BDS activists will continue to make their claims, out of ignorance and/or malevolence, spreading lies about Israel. They have long distorted what is already bad into grotesqueness, but will now claim vindication. Israel is giving them truth.“
“BDS activists will continue to make their claims, out of ignorance and/or malevolence, spreading lies about Israel.”
Well, I’m one of them and I don’t consider that glib statement of any value. When faced with squadrons of F-35s and every other piece of ‘western’ death-mongering equipment, what is one to do? Ask Fascists with 21st century, state-of-the-art weaponry to politely desist? c.f. what the ‘grotesque’ USA favours in anywhere it sees fit in general, and say, Venezuela in particular, in its ‘economic warfare’ imposition, applied unilaterally and with the cowardly compliance of the EU and elsewhere, presumably because they fear just such swingeing treatment. If decades of opposition to the worst excesses of Zionism, dozens of UN declarations and the constant highlighting of indefensible atrocities via social media [mostly] have yielded next to nothing, what should the rest of us try next? Flowers?
Thanks for your courage, Benjamin….keep on keeping on.
I was with the author until the comments about BDS dropped in without cogent argument. I read them several times to try to make out what his point was.
And then there’s the letter from the 700 academics. Seems like some effort is going into ignoring this stuff.
However welcome this is, it’s a bit late in the day and smells of trying to have it both ways!
It seems that despite his detailed knowledge of apartheid, Mr. Pogrund has only just spotted the all-too-close resemblance of the Israeli and white South African regimes. The Anti-Apartheid Movement was my introduction to politics in the early 1960’s and I managed to see it years ago.
His continued condemnation of the BDS campaign shows how shallow his commitment to change is – he must know how successful the boycott campaign was in contributing to the eventual collapse of the white regime. I give him 3/10 – needs to try harder!
Over the years, I have known quite a few people – family and friends – for whom belief in a place which has a special meaning and significance for Jews is existential. Some have eventually abandoned the idea of a state and substituted a ‘homeland’. For others, a longstanding attachment to that something called ‘Israel’ is so deep, they cannot abandon it, even when they know deep-down what suffering to Palestinians its creation and maintenance has brought.
Pogrund seems to fit into this latter category – he left South Africa for a promised land, which turned out to be anything but, and it has taken him all this time to acknowledge what seems to me – and other correspondents – to be obvious.
However, because of his deserved reputation as a courageous opponent of South African apartheid, his decades-long denial of the nature of the Israeli state helped give Israel’s claimed ‘democracy’ credibility. That he has finally – even with incoherent limitations and sideswipes at those got there far more quickly – come to recognise apartheid Israel is hugely important for the future. His final sentence is the most important one. He has said it, no matter how reluctantly. He cannot deny it – “Israel is giving (proponents of BDS) truth. “
As an adjunct to the ‘problematic’ characterisation of the BDS movement, Mr. Pogrund would do worse than to read Tony Greenstein’s book, ‘Zionism During The Holocaust’, chapter 6, where the inescapable conclusion is that had the Zionists not derailed the boycott of Nazi Germany, the Second World
War would not have happened. It’s as simply as shocking as that.
I too worry for Israel, but when Pogrund reads the comments to this article he may realize the harm he is doing Israel. The antisemites are rejoicing his words. For 75 years, and before the founding of the state of Israel, the Arabs have continued an unrelenting war on Jews in the Holy Land – the Land of Israel. Refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist and the accompanying terror have backed Israel into a defensive corner. The Oslo Accords – the great hope of the Israeli left led nowhere because Arafat refused to accept them. If the Arabs had accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan, we could all be living well in our small corner of the world. Israel is a victim of its own success. I too am a former South African and while Israel has problems, apartheid is not one of them. I live in the ‘occupied’ territories of Judea and Samaria, but the local pharmacy is run by an Arab pharmacist. Arab pharmacists make up 50 % Israeli pharmacists. The pharmacist at my local medical provider is Arab. It is Arab intransigence and terror which has led to the rise of Israel’s far right racist politicians. Most Israelis would love to separate from the Palestinians and let them get on with it. The removal of Jews from Gaza in 2005 has led to several wars since to try and put a stop to Palestinian terror – terror which has been persistent for the 75 years of Israeli independence and prior – the Hebron massacre in 1929, and the Arab riots of 1936.
Unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would be national suicide. The late unlamented Mufti al Husseini accused the Jews of trying to destroy Al Aqsa. Al Aqsa still stands but the Palestinians still use this falsehood to arouse hatred of Jews. It is nothing but antisemitism and unless Israel can separate safely and peaceably from the Palestinians the hatred and antisemitism will continue. When the Palestinians accept that the Jews and Israel are here to stay a modus vivendi can be found. I suggest that Pogrund and all the readers of this article read Natan Sharansky’s ‘The Case for Democracy’ to understand how peace can be achieved.