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Fire: Aug 26, 2002; As for myself I am a 28 year old special ed teacher from Jacksonville. Ironically, I myself also have asperger's syndrome. I'm a gamer, both video games and also tabletop role-playing games. I have an interest in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

http://roadmaptoapartheid.org/
"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians"
It has been touring the film festival scene and winning awards. Not only does it bravely make the controversial but obvious comparison between the oppression of the Palestinians and South Africa but shows that Israel and the zionist movement was a helpful ally of the actual apartheid in South Africa such as buying products from them when no one else would and relabeling their products as made in Israel.
The movie was actually made by a South African and a Jewish American but I am sure that won't stop apologists for Israel from accusing it of antisemitism.

From the film makers:

quote:

"In this award-winning documentary, the first-time directors take a detailed look at the apartheid analogy commonly used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Narrated by Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple), Roadmap to Apartheid is as much a historical document of the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa, as it is a film about why many Palestinians feel they are living in an apartheid system today, and why an increasing number of people around the world agree with them.
"While not perfect, the apartheid analogy is a useful framework by which to educate people on the complex issues facing Israelis and Palestinians. Our film delves into those issues, comparing the many similar laws and tools used by both Israel and apartheid-era South Africa. The audience will see what life is like for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and inside Israel while gaining a deeper understanding of the conflict with the help of respected analysts on the subject. Combined with archival material and anecdotes from South Africans, the film forms a complete picture as to why the analogy is being used with increasing frequency and potency."

My interest is piqued so I went a bought the DVD. When the comparison is brought up it is often brushed aside in the mainstream as going too far but it is hard to ignore the very clear parallels. Colonialism that is sanctioned by the UN, a body dominated by the global North is still colonialism.

Democracy Now hosted an interview with the film makers. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12...otes_to_support

Here is a transcript

quote:

AMY GOODMAN: "Hamdulillah," The Narcicyst featuring Shadia Mansour. In his YouTube posting about this song, The Narcycist wrote: "To say 'Hamdulillah' is to be grateful for
what one has. The images of the past decades have cast a veil on our identity as a people. We, as international brothers and sisters, are now witness to injustice in real time. We watch our Wars in HD. It is time for us to claim our faces back," he says. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, a new report says four Israeli attacks launched on journalists and media facilities during the bombardment of Gaza last month violated the laws of war by targeting civilians and civilian objects. Human Rights Watch issued the findings Thursday on the attacks that killed two Palestinian camera people, wounded at least 10 media workers and damaged four media offices. One strike also killed a two-year-old boy, Abdelrahman Naim, who lived across from a targeted building.

The report comes as the ruling party in South Africa has voted to support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, known as BDS. On Thursday, the African National Congress declared it was, quote, "unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel." Several high-level South African church leaders recently visited Palestine and said they were shocked at what they saw. In August, South Africa’s deputy foreign minister, Ebrahim Ebrahim, issued an advisory not to travel to Israel, quote, "because of the treatment and policies of Israel towards the Palestinian people."

AMY GOODMAN: Well, South Africans are no stranger to the complex issues facing Israelis and Palestinians. Now a new award-winning documentary examines the apartheid analogy commonly used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film is narrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker. This an excerpt from the trailer for Roadmap to Apartheid.

ALICE WALKER: This is the beautiful land of Israel and Palestine. The world’s three most prominent religions—Islam, Christianity and Judaism—consider it holy land. Each year, millions of people from around the world come here to pray for peace and prosperity. Yet this land is also a major center of conflict in the world today.

For Jewish Israelis, the conflict centers on protecting a homeland created for the Jewish people in 1948. For Palestinians, it is about resisting decades of colonialism, expulsion, occupation and apartheid.

Most people identify apartheid with the grotesque system of control that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, in which the white minority ruled over the black majority, stole their land, and deprived them of basic rights. It was a system reviled by the whole world, and it eventually crumbled under the combined pressure of internal resistance and international sanctions. Today, the word is back, and with it, too, is a growing global movement to end the Israeli form of apartheid.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from the trailer of Roadmap to Apartheid. The new film puts archival footage and interviews with South Africans, alongside similar material that shows what life is like for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and inside Israel. Roadmap to Apartheid has just been released to the public after a year-long film festival run, where it’s won a number of awards.

For more, we’re pleased to be joined by its co-directors, Ana Nogueira and Eron Davidson. Eron is a longtime media activist, born in Israel, now living in the United States. Ana was born in South Africa, longtime journalist, former Democracy Now! producer, founding member of the New York City Independent Media Center and its newspaper, The Indypendent.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Ana, let’s begin with you, why you took on this project, this film.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Thanks, Amy. It’s good to be back in the studio.

Well, as you know, I was born in South Africa. And when I came to this country, I was only 11, but I was the youngest of seven children and learned about what apartheid was like through them and through research and looking into it. And then, when I started working at Democracy Now! in 2001, the Second Intifada had just begun, and so I was learning about the Israel-Palestine conflict through our daily coverage of the Second Intifada. And that’s where I began to pick up on the similarities with the apartheid analogy and the apartheid experience in South Africa. So, I thought it was important to really flush that out. And I met Eron, and he’s Israeli. We decided to do this project together and really present a thesis as to why the analogy is so powerful.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, it’s a very controversial analogy, Eron, and you come from South Africa, apartheid well known in this country and the struggle against it.

