RETHINKING OUR DEFINITION of APARTHEID: NOT JUST a POLITICAL REGIME by Haidar Eid and Andy Clarno

Al-Shabaka Policy Brief August 2017

RETHINKING OUR DEFINITION OF APARTHEID: NOT JUST A POLITICAL REGIME By Haidar Eid and Andy Clarno

Overview

As Israel intensifies its settler-colonial project, this dual system in order to achieve a just and lasting

[email protected] apartheid has become an increasingly important peace rooted in social and economic equality. framework for understanding and challenging Israeli rule in historic Palestine. Indeed, Nadia Hijab and The Power and the Limitations of Ingrid Jaradat Gassner make a convincing argument International Law that apartheid is the most strategic framework of analysis. And in March 2017, the UN Economic The UN International Convention on the and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of released a powerful report documenting Israeli Apartheid defines apartheid as a crime involving violations of international law and concluding that “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of Israel has established an “apartheid regime” that establishing and maintaining domination by one oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a racial group of persons over any other racial group whole. of persons and systematically oppressing them.” The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Under international law, apartheid is a crime against Court defines apartheid as a crime involving “an humanity and states can be held accountable for institutionalized regime of systematic oppression their actions. However, international law has its and domination by one racial group over any other limitations. One specific concern involves what is racial group or groups.” missing from the international legal definition of apartheid. Because the definition focuses solely

www.Al-Shabaka.org “Post-apartheid South Africa on the political regime, it does not provide a strong basis for critiquing the economic aspects of remains one of the most apartheid. To address this concern, we propose an alternative definition of apartheid that grew out of unequal countries in the the struggle in South Africa during the 1980s and has gained support among activists due to the limits w or l d .” of decolonization in South Africa after 1994 – a definition that recognizes apartheid as intimately Based on a close reading of these statutes, connected to capitalism. the ESCWA report analyzes Israeli policy in four domains. It documents the formal legal This policy brief details what the Palestine liberation discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel; movement can learn from the South African the dual legal system in the Occupied Palestinian condition, namely recognizing apartheid as both Territory (OPT); the tenuous residency rights of a system of legalized racial discrimination and Palestinian Jerusalemites; and Israel’s refusal to a system of racial capitalism. It concludes with allow Palestinian refugees to exercise the right of recommendations for how Palestinians can confront return. The report concludes that Israel’s apartheid 1 August 2017

