Leave it to the Jerusalem Post to keep us up to date on the right-wing ex-leaders who’ve fallen into line with Israel’s extremist government to fulminate against BDS. The list now grows by two. Today, Frederik de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president of South Africa (he left office 21 years ago), joined the chorus, saying:
…Sanctions against South Africa had only served to delay reform and hurt the black population more than they hurt the white population.
[They] “are more counterproductive than helpful to change any country on the course it is taking.”
This is the heir of the racist white movement which installed an apartheid regime against the country’s majority for five decades. The same regime which imprisoned Nelson Mandela for decades and assassinated ANC leaders. Yes, he finally agreed to give up the ghost and so avoided massive bloodshed. Let’s give him points for being pragmatic.
But why did he come to this understanding? Precisely because he knew the jig was up. The international boycott and pressure from governments the world over, plus the resistance of Black nationalist groups like the ANC, convinced him that there was only one way out. Without the boycott, there would’ve been one less weapon in the fight available to the eventual winners, the country’s black majority.
De Klerk further argued:
“In the case of South Africa, our experience has been that sanctions at times delayed reform. It had the effect of driving the white population, who at that stage had all the power, into a corner and they resisted it fiercely.” de Klerk said.
“In the end, sanctions hurt the people they were intended to help much more than it hurt the white population. Blacks suffered, job creation suffered as a result of that and they were as much the victims of the sanctions as the people against whom the sanctions were actually intended,” he said.
…”Dialogue and negotiation and interaction between leading countries of the world and South Africa would have achieved a better result, and would have inspired earlier reforms and changes in the South African situation,” he said.
“I prefer dialogue and negotiation as a way to get governments to change their attitude.”
This is simply historical revisionism from the losing side. There is absolutely no evidence supporting the notion that the white racist regime would’ve given up power more quickly had the opposition simply negotiated, rather than having a gun to the government’s head. Are we to buy the notion that white South African’s would’ve have been willing to give up their privileges and economic control had blacks simply been nice and asked for their rights in the form of negotiations?
Earlier, the Post also promulgated the Good News that Jose Aznar, the rightist ex-premier of Spain who left office 11 years ago, accused BDS, in effect, of ethnic cleansing:
“I think BDS is…in the final analysis, anti-Semitic,” Aznar told Maariv.
“…BDS is in fact trying to harm every Israeli citizen and not only the government. In reality what BDS wants is to make life in Israel intolerable so the Jewish nation will not be able to have a normal existence in its state. BDS does not only want to change the government’s policy, it wants to empty the country of Jews,” Aznar said.
You read that right: BDS wants to drive Jews from Israel. In fact, it wants to rid Israel of them in an act akin to ethnic cleansing.
The ex-pol elaborated on this fantastical version of BDS by suggesting (falsely) that there are significant numbers of foreign and Israeli companies investing in the West Bank; and that BDS would destroy the Palestinian economy by destroying the jobs created by these phantom investors:
“People including the bureaucrats in the EU need to understand that companies that invest in the West Bank provide jobs and opportunities for the Palestinian nation,” Aznar said, adding, “Getting companies to leave there [the West Bank] will not have a positive impact but just the opposite. Greater, not less, economic activity is required in the territories. The only way to create a Palestinian middle class is through investments and commerce.”
Now, it is possible there are a few such companies like Sodastream and Ahava, which employ Palestinians. But the number of such companies and jobs is infinitesimal compared to the number of jobs there are now in the West Bank and the number needed to sustain a viable economy.
The Spaniard believes that Israel not only shouldn’t be targeted by the EU for sanctions, it should be rewarded for its “good behavior” with EU membership:
“My vision is for Israel to become an integral part of the Western world and for this to happen it needs to be a partner in the West’s economic and security institutions,” the former prime minister said.
Like that’s gonna happen!
Like Tony Blair, Aznar has earned a handsome living off shilling for Israel since he left office. He founded the Euro-hasbara initiative, Friends of Israel, which recently published a report exonerating Israel’s massacre in Gaza last summer. Aznar also signed a report similarly absolving Israel of responsiblity for the Mavi Marmara murders. Though I’m not well-schooled in European hasbara activities, I’d guess that Aznar, like Blair, is handsomely remunerated for his pro-Israel efforts. He and his NGO are either supported by pro-Israel private donors or possibly directly by official government channels. I’d like to hear more on this from European readers.
But to hear the former Spanish leader tell it, his motives are based purely on principle:
When asked what has made him such a close friend of Israel, Aznar said he could not isolate a single reason.