ERON DAVIDSON: From Israel. I was born in Israel. And yes, the analogy is very controversial—but getting more common now. In the past eight or so years, the analogy has been getting quite common, yet used somewhat rhetorically. And that’s why we wanted to make this film, is to kind of break down that carefully, where that analogy fits and where it doesn’t.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I wanted to go to a clip from your film, which we first hear from the South African journalist, Na’eem Jeenah, and then Allister Sparks, a veteran apartheid-era journalist.

NA’EEM JEENAH: Now, in the South African context, the attempt by the apartheid government was to de-citizenize more than 80 percent of the South African population and then give them new citizenship in some kind of a fantasy entity—Bophuthatswana, Transkei, etc., so the South state could say, "You have no claims over us; you’re a citizen of Bophuthatswana. Social benefits, etc., is what you should be looking for there."

ALLISTER SPARKS: The godfather of the system was Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.

DR. HENDRIK VERWOERD: In South Africa, you can only achieve peace by separating the nations.

ALLISTER SPARKS: And he spelled out the whole bantustan concept. He said the black people have got to be given their own country. They embarked upon this remarkable experiment of trying to cut up the country into bantustans. And these were created, at least on paper, 10 of them, and the move began to advance them towards independence.

LUCAS MANGOPE: My government would like to continue as we are, an autonomous and independent country, preferably with extended borders, continued friendly and cordial relations with our neighbors, and, if possible, international recognition.

YASMIN SOOKA: Most of them were stooges and really puppets of the apartheid state.

ALLISTER SPARKS: To give some veneer of reality to the fantasy of the bantustans, the the Afrikaner government threw money at them, built elaborate parliaments, housing for ministers, built airports, sports stadiums. It was to create separate states. It was not so much a two-state solution as a multi-state solution.

When I look at Israel, when I traveled through the West Bank, I was looking at bantustans—totally unviable, impossible states. In many respects, it struck me as being significantly worse than apartheid.

NA’EEM JEENAH: Bantustans, as much as we abhorred them in South Africa, bantustan leaders actually had more power and more control than the Palestinian Authority has. What Oslo did was create an authority, which allowed Israel to still control the occupied Palestinian territory, but control it through a Palestinian authority. Ostensibly, there’s a Palestinian—some kind of Palestinian authority that’s controlling, that’s in power of the occupied territory. In fact, Israel controls the borders. Israel controls taxes. Israel controls all kinds of things—access in and out of that area.

ALLISTER SPARKS: To me, the big analogy was that South Africa, in taking these two choices, where you’ve got two or more nationalisms laying claim to the same country, you either have got to find a way to live together, or you’ve got to have a fair partition. The big similarity between apartheid South Africa and the Israeli-Palestinian situation is that both decided to have a partition solution, and, in both cases, it was a grotesquely unfair partition.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Allister Sparks, a veteran apartheid-era journalist, and then we also heard from South African journalist Na’eem Jeenah. The bantustans and the parallel in terms of what’s going on in the Palestinian territories today?

ANA NOGUEIRA: I think that’s one of the most important similarities to look at, because ultimately it shows where we’re going, where we’re heading with this. As the clip showed, you know, South Africa tried to set up a multi-state solution, to de-citizenize the majority population, put them into these ghettos or bantustans. And it failed. The whole world saw it for what it was and refused to recognize it.

Israel was one of the few countries who actually did recognize it, in an attempt to legitimize this strategy. Ariel Sharon apparently told one of the Italian former prime ministers that the bantustan solution was the situation for Israel and Palestine. And we’ve seen over the last 20 years that the attempt to create a two-state solution has failed, and Israel has done everything in its power to thwart that. Even the most recent U.N. recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state, as soon as that was—you know, that referendum was held to the world and everyone supported it, Israel immediately showed everyone who’s boss by announcing the building of 3,000 settlements, withholding tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority, which cripples the Palestinian economy. So, this two-state solution really is a farce, and it really is more of a bantustan.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a clip from Roadmap to Apartheid, when narrator Alice Walker explains part of the history of the Afrikaner movement.

ALICE WALKER: A deeply religious people, the white Afrikaners of South Africa believed they had a God-given right to a land that they considered mostly uninhabited. In what is known as the "Great Trek," what Afrikaners consider their equivalent of the Exodus, thousands trekked into the wilderness in search of the promised land. The Afrikaners pushed into land the Africans considered theirs, and many battles ensued. Armed with guns and protected by a circle of covered wagons, known as a "laager," the Afrikaners easily beat back the indigenous masses that outnumbered them.

This image of the heroic settlers in their laager fending off the savage masses became the dominant mythology in Afrikaner history, morphing into the philosophy of apartheid in 1948. Under apartheid law, the one standard against which everything was judged was the security of the state, and the state meant the Afrikaner people. With every law enacted, the freedoms of the majority were whittled away in order to protect the privileges of a white minority.