regime operates by fragmenting the Palestinian Dialogue between the Black Consciousness people and subjecting them to different forms of Movement and independent Marxists generated an racial rule. alternative definition of apartheid as a system of “racial capitalism.” Black radicals insisted that the The power of the apartheid analysis was apparent in struggle should simultaneously confront the state the way the US and Israel responded to the report. and the racial capitalist system. Unless racism and The US Ambassador to the UN denounced the report capitalism were confronted together, they predicted, and called on the UN Secretary General to repudiate post-apartheid South Africa would remain divided it. The Secretary General put pressure on Rima and unequal. Khalaf, head of ESCWA, to withdraw the report. Refusing to do so, she resigned from her post. “Private security has been the The importance of the ESCWA report cannot be overstated. For the first time, a UN body formally fastest growing industry in addressed the question of apartheid in Palestine/ South Africa since the 1990s.” Israel. And the report addressed Israeli policies toward the Palestinian people as a whole rather than focusing on one fragment of the population. The transition of the last 20 years has lent support By calling on member states and civil society to this thesis. In 1994, legal apartheid was abolished organizations to put pressure on Israel, the UN report and Black South Africans gained equality under the also demonstrates the utility of international law as a law – including the right to vote, the right to live tool for holding regimes like Israel accountable. anywhere, and the right to move without permits. The democratization of the state was a remarkable However, while recognizing the importance of achievement. Indeed, the South African transition international law, it is critical to note its limitations. demonstrates the possibility of peaceful coexistence First, international laws are only effective when on the basis of legal equality and mutual recognition. acknowledged and enforced by states, and the This is what makes South Africa so compelling for hierarchical structure of the state system provides many Palestinians and a few Israelis seeking an a handful of states with veto power. The rapid alternative to the fragmentation and failure of Oslo. suppression of the ESCWA report made these limitations clear. Yet there is a more specific concern Despite the democratization of the state, the South with the international definition of apartheid as noted African transition did not address the structures above. By focusing only on the political regime, of racial capitalism. During the negotiations, the the legal definition does not provide a strong basis ANC made major concessions to win the support of for critiquing the economic aspects of apartheid and white South Africans and the capitalist elite. Most indeed paves the way for a post-apartheid future that importantly, the ANC agreed not to nationalize is rife with economic discrimination. the land, banks, and mines and instead accepted constitutional protections for the existing distribution Racial Capitalism and the Limits of South of private property – despite the history of colonial African Liberation dispossession. In addition, the ANC government adopted a neoliberal economic strategy promoting During the 1970s and 80s, Black South Africans free trade, export-oriented industry, and the engaged in urgent debates about how to understand privatization of state-owned businesses and municipal the apartheid system they were fighting. The most services. As a result, post-apartheid South Africa powerful bloc within the liberation movement – the remains one of the most unequal countries in the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies world. – argued that apartheid was a system of racial domination and that the struggle should focus on Neoliberal restructuring has led to the emergence of eliminating racist policies and demanding equality a small Black elite and a growing Black middle class in some parts of the country. But the old white elite 2 under the law. Black radicals rejected this analysis. August 2017 August of residential security rely on violence and racial and racial violence rely on security of residential poor. are Black and those who to target profiling ends apartheid law, to international According and the the racial state transformation of with the racial discrimination. elimination of legalized Africa of South even a cursory examination Yet the pitfalls of such an approach after 1994 reveals importance of rethinking our and highlights the not Formal legal equality has definitions of apartheid. and economic transformation. produced real social of racial capitalism Instead, the neoliberalization of inequality created by centuries has entrenched the apartheid. Race remains a driving colonization and despite force of both exploitation and abandonment Celebrations of the liberal veneer of legal equality. to obscure the impacts ANC-led government tend the Africa after South of neoliberal racial capitalism in 1994. ignored largely Critiques of Israeli apartheid have Africa. the limits of transformation in South system of racial Instead of treating apartheid as a apartheid rely capitalism, most critiques of Israeli of apartheid on the international legal definition be sure, these To as a system of racial domination. They have critiques have been highly productive. rule, contributed to sharpened the analysis of Israeli and Sanctions the expansion of Boycott, Divestment, a legal foundation (BDS) campaigns, and provided The importance to hold Israel accountable. for efforts for communities in of international law as a resource struggle should not be undercut. can be taken even But analysis and organizing further by understanding apartheid as a system of racial capitalism, rather than relying so heavily on international legal definitions. By differentially racial capitalist lives and labor, valuing people’s regimes intensify exploitation while exposing groups to premature death, marginalized of racial The concept abandonment, or elimination. capitalism thus highlights the mutual constitution of capital accumulation and racial formation and contends that it is not possible to eliminate either racial domination or class inequality without tackling the system as a whole. . As a result, most . only 7.5% of South when it includes when it includes Africa.”

Race continues to structure unequal access to housing, education, and employment in post- Africa. It also shapes the rapid apartheid South Profiting from racialized growth of private security. fears about crime, private security has been the fastest Africa since the 1990s. growing industry in South Private security companies and wealthy residents’ associations have transformed historically white suburbs into fortress communities, marked by walls gates around neighborhoods, around private property, alarm systems, panic buttons, stationary guards, neighborhood patrols, video surveillance, and armed These privatized regimes rapid response teams. African land has been redistributed Africans remain landless and white elites Black South land. Similarly, maintain ownership of most of the the number the rising cost of shelter has multiplied buildings, and of people living in shacks, occupied subsidies and informal settlements, despite state housing. constitutional guarantees of decent The Black poor also confront a severe shortage of also confront a severe shortage of The Black poor land, the land and housing. Instead of redistributing program ANC government adopted a market-based clients purchase through which the state helps Black to a small class This has given rise white-owned land. of wealthy Black landowners, but 1. Interview with the director of the Alexandra Renewal Project, Johannesburg, South Africa. August 2012. Africa. South Alexandra Renewal Project, Johannesburg, 1. Interview with the director of the still controls the vast majority of land and wealth in and wealth of land majority the vast controls still and the increasing Deindustrialization Africa. South on casual forced to rely of the population proportion intensified labor movement, weakened the jobs have and working class, of the Black the exploitation that racialized surplus population produced a growing The structural unemployment. confronts permanent reaches 35% unemployment rate people who have given up looking for work. In some given up looking for work. In people who have rate is over 60% and the areas, the unemployment are precarious, short term, and low jobs that remain wage. of transformation in South in South transformation of