“I don’t believe that there is one reason or historical juncture that caused me to believe what I believe: that Israel is an essential and integral part of my world and my civilization, the West,” he said. “I am clearly more outspoken today because I have a feeling of urgency. The world is not going in the direction that I would want it to and the Middle East is becoming more and more relevant for everyone.”
This is the same individual who headed the Spanish conservative government which is a direct descendant of Franco. It is a party whose roots go back to Spanish fascism and murderous violence against leftist Republicans. This is who Israel puts forward as its Euro-champion.
Who’s next? Dick Cheney? Hosni Mubarak? Franco himself, back from the dead? These stories of washed up leaders of western nations embracing Israel’s position on BDS expose the pathetic nature of the government’s campaign on this issue. Instead of bringing vital, relevant politicians or public intellectuals, they bring us the tired wretched remnants of the past. They bring us politicians whose legacies are themselves riddled with moral stains. It’s a match made in heaven (or Hell).
Amazing how consistent are the arguments of the powerful against sanctions. From South Africa in the ’70s to Israel/Palestine today: “Sanctions will hurt the Blacks/Palestinians much more than the Whites/Israelis!” Why, then, do they care so much? Why is the suffering of their oppressed peoples of such great concern to them, all of a sudden? They bomb them, detain them, torture them, transport them, steal their land, destroy their livelihoods — and then get all weepy because sanctions will hurt them. Is it because the pain of sanctions would be inflicted by foreigners, instead of by them? They want to keep oppression “in the family”, perhaps? The whole thing is ridiculous, an obvious ploy. If sanctions really did hurt the oppressed most of all, the oppressors would have a very different response — they’d smirk & say, “Sure, bring it on!”
What motivates De Klerk to say these things?
To be fair to De Klerk, who I believe to be as a human being in a quite different league from Netanyahu, he mentions nowhere in his autobiography the effect of sanctions on the black population. He does acknowledge that sanctions, though making the South African economy in some ways more reliant (the weapons industry, oil from coal), “did serious damage to the country … It is estimated that sanctions cost us about 1.5 per cent in our annual economic growth rate during the eighties and early nineties … sanctions impeded economic growth, which I believe was by far and away the most important change factor in South Africa.”
De Klerk says: “The reality is that isolation, sanctions and unbridled criticism seldom persuade people to change their positions. In our case they created a natural resistance among most white South African individuals and companies and often made them less willing to consider change. The National Party won more than one election by appealing to the resentment that many whites felt against the international community – and particularly the United States – for their role in imposing sanctions against us.”
(F.W. de Klerk, The Autobiography, 1998 pp.70/71)
“I belie
Well yes, but as far as I am concerned I would like to have BDS that very effect in Israel, for the same reason that I wanted Netanyahu to be reelected. Israel is in a position quite different from South Africa. In the South African case foreign governments did not have to be persuaded to impose sanctions on the country – particularly the US was more than willing to do so. But in the case of Israel the morally putrid side of the regime has to come out more clearly in order for foreign politicians, particularly Americans, to become aware that they really can no longer support a regime of that nature.
I dare say that De Klerk did not take that difference into account when he commented on Israel.
Ultimately not only the Israelis but also many foreign politicians have to learn the lesson that De Klerk says the South African experience gave him: “I believe that the most important lesson that emerged from our experience in South Africa is that no vision of the future can justify any government to ignore the basic human rights of the human beings involved. No cause is so great that we should allow it to dilute our sense of justice and humanity.” (p.40)
corrections:
“Who I believe” – “whom I believe”
“Reliant” – “self reliant”
When De Klerk is quoted on Israel the hasbarists generally mention his judgment that calling Israel proper an apartheid state is unfair, without mentioning that he is also of the view that if the two state solution is not embraced Israel will end up that way.
All the same I think that De Klerk should not have limited his judgment to Israel proper but should also have taken the situation in the occupied territories into account. And as far as Israel is concerned he looked too much for the signs of “petty apartheid” – such as separate beaches, park benches, cinema entrances etc.
It is ironical that the first prominent South African who, as far back as 1963, called Israel an apartheid state was the main architect of South African apartheid, the arch conservative Prime Minister Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.
Ronny Kasril, a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist, a cabinet minister in a democratic South Africa, and a supporter of BDS, explains:
“He was irked by the criticism of apartheid policy and Harold Macmillan’s “Winds of Change” speech , in contrast to the West’s unconditional support for Zionist Israel.”
