ODS
ONE DEMOCRATIC
STATE
www.onedemocraticstate.org
Loss of Land, Ethnic cleansing,
Discrimination and Segregation
Homelands (Bantustans)
The South African government designated
all Africans as citizens of a homeland or
Bantustan. By 1984, Ciskei,
Bophuthatswana, Transkei, and Venda had
been granted "independence," which was
recognized by no other nations except
South Africa.
By MATRIX, Michigan State University
1984
The Affinity Between Apartheid
South Africa and Zionism
The affinity between Apartheid South Africa and Zionism was nurtured by two
individuals long before Israel was established and continued thereafter. The two men are Jan
Christiaan Smuts, prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from
1939 until 1948 and Chaim Weizmann, a leading Zionist leader in the first president of Israel from
1949 – 1952. The relationship and close cooperation between the two individuals started in 1917
and ended with the death of Mr. Smuts in September 1950. But the close special relationship
between the two countries continued until Apartheid South Africa was officially dismantled in
1994.
Observe how those two individuals employ racist words when talking about the Arabs
of Palestine. Sarah G. Millin, Mr. Smuts biographer noted:
As to the Arabs, a Bedouin Arab quite naturally cannot seem so romantically strange
to a South African as to a European, for the South African very well knows dark
skinned peoples; peoples resembling, indeed, the Arabs- and with reason since Arab
blood is in them. All his life the South African has been surrounded by millions of
these dark peoples, who, like the Bedouins, live in huts or wander over the land; are
more courtly, courageous and poetic than he will admit; and (unless civilization
compels them) like the Bedouin again, do, make, grow, want and own nothing. Smuts
thinks as a European rather than as a South African- yet dark skinned people cannot
seem exotic to him.
The Affinity Between Apartheid
South Africa and Zionism- Continued
Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1929:
Yet even today we hear people saying: “Well, yes, perhaps what you have
done is all very good, but the Arabs in Palestine were used to a quiet life.
They rode on camels; they were picturesque; they fitted into the landscape.
Why not preserve it as a Museum, as a National Park? You came in from the
West with your knowledge and your Jewish insistence. You are not
picturesque. You do not fit into the landscape. You drain the marshes. You
destroy malaria. And you do it in such a way that the mosquitoes fly on to
the Arab villages. You still speak Hebrew with a bad accent, and you have
not yet learned how to handle the plough properly. Instead of a camel you
use a motor car.” It reminds one of the eternal fight of stagnation against
progress, efficiency, health, and education. The desert against civilization.
The affinity between the two systems outlasted Smuts and Weizmann. In
April 1976 during a visit to Israel by John Vorster, president of the apartheid regime of
South Africa, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin toasted the "ideals shared by Israel
and South Africa."
THE APARTHEID STATE
The Case of South Africa
• Apartheid is not just a particularly bad kind of racism. The word means
“apart-ness” in Afrikaans.
• The doctrine of Apartheid advocates that white people are racially superior
to blacks and other people.
• Blacks and other races should not challenge or compete with white South
Africans for control over the country’s land, resources, economy and
political power. After 1948 this doctrine was formalized by the Nationalist
Party into a comprehensive system of laws and practices governing every
aspect of black people’s life (control) and to ensure a total separation
(apart-ness) between blacks and whites of SA.
• Unlike apart-ness, togetherness will foster living together in mixed cities
and economic competition by the races thus exposing the premise of white
racial superiority giving rise to demands for political representation.
Apartheid South Africa
Continued…
• The motives shaping apart-ness is to preserve white
economic and political power through laws justified by
racial prejudices.
• Under pressure from the international community, the
ideologues of apart-ness tried to cosmetically beautify its
ugly face and to justify the evil of its systematic oppression
of African and colored people by arguing that different races
and cultures should naturally live apart. Each people had
unique cultures and mental qualities that required separate
states, they said. Those ideologues had the audacity to call
for self-determination for the whites thus stuffing blacks
and other races into “homelands” (Cantons) that may
eventually qualify for independence as separate states but
always under white government’s control.
Different Variations of
APARTHEID
• Apartheid is a different variation of the Zionist
doctrine of “two peoples in one land” which
proposes that Jews and Arabs in Palestine cannot
live together as one people in one state on the
same land.
• Another variation of apart-ness was also
advocated and practiced in the USA, “separate but
equal” that used basic racial differences to divide
white and black areas and to enforce a ruthless
and oppressive system of white supremacy.
IS ISRAEL AN
APARTHEID STATE?
• The State of Israel maintains a system of laws,
practices and doctrines that match the definition
of Apartheid in the Apartheid Convention.
• Most of the “inhuman acts” cited in the
Convention read like a list of Israeli practices.
• UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International,
the Red Cross and other international
organizations have documented these practices for
decades.
How Apartheid Israel Differs from
Apartheid South Africa?
• Unlike Apartheid South Africa, Apartheid Israel insists on
“Jewish” sovereignty over all of historic Palestine, the
ethnic cleansing of its indigenous Palestinian population,
and the “Jewish” character of the state. The Apartheid
system of SA favored whites over blacks and coloredBeing a white included both Christians and Jews.
• Desmond Tutu stated the following: “I have been to the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the
racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so
much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa
under the racist system of Apartheid.” For more, please
visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzey6qg2lMA
The Palestinian Vision
for a Common Future in Historic
Palestine
• Palestinians recognize that the Apartheid system
in Israel is evil pure and simple.
• Also, Palestinians know that they are the
sovereign owners of the land of historic Palestine.
• In an attempt to restore justice and transcend
bloody conflicts, Palestinians are reaching out to
Israeli-Jews to unite in rejecting the Zionist
project in Palestine, Apartheid laws and practices
by Israel, and to transform Apartheid Israel into a
one democratic state in historic Palestine for its
citizens.
