Annapolis: Apartheid Reloaded

The mantra rang out from the stage at Annapolis all of last week: Two states, living side by side, in peace and security. It sounded as soppy as a corporate slogan. Forty hopeful nations had endorsed the conference between Israel and representatives of the Palestinian regions.

In true form, grand speeches were made too. A speech by Mr. Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel, put things into proper perspective rather well, when he said: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

It is extraordinary what capacity for double standards can befall mankind. Take the perilous dilemma of Palestine for example. Here we are sixty years on from that fateful day in 1947 when about 600000 European refugees, claiming Jewish culture and ancestry, and fleeing severe persecution in Europe before and during the War, unilaterally declared an independent state amidst the indignant natives of Palestine. Unable and unwilling to do much else, the UN clumsily acknowledged the State of Israel. In the sixty years of suffering that followed, it all seems to have come down to separating Jewish and non-Jewish in order to preserve socio-political majority for those who are Jewish. That policy has a name: Apartheid.

In 1948, the then recently elected National Party of South Africa embarked on a policy intended to create independent homelands or states for the various African ethnic groups while ensuring numeric supremacy for ethnic groups of European descent in the remainder of South Africa. It was called Apartheid. A major component of the policy was fear.

The majority of South Africans of European ancestry, many of whose ancestors fled religious persecution and economic hardship, feared that their culture and values would be overrun by the numerically overwhelming native African population, were all to be included in the same political and therefore, voting system. South Africa could not be both democratic and European in culture. As in Israel, the policy of ethnic separation was often brutal and brought immeasurable hardship to those finding themselves at the sharp end of the policy. However, the world fast began to react with increasing vehemence against the South African government, because of the unfairness of that policy.

According to Newsmax, a conservative new letter, Prime Minister Olmert, a hard-liner earlier in his career, in recent years has repeatedly warned that Israel cannot remain both Jewish and democratic if it holds on to the West Bank and Gaza. Fair enough, yet Newsmax; Mr Olmert and his Western supporters seem to miss the point that the creation of Israel was undemocratic in its entirety. Jewish people in all of Palestine, including Israel, cannot hold on to a state with Jewish numeric supremacy without contradicting democracy and human rights as understood in the civilised world of today.

So last week in Annapolis, the main protagonists gathered in an attempt to start again towards a solution that would appear fair, democratic and bring an end to seemingly endless regional strive. But all the time, the premise of the whole affair was rotten. One cannot pluck out of the blue an independent state for a gathering of European refugees in territory that has never legally belonged to them. Such a policy has a name: Colonisation. It was abandoned everywhere else by the civilised world during the 20th century. Religion, myth and legend do not constitute international law, no matter how many old men in black robes and hats wiggle to chanting in places high and holy.

What then is to be done? It would be wise not to make matters worse. Acknowledge to the Palestinian people the grotesque unfairness of 1947 and beyond; hear their plight and pain; put all hopes, wishes and fears on the table and pray for wisdom before taking even one more decision. If religion could shine any light on this dilemma it should be that love fears not. And love can turn an enemy into a brother, even a half-brother. And brothers can live side by side within the same borders: One state in peace and security.