(so much for the Israeli claim that they are unfairly picked on because they are a Jewish state)
Kasril continues:
“To be sure Verwoerd was correct. Both states preached and implemented a policy based on racial ethnicity; the sole claim of Jews in Israel and whites in South Africa to exclusive citizenship; monopolised rights in law regarding the ownership of land, property, business; superior access to education, health, social, sporting and cultural amenities, pensions and municipal services at the expense of the original indigenous population; the virtual monopoly membership of military and security forces, and privileged development along their own racial supremacist lines – even both countries marriage laws designed to safeguard racial “purity”.”
Kasril is of the firm opinion that the situation in the occupied territories and in Gaza is actually far worse than apartheid:
“A further comment about the Bantustans. When I visited Yasser Arafat in his virtually demolished headquarters in Ramallah as part of a South African delegation in 2004, he pointed around him and said “See this is nothing but a Bantustan!” No, we responded, pointing out that no Bantustan, in fact not even our townships, had been bombed by warplanes, pulverised by tanks. To a wide-eyed Arafat we pointed out that Pretoria pumped in funds, constructed impressive administration buildings, even allowed for Bantustan airlines to service the Mickey Mouse capitals in order to impress the world that they were serious about so-called “separate development.” “
And they were. They endeavoured to make these Bantustans livable, whereas in the occupied territories Israel does its level best to make the situation totally unlivable. In the end of course the black South Africans didn’t want these mini-states. For one thing they had been given too little of the land – about 13 %.
Kasril continues:
“It needs to be frankly raised that if the crimes of the Holocaust are at the top end of the scale of human barbarity in modern times, where do we place the human cost of what has so recently occurred in Gaza and against the Palestinians since 1948 in the ‘nakba’ (catastrophe) they have endured?
How do we evaluate the inhumanity of dropping bombs and blazing white phosphorous on civilian populations, burning people alive, gassing them in a Gaza ghetto under relentless siege with no place to run or hide.For 22 days relentless bombardment whole families vaporised before the horrified eyes of a surviving parent or child”
…
Kasril also totally disagrees with De Klerk about the effectiveness of the international boycot of South Africa:
“But unquestioningly, what helped tip the balance, in Vietnam and South Africa, was the force and power of international solidarity action. It took some 30 years but the worldwide Anti-Apartheid Movements campaigns – launched in London in 1959 – for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – not only provided international activists with a practical role, but became an incalculable factor in (a) isolating and weakening the apartheid regime (b) inspiring the struggling people (c) undermining the resolve of those states that supported and benefited from relations with apartheid South Africa, (d) generated a change of attitude amongst the South African white public generally, and political, business, professional, academic, religious and sporting associations in particular. Boycott made them feel the pinch in their pocket and their polecat status everywhere – whether on the sporting fields, at academic or business conventions, in the world of theatre and the arts they were totally shunned like biblical lepers. There was literally no place to hide.”
○ @FWdeKlerkFoundation
not happy with latest turn of events in South Africa …
– expropriation of land
– xenophobia
– toppling of statue Paul Kruger, erasing white supremacy
BBC Radio interview in 2012
○ FW de Klerk: The day I ended apartheid
FW De Klerk wanted two states totally separated. The economic tide of a looming disaster and the threat of a civil war causing tens of thousands casualties made him realize the injustice of apartheid must stop immediately. Surely the anti-apartheid boycott movement was effective! In spite of contrarian “leadership” from Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the likes of Dick Cheney.
○ South Africa and Apartheid [large pdf]
The structure of apartheid policy as it emerged in the political system of our country is discussed elsewhere in the report [Truth and Reconciliation Commission]. It originated and developed as a result of different influences over at least a century. Some examples are quoted in the report. I highlight and add a few to widen the context and understanding:
a The unchecked reign, for many decades, of colonialism, which is concomitant with exploitation and disruption of cultures, customs and mindsets, and operated as a closed system without real access for indigenous people to the worlds and structures of the colonising powers;
b The influence of British Empire politics, especially under Rhodes;
c The reactive phenomenon of Afrikaner Nationalism, which created its own myths and history of an Afrikaner people dating back to their founding with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652 (purely to facilitate trade), with a mission from God to evangelise Africa as His chosen people, seen as a parallel with Israel. Amnesty hearings of right-wing applicants showed ample evidence of remnants of this frame of mind, continuing right up to the end of the Commission’s mandate period.
○ South Africa’s De Klerk: Without peace, Israel heading toward apartheid | Haaretz – May 2014 |
FW de Klerk: racial segregation and the subjugation of black South Africans by the white minority had failed
○ White former South-African president sparks outrage after defending Apartheid | CNN Interview – May 2012 |
The former statesman now lives in Cape Town and conducts work through the FW De Klerk Foundation. His spokesman Dave Stewart said the retired statesman had not intended to cause offence. He said:
“What he was trying to say was that the Union of South Africa was an artificial creation. If you have an artificial creation you can go two ways – either by going your separate ways like in the Soviet Union or in what is being suggested for Israel and Palestine, or by trying to build a multicultural society.
