Re: Divestiture controversy

["Einde O'Callaghan" <einde.ocallaghan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"M. Junaid Alam" wrote:
> 
> First of all, Foxman is a pathetic character; his adjectives may impress a 3
> year-old but he can't back anything up. It is enough to recall that Mandela
> and Tutu both describe Israel as practicing apartheid, and Israel's own
> Attorney General Ben-Yair (1993-1996) called his nation's treatment of
> Palestinians as "injurious" and "apartheid"
> as well. Anyone familiar with the checkpoints, bypass roads, and land
> distribution system of the JNF can confirm
> that Israel practices apartheid.
> 
The following extract from Ralphs Schoenman's "Hidden History of
Zionism" (http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/index.htm) - from
chapter 2 - deals specifically with teh conscious linking of the Zionist
project and apartheid:

                         The South African Connection

  There is a particular dimension to this secret consort between Balfour
  and the Zionist leadership to betray the aspirations of the
  Palestinian people. It was Weizmann?s close friend and future Prime
  Minister of South Africa, General Jan Smuts, who, as South African
  delegate to the British War Cabinet during World War I, helped push
  the British government to adopt the Balfour Declaration and to make
  a commitment to construct a Zionist colony under British direction.

    The relationship between the Zionist movement and the South African
  settlers had evolved earlier, as had the friendship between General
  Smuts and Chaim Weizmann. By the turn of the century, a large Jewish
  population, primarily from Lithuania, had settled in South Africa.
  The Zionist movement regarded this population as particularly
  susceptible to Zionist ideas because of their already established
  settler status in South Africa. Zionist leaders travelled constantly
  to South Africa seeking political and financial support.

    N. Kirschner, former chairperson of the South African Zionist
  Federation, provides a vivid account of the intimate interaction
  between Zionist and South African leaders, the identification of
  Zionists like Weizmann and Herzl with the South African conception
  of a racially distinct colonizing populace, and the importance of a
  virtual pact between the two movements. [22]

    In identifying Zionism with South African settler ideology, Chaim
  Weizmann was following the early admiration expressed by Theodor
  Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, for the quintessential
  colonial ideologue, Sir Cecil Rhodes. Herzl attempted to model his
  own political future on the achievements of Rhodes:

     Naturally, there are big differences between Cecil Rhodes and my
     humble self, the personal ones very much in my disfavor; the
     objective ones are greatly in favor of the Zionist movement. [23]

  Herzl advocated achieving Zionist dispersal of the Palestinians by
  using the methods pioneered by Rhodes, and he urged the formation of
  a Jewish counterpart to a colonial chartered company, an amalgam of
  colonial and entrepreneurial exploitation:

     The Jewish Company is partly modelled on the lines of a great
     acquisition company. It might be called a Jewish Chartered Company,
     though it cannot exercise sovereign power, and has no other than
     purely colonial tasks. [24]

     The poorest will go first to cultivate the soil. In accordance with
     a preconceived plan they will construct roads, bridges, railways
     and telegraph installations, regulate rivers and build their own
     habitations; their labor will create trade, trade will create
     markets, and markets will attract new settlers. [25]

  By 1934, a major group of South African investors and large
capitalists
  had established Africa-Israel Investments to purchase land in
  Palestine. The company still exists after 54 years with South Africans
  as joint stockholders, the assets held by Israel?s Bank Leumi. [26]

Einde O'Callaghan


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