“Critiques of Israeli apartheid apartheid Israeli of “Critiques have largely ignored the limits the limits ignored largely have

Al-Shabaka Policy Brief 3 August 2017 August After Oslo, Israel quickly signed free trade trade Oslo, Israel quickly signed free After 2 not end – it was restructured.” was – it end not agreements with Egypt and Jordan. agreements with has enabled Israel to Neoliberal restructuring colonial strategy by significantly carry out its new Israel’s on Palestinian labor. reducing its reliance economy decreased the transition to a high-tech and agricultural workers. Free demand for industrial manufacturers to trade agreements allowed Israeli subcontractors to shift production from Palestinian countries. export-processing zones in neighboring followed by “shock The collapse of the Soviet Union than one million doctrine” neoliberalism led more And in Israel. Russian Jews to seek opportunities scale led to the neoliberal restructuring on a global Asia workers from immigration of 300,000 migrant with These groups now compete and Eastern Europe. The jobs. Palestinians for the remaining low-wage restructuring neoliberal used thus state settler-colonial Palestinian to engineer the disposability of the population. Life for working class Palestinians has become limited access to jobs in With increasingly precarious. Israel, poverty and unemployment have soared within Although the Palestinian the Palestinian enclaves. has always endorsed the neoliberal Authority (PA) export-oriented, free vision of a private sector-led, initially responded to the the PA market economy, crisis of unemployment by creating thousands of public sector jobs. has followed a strictly the PA Since 2007, however, neoliberal economic program that calls for cuts to public employment and an expansion of private sector investment. Despite these plans, the private sector remains weak and fragmented. Plans for weakening the labor movement, and increasing increasing and movement, labor the weakening central to negotiations were The Oslo inequality. elites and Israeli business Shimon Peres this project. the would open the “peace process” that argued Israeli capital to US and Arab world of the markets the global integration into Israel’s and facilitate economy. did African] “[South apartheid ” .” In prelude to genocide racial capitalism. Over incremental genocide Area C. Instead of granting (New York: Henry Holt, 1993). York: (New neoliberal the Palestinian population into Areas Areas the Palestinian population into 2. Shimon Peres, The New Middle East also allows an Seeing apartheid through this lens colonialism now understanding that Israeli settler operates through Racial Capitalism in Palestine/Israel The reorganization of Israeli rule has occurred of Israeli rule has occurred The reorganization alongside the neoliberal restructuring of the economy. a fundamental Since the 1980s, Israel has undergone transformation from a state-led economy focused on domestic consumption to a corporate-driven economy integrated into the circuits of global capital. Neoliberal restructuring has generated massive corporate profits while dismantling welfare, and by Ilan Pappe as an “ new colonial strategy involves Bank, Israel’s West the concentrating and B and colonizing A Oslo restructured Palestinians freedom and equality, relations of domination. In short, Oslo has intensified, settler colonial project. rather than reversed, Israel’s Understanding apartheid as a system of racial of racial system as a apartheid Understanding limitations seriously the allows us to take capitalism of Studying the success Africa. in South of liberation productive has been highly African struggle the South movement; understanding freedom for the Palestinian Although productive. can also prove its limitations equality, Africans gained formal legal Black South the economics of apartheid the failure to address on decolonization. In a word, placed real limits end – it was restructured. Relying apartheid did not international legal definition too heavily on the lead to similar problems down of apartheid could raise this as a cautionary We the road in Palestine. that it will contribute to the note with the hope Israeli racism development of strategies to address and neoliberal capitalism together. the last 25 years, Israel has intensified its settler the last 25 years, Israel has intensified All of peace. colonial project under the guise of to Israeli rule, historic Palestine remains subject Palestinian which operates by fragmenting the further fragment population. Oslo enabled Israel to and supplement direct military rule with the OPT The Gaza Strip has been aspects of indirect rule. camp” and a model transformed into a “concentration medieval siege “native reserve” through a deadly, described by Richard Falk as a “