Background
This VISION for durable and just peace in
Israel/Palestine has been debated widely
and is based on the outcome of various
initiatives and conferences that have taken
place in many cities including in
Israel/Palestine. It Exists in Three
Variations: The Dallas, Munich and Jaffa
Declarations. The Differences between
them are minor. Here I am presenting a
copy of The Munich Declaration of June
2012.
The Munich Declaration
• This Declaration consists of Ten points.
• The framers of the Munich Declaration appeal and
welcome additional statements that expand and clarify
the goals expressed in this Declaration, as long as they
are consistent with its goals and principles, especially
its commitment to universal human rights, anti-racism
and the fundamental equality of all people in dignity
and rights. We urge those who share the vision and
goals in this Declaration to set aside differences and
join in this historic struggle to realize the ideals of one
democratic state in Palestine.
• The Munich Declaration reads as follows:
The Ten Principles
1. One Democratic State (ODS) shall be
established in the entire territory of historic
Palestine between the Mediterranean Sea and
the Jordan River as one country that belongs to
all its citizens including all those who
currently live there and all those who were
expelled over the past century and their
descendants.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
2. The country shall be an
independent sovereign State in
which all citizens enjoy equal
rights and all can live in freedom
and security.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
3. ODS in Palestine will end
ethnic cleansing, occupation and
all forms of racial discrimination
from which the Palestinian people
suffered under Zionism/Israel.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
4. The reunified Palestine shall be a
democracy in which all of its adult
citizens shall enjoy equal rights to vote,
stand for office and contribute to the
country’s governance. No State law,
institution, practices or activities may
discriminate among its citizens on the
basis of ethnicity, religion, language,
nationality or gender.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
5. The State shall not establish or
accord special privilege to any
religion and shall provide for the
free practice of all religions.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
6. One of the primary objectives of the new
state is to enable the Palestinian refugees to
realize their right of return to all the places
from where they were expelled, rebuild their
personal life, and participate in creating the
new state. Private property of Palestinian
refugees shall be restored and restitution and
compensation arranged.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
7. Public land of the State shall
belong to the nation as a whole
and all of its citizens shall have
equal access to its use. The
natural and economic resources of
the country shall benefit all of its
citizens equally.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
8. The State shall provide the conditions for
free cultural expression by all of its citizens. It
shall ensure that all languages, arts and culture
can flourish and develop freely. All citizens
shall have equal rights to use their own dress,
languages and customs, and to express their
cultural heritage free of insults or
discrimination.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
9. Citizens shall have equal access to
employment at all levels and in all sectors of
the society. Employment shall not be
determined or restricted by language, race,
religion, gender, or nationality. Education and
vocational training shall not be segregated or
specialized in any way that impedes equal
access of all citizens to employment and other
opportunities to fulfill their talents and dreams.
The Ten Principles
Continued…
10. The State shall uphold international law and
seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts through
negotiation and collective security in accordance
with the United Nations Charter. The people of a
unified Palestine shall reject racism and promote
anti-racism, social, cultural and political rights as
set out in relevant United Nations covenants. The
State shall seek and contribute to the
establishment of a Middle East that will be free of
all weapons of mass-destruction.
CALL TO ACTION
We call on all those who cherish freedom, justice, equality and democracy and
reject racism and segregation to join us in building this movement.
a. We call on Palestinians everywhere to undertake free democratic debate about the
goals and principles of this Declaration in order to reunify the people and direct the
exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination into establishing one democratic
state in Palestine.
b. We call on Jews in Israel and throughout the world to look beyond the entrapping
illusions of Jewish statehood, which must rest on discrimination and so can lead only to
endless conflict and insecurity, and channel their dreams for peace into establishing one
shared country in all of Palestine between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River,
in which Jewish aspirations, whether religious, cultural or ethnic, can be fulfilled
without dominating others.
c. We urge individuals and groups active in the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions and the entire Palestine solidarity movement to adopt the principles of this
Declaration and add its goals openly to their platforms and campaigns.
CALL TO ACTION
Continued…
d. We call on civil society organizations that oppose racism and racial discrimination
throughout the world to join us in building this movement, on the conviction that
racism anywhere is a threat to equality and justice everywhere.
e. We urge civil societies in the Arab and Muslim worlds to support a unified nonethnic democracy in Palestine by building public consensus and issuing public
statements to embrace it and by formalizing platforms that promote ethnic and sectarian
equality in their own countries.
f. We call on Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious scholars and philosophers to draw
on and disseminate wisdom from the holy and treasured texts that can guide the faithful
to seek and support a shared state in Palestine with full hearts and spiritual resolve.
On this platform, with our international friends and allies, we commit ourselves to
restore justice to the people by establishing a unitary democratic state in Palestine
in which all citizens can live in security, peace, equality and freedom.
www.onedemocraticstate.org
CALL TO ACTION
Continued…
d. We call on civil society organizations that oppose racism and racial discrimination
throughout the world to join us in building this movement, on the conviction that
racism anywhere is a threat to equality and justice everywhere.
e. We urge civil societies in the Arab and Muslim worlds to support a unified nonethnic democracy in Palestine by building public consensus and issuing public
statements to embrace it and by formalizing platforms that promote ethnic and sectarian
equality in their own countries.
f. We call on Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious scholars and philosophers to draw
on and disseminate wisdom from the holy and treasured texts that can guide the faithful
to seek and support a shared state in Palestine with full hearts and spiritual resolve.
On this platform, with our international friends and allies, we commit ourselves to
restore justice to the people by establishing a unitary democratic state in Palestine
in which all citizens can live in security, peace, equality and freedom.
www.onedemocraticstate.org