The following is Ronnie Kasrils - South Africa Minister of Intelligence - testimony and experience upon his visit to Israel and Occupied Palestine; published by an internationally recognized Jewish South African in a major South African paper (Mail&Guardian):
Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency.
It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints -- more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger. Fortunately for me, travelling in a South African embassy vehicle with official documents and escort, the delays were brief.
Sweeping past the lines of Palestinians on foot or in taxis was like a view of the silent, depressed pass- office queues of South Africa's past. A journey from one West Bank town to another that could take 20 minutes by car now takes seven hours for Palestinians, with manifold indignities at the hands of teenage soldiers.
[..snip..]
Bethlehem too is totally enclosed by the wall, with two gated entry points. The Israelis have added insult to injury by plastering the entrances with giant scenic posters welcoming tourists to Christ's birthplace.[..snip..]
We are leaving through Tel Aviv airport and the Israeli official catches my accent. "Are you South African?' he asks in an unmistakable Gauteng accent. The young man left Benoni as a child in 1985. "How's Israel?" I ask. "This is a f**ked-up place," he laughs, "I'm leaving for Australia soon."Ads
"Down under?" I think. I've just been, like Alice, down under into a surreal world that is infinitely worse than apartheid. Within a few hours I am in Northern Ireland, a guest at the swearing in of the Stormont power-sharing government of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.
Not even PW Botha or Ariel ÂSharon were once as extreme as Ian Paisley in his most riotous and bigoted days. Ireland was under England's boot for 800 years, South Africa's colonial-apartheid order lasted 350 years. The Zionist colonial-settler project stems from the 1880s. The Israeli ruling class, corrupt and with no vision, can no longer rule in the old way. The ÂPalestinians are not prepared to be suppressed any longer. What is needed is Palestinian unity behind their democratically elected national government, reinforced by popular struggles of Palestinians and progressive Israelis, supported by international solidarity.
[..snip..]
Read the full testimony here!
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