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August 2017 August , 82% of Palestinians employed in the , 82% of Palestinians security coordination security recently, Most of Oslo. critics assassination preceded the Israel and the PA between Al-Araj. Basil of activist has economy that sector of the Israeli The only demand for Palestinian a relatively steady retained to the expansion due largely workers is construction, Bank. West and the wall in the of Israeli settlements Workers’ and Democracy According to a 2011 Rights survey a leave their jobs if they could find settlements would suitable alternative. two of the only jobs available for This means that Bank today are building West the Palestinians from Palestinian land Israeli settlements on confiscated forces to help Israel security or working with the PA apartheid. suppress Palestinian resistance to do not even have Palestinians from the Gaza Strip is one of the these “opportunities.” In fact, Gaza disposability. most extreme versions of engineered Gaza into a displacement turned Settler-colonial militias and refugee camp in 1948, when Zionist than 750,000 later the Israeli army expelled more villages. 70% of Palestinians from their towns and are refugees, a living two million residents Gaza’s demand reminder of the Nakba and an embodied economic for the right of return. Political and Israel to transform restructuring through Oslo enabled and contain Gaza into a prison built to concentrate And the ever- this unwanted surplus population. intensifying Israeli siege demonstrates Gazans’ neoliberal complete dehumanization. For Israel’s colonial project, Palestinian lives have no value and their death does not matter. Overall, therefore, neoliberalism coupled with settler colonial project has transformed the Israel’s This has Palestinians into a disposable population. enabled Israel to carry out its project of concentration and colonization. Understanding the neoliberal regime can settler-colonial dynamics of Israel’s contribute to the development of strategies to challenge Israeli apartheid not only as a system of racial domination but as a regime of racial capitalism. , these forces are designed

ANC.”

as Osloization in the West Bank and West as Osloization in the has demonstrated

“Palestinian liberation does liberation “Palestinian to protect the security of Israel. Since 2007, they under the supervision of the have been reorganized United States. More than 80,000 strong, the new PA security forces are trained by the US in Jordan and Bank enclaves in close West deployed throughout Israel and coordination with the Israeli military. share intelligence, coordinate arrests, and the PA they Together, cooperate on weapons confiscations. Palestinian all but leftists and Islamists only not target Further, joining the forces of repression has become joining the forces of repression has become Further, one of the only job opportunities available to the majority of Palestinians, especially young men. jobs are in education and health Although some PA Alaa As security forces. care, most are with the PA Tartir Although neoliberal policies have made life even policies have made life even Although neoliberal working class Palestinians, they more difficult for to the growth of a small Palestinian have contributed leadership, of the PA composed elite in the OPT to Visitors and NGO officials. Palestinian capitalists, surprised to see palatial mansions, Ramallah are often five-star hotels, and luxury expensive restaurants, not signs of a thriving economy, These are vehicles. growing class divide. Similarly, but rather of the has a new Hamas-affiliated nouveau-bourgeoisie Gaza since 2006. Its wealth depends in emerged a monopoly on on the dwindling “tunnel industry,” from Egypt, and construction materials smuggled Both Fatah and limited goods imported from Israel. from non- Hamas elites accumulate their wealth both characterized productive activities, and they are Haidar Eid by a total absence of political vision. refers to this Islamization in the Gaza Strip. industrial zones along Israel’s illegal Wall that snakes snakes that Wall illegal Israel’s along zones industrial to Israeli failed due largely have the OPT through relatively exports and the on imports and restrictions that of compared to of Palestinian labor high cost Jordan. Egypt and

not have to end with the same the same with end to have not ‘solution’ as that offered by the offered that as ‘solution’

