On my nightstand sits a large tower of books on South Africa under Apartheid. I've been reading in an effort to better understand the mechanisms of racism and control in that system and to gain insight on how the international anti-Apartheid movement built pressure for social change in South Africa.
Most of you are aware that I am active in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in support of the nonviolent Palestinian civil society call. Two things have struck me in my research.
- BDS is moving quickly. It took decades of struggle against racism in South Africa to garner individual, corporate, cultural and governmental support. I am simply awed by what pro-human rights activists have been able to accomplish in five short years since the BDS call was issued. A recent BDS round-up shows progress on many fronts and in many parts of the globe.
- The systems of discrimination in Apartheid South Africa and present-day Israel are eerily similar. Below I'll outline just one example.
This 1989 photo of a sign from a Durban beach reminded me of an essay a friend send me after he visited Palestine for the first time last summer. Here he tells about a visit to the Dead Sea with friends.
We decided to visit the Dead Sea. Several of my colleagues came prepared with their bathing suits and towels. As our bus pulled into the parking lot at the beach, I noticed something different than the rest of the Occupied Territories—most notably, there were large numbers of international tourists that were conspicuously absent from other major sites of cultural and historical interest located in the PalestinianTerritories that we previously visited. As it turns out, this was no mere coincidence.
Guided tours booked through Israeli organizations and companies, intentionally divert people from the Palestinians, or at the very least minimize their exposure there. One significant consequence of this, among many, is that the Palestinian economy does not benefit from the tourist income. Entry to the beach was not free. At the queue to purchase tickets, I asked whether the beach was Israeli or Palestinian operated. It was, I was told, Israeli owned and operated, the ticket-taker being an armed soldier.
One of my colleagues and I decided that we would not pay to enter. The other four went in while she and I stood at the front gate keeping watch over the others’ belongings.
As we sat in the shade outside the gate, we noticed Palestinian families coming to the beach. At the gate, however, they were denied entry. In one hour’s time, we witnessed roughly twenty-five Palestinians be denied entry—including a young couple who had a toddler and an infant eager to enjoy the day at the beach.
When our colleagues emerged from the gated beach and told us about their rejuvenating swims in the Dead Sea, we recounted to them what we had just witnessed.
At that very moment another Palestinian family was being turned away, and one of my colleagues approached the guard and asked him why they had been turned away from the beach. Without hesitation, the armed guard replied, “Because they are small animals, and there are humans inside.” When she reproached him for such vile racism, he shooed her away as if he suddenly realized that she, too, was vermin.
Don't wait decades to join the movement. Get involved now.