Mr De Klerk was saying that as a young man they tried to go for the first option in South Africa. They changed course when they realised it was not working.
It is not immoral for the Afrikaners to want to rule themselves any more than it is for the Israelis or the Scots to wish for the same things.”
This José María Aznar from Spain with George Bush at the Crawford ranch one month before the Iraq invasion?
AZNAR. Actually the best outcome would be to win without firing a single shot and entering Baghdad.
BUSH. For me this would be the perfect solution. I don’t want the war. I know what wars are. I know the destruction and the death that they bring with them. I am the one that has to console th mothers and the widows of the dead. Of course, for us this would be the best solution. Moreover, it would save $50 billion.
AZNAR. We need you to help with Spanish public opinion.
BUSH. We will do all we can. On Wednesday I will speak about the situation in the Middle East, proposing a new system of peace, of which you know, and about weapons of mass destruction, of the benefits of a free society, and I will put Iraq’s story in a higher context. That might help you.
AZNAR. What we are doing is a profound change for Spain and for the Spanish. We are changing the politics the country has followed for the past 200 years.
BUSH. I’m guided by a sense of history equal to yours. When after a few years history judges us, I don’t want the people to ask why Bush, or Aznar, or Blair did not confront face responsibilities. In the end, people want to enjoy liberty. Not so long ago, in Romania I remembered the example of Ceausescu: one woman calling him a liar brought the whole repressive regime down. It’s the uncontrollable power of freedom. I am convinced I will get the resolution.
The ratification and staging of José María Aznar’s support to George Bush took at the famous Azores Summit meeting:
Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, and Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar holding an emergency summit meeting on March 16, 2003, in Portugal’s Azores, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the Iraq War.
Listed as members of “Global Leadership Foundation” with an odd lot of Honorary patrons, starting with George W. Bush. Exclusive club with a similar list of members as the Club of Madrid and likely also the Bilderberg Group to “promote democracy and globalization.” It’s not clear how they as individuals can make such a statement about Israel and the BDS Movement.
This article (2011) is listed on the GLF website …
American leadership lacks credibility by Hans van den Broek
In the first few months after he was elected, President Obama aroused expectations that he had the necessary will. In his famous speech in Cairo he said in June 2009: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”
Little over a year later, there was no longer any trace of this firmness. Obama gave in to pressure from Netanyahu and the American Israel lobby; a settlement freeze was off the table. The efforts subsequently undertaken by the Americans to relaunch the negotiations were exercises in diplomatic window-dressing.
In February this year, the lack of American leadership led to an embarrassing exposure. In a vote in the Security Council on a resolution condemning the Israeli settlement policy, the United Kingdom, France and Germany (EU-3) voted in favour, while the US used its veto in order to torpedo the resolution – even though the text was a reflection of American statements.
RE: “There is absolutely no evidence supporting the notion that the white racist regime would’ve given up power more quickly had the opposition simply negotiated, rather than having a gun to the government’s head. Are we to buy the notion that white South African’s would’ve have been willing to give up their privileges and economic control had blacks simply been nice and asked for their rights in the form of negotiations?” ~ R.S.
FROM foreignaffairs.com: “South Africa: Why Constructive Engagement Failed”, By Sanford J. Ungar and Peter Vale, Winter 1985/86
SOURCE – http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/40525/sanford-j-ungar-and-peter-vale/south-africa-why-constructive-engagement-failed
Like Tony Blair, Aznar has earned a handsome living off shilling for Israel since he left office. He founded the Euro-hasbara initiative, Friends of Israel, which recently published a report exonerating Israel’s massacre in Gaza last summer. Aznar also signed a report similarly absolving Israel of responsiblity for the Mavi Marmara murders. Though I’m not well-schooled in European hasbara activities, I’d guess that Aznar, like Blair, is handsomely remunerated for his pro-Israel efforts. He and his NGO are either supported by pro-Israel private donors or possibly directly by official government channels
Unless you can prove your accusations, Mr. Silverstien, you’re skirting (or perhaps even passing) the requirements of slander law. One can believe that Israel is generally in the right without being renumerated for that belief, just as one can be an Israel blackwasher such as yourself without being on the payroll of Hamas, Qatar or Iran.
This born Racist should get beck to where he came out of.
the BDS movement itself is not anti-Semitic. there are certainly large numbers of anti-Semites in the movement and amongst the supporters but most the people involved and associated in the West are well-meaning and many of them are mature and well-informed