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Confronting the Economics of Israeli Apartheid At the same time, neoliberal restructuring has deepened the marginalization of the racialized poor An important question for the Palestinian liberation by intensifying both exploitation and abandonment. movement is how to avoid the pitfalls of post- Jobs have become increasingly precarious, and entire apartheid South Africa in developing a vision for regions have experienced declining demands for post-apartheid Palestine/Israel. As Black radicals labor. While some racialized populations are marked predicted, an exclusive focus on the racial state has for superexploitation in sweatshops and service led to serious socioeconomic problems in South industries, others – like Palestinians – are abandoned Africa since 1994. Palestinian liberation does not to a life of unemployment and informality. have to end with the same “solution” as that offered by the ANC. This will require attention not only to Neoliberal apartheid regimes like Israel depend on political rights but also to difficult questions about advanced strategies of securitization to maintain land redistribution and economic structure to ensure power. Israel exercises sovereignty over the OPT a more equal outcome. One crucial place to begin through military deployments, electronic surveillance, is by continuing conversations about the practical imprisonment, interrogations, and torture. The dynamics of Palestinian return. state has also produced a fragmented geography of isolated Palestinian enclosures surrounded by walls and checkpoints and managed through closures and “Neoliberalism is part of permits. And Israeli companies have taken the lead in the global market for advanced security equipment Israel’s settler-colonial strategy by developing and testing high-tech devices in the OPT. The most important addition to Israel’s security to eliminate the Palestinian regime, however, is a network of security forces facilitated by the US and the EU, supported by population.” Jordan and Egypt, and operated through coordinated deployments of Israeli military and PA security It is also important to recognize that the current forces. situation in Palestine is closely connected to processes reshaping social relations around the Like Israel, other neoliberal apartheid regimes rely world. South Africa and Palestine, for example, on walled enclosures, private and state security are experiencing similar social and economic forces, and racialized policing strategies. In South changes despite their radically different political Africa, securitization has involved the fortification of trajectories. In both contexts, neoliberal racial wealthy neighborhoods, the rapid expansion of the capitalism has produced extreme inequality, private security industry, and intense state repression racialized marginalization, and advanced strategies of independent trade unions and social movements. In for protecting the powerful and policing the racialized the United States, efforts to produce security for the poor. Andy Clarno refers to this combination as powerful include gated communities, border walls, neoliberal apartheid. mass incarceration, mass deportation, electronic surveillance, drone wars, and the rapid growth of Around the world, wealth and income are police, prison, border patrol, military, and intelligence increasingly controlled by a handful of billionaire forces. capitalists. As the ground collapses beneath the middle class, the gulf between rich and poor Unlike South Africa, Israel remains an aggressive grows wider and the lives of the poorest become settler-colonial state. In this context, neoliberalism is increasingly precarious. Neoliberal restructuring has part of Israel’s settler-colonial strategy to eliminate enabled some members of historically oppressed the Palestinian population. But the combination populations to join the ranks of the elite. This of racial domination and neoliberal capitalism explains the emergence of the new Palestinian elite in has produced growing inequality, racialized marginalization, and advanced securitization in many 6 the OPT and the new Black elite in South Africa. - - August 2017 August tion whose mission is to educate and foster public debate on Palestinian human rights and self-de termination within the framework of international Al-Shabaka policy briefs may be reproduced law. Palestinian The Al-Shabaka, with due attribution to Policy Network. For more information visit www. or contact us by email: contact@ al-shabaka.org al-shabaka.org. Al-Shabaka materials may be circulated with due The Palestinian Policy Al-Shabaka: attribution to The opinion of individual members of Network. policy network do not necessarily Al-Shabaka’s as a whole. reflect the views of the organization Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network is an The Palestinian Al-Shabaka, independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organiza - - - The Wretched of The Wretched . It could also help shift the . It could also help is Associate Professor of Postcolo- Associate Professor is , Frantz Fanon argues that one of the pitfalls that , Frantz Fanon argues political discourse in Palestine from independence to in Palestine from independence political discourse his seminal work decolonization. In parts of the world. As movements and activists build activists and movements As of the world. parts against racialized between struggles connections Africa, the South and policing in Palestine, poverty Israeli apartheid beyond, understanding US, and could contribute of racial capitalism as a form movements against global, to the expansion of neoliberal apartheid the Earth is a liberation movement of national consciousness independent state governed by that ends with an that mimics the colonial power. a nationalist elite happening, Fanon encourages prevent this from To toward a shift from national consciousness Moving from political and social consciousness. and political independence to social transformation post-apartheid decolonization is the challenge facing this trap is a challenge Avoiding Africa. South forces in the struggle confronting Palestinian political for liberation today. Haidar Eid al-Aq- nial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza’s Ar He has written widely on the sa University. Andy Clarno is assistant professor of Sociology American Studies and interim direc African and ab-Israeli conflict, including articles published at Znet, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, and Open Democracy. tor of the Social Justice Institute at the Universi ty of Illinois at Chicago. His research examines racism, capitalism, colonialism, and empire in the early 21st century.

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