In Pretoria today stands a monument to the Great Trek, a shrine to this history and philosophy. A concrete laager, that iconic image of the Afrikaners’ military defense tactic, completely surrounds the monument—a physical representation of a state of mind that sees enemies everywhere and will do anything to protect against them.

AMY GOODMAN: That is a clip from Roadmap to Apartheid, narrated by Alice Walker. And I wanted to turn to another one, how you explore how Israel was one of the closest allies and biggest arms suppliers to South Africa’s former apartheid regime. This clip is narrated by journalist Ali Abunimah and Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of The Unspoken Alliance.

ALI ABUNIMAH: The South African Defense Forces, as they were called, their army and navy was almost totally outfitted by Israel, because South Africa couldn’t get weapons from other countries. Israel was one of the only countries willing to break the arms embargo.

SASHA POLAKOW-SURANSKY: Well, the alliance started in earnest in 1973. By 1979, about 35 percent of Israel’s arms exports were going to South Africa, so they became a crucial client and also a crucial source for export revenue that Israel couldn’t give up easily. And it involved everything from tanks to aircraft, to ammunition, you name it. After ’77, there was a mandatory U.N. arms embargo. Israel violated the U.N. arms embargo openly, and many Israeli officials are happy to admit that. If you talk to South African defense officials, especially people from the air force, they tell you that Israel was an absolutely vital link and was a lifeline for them during the 1980s.

After 1977, the ideological component becomes much stronger. The top brass of the two militaries really felt that they were in a similar predicament and that they faced a common enemy. They also had a very similar conception of minority survival. There was a sense that Afrikaner nationalists were similar to Israelis, a beleaguered minority surrounded by a hostile majority.

AMY GOODMAN: That, a clip from Roadmap to Apartheid, Sasha Polakow-Suransky and, before that, Ali Abunimah. Eron Davidson, you were born in Israel. This is obviously an extremely sensitive comparison that many object to.

ERON DAVIDSON: It’s true. It is. It’s gaining more ground and becoming a more common discourse, though. And yeah, as you saw in the clip, the government ties through the '60s, ’70s and ’80s were extremely deep. They armed each other with nuclear weapons. The Israeli government did what's called "sanction busting." Where South Africa couldn’t export products, it sent them to Israel; they manufactured them and then sent them out to the rest of the world, labeling it "made in Israel." So—

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And now, obviously, the whole divestment movement is again another parallel in terms of what happened, in terms of resistance or worldwide resistance to the continuation of the oppression of the Palestinians, as it was in South Africa.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Yeah, there’s a very fast-growing global movement that is modeling itself on the anti-apartheid movement of the '80s and, you know, taking its cues from there, recognizing that apartheid ended as a result of internal resistance, as well, so there needs to be a Palestinian resistance, as well. But it was supported by this global movement that used boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure the apartheid government to change its ways. And this recent ANC announcement that it's going to abide by this BDS call by the Palestinians is very heartwarming and probably going to have a domino effect in terms of more states getting onto this movement.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a last clip from Roadmap to Apartheid. This is Eddie Makue with the South African Council of Churches. Later in the clip, we hear from Ali Abunimah and South African reporter Na’eem Jeenah.

EDDIE MAKUE: I have been able to visit Israel and Palestine on more than two occasions. And what I experienced there was such a crude reminder of a painful past in apartheid South Africa. We were largely controlled in the same way. The continuous checking at the roadblocks, and to see these young men and young women standing at the roadblock, having to perform the duties of a military junta, these parallels with Israel pained me severely while I was traveling through that lovely country.

ALI ABUNIMAH: The settlements are linked by modern superhighways, which are Jewish-only roads. Palestinians are not allowed to use them. And these superhighways crisscross across Palestinian land, linking the settlements together and linking them with Israeli cities inside the 1948 borders.

NA’EEM JEENAH: The separate roads that you find, the kind of whole settlement infrastructure that you find in the West Bank, for example, you know, which in South Africa we didn’t dream that we’d have roads that would be only for whites.

ALICE WALKER: In 2008, there were 800 kilometers of Jewish-only roads in the West Bank, or as the Israeli military prefers to call them, "sterile roads." Settlers are issued yellow license plates so that the military can distinguish them from Palestinian drivers.

AMY GOODMAN: A clip of Roadmap to Apartheid. Ana Nogueira, the film is now out on DVD?

ANA NOGUEIRA: Yes, you can find the film on our Roadmap—on our website, roadmaptoapartheid.org, or on Journeyman Pictures’ website. There’s online and broadcast sales, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Ana Nogueira and Eron Davidson, I want to thank you so much for being with us, as we turn, in our last segment, to Reverend Billy. Stay with us

When South Africa stood alone in the international community, Israel was their only friend in the world. They had so much in common. Both were colonial powers who knew good and well they were in the wrong and whose actions were completely indefensible except through appeals to religion. One scene in the movie I remember was when they were talking to an israeli settler who was watching palestinians walk by on a cordoned off walkway. After talking about how she and her people were "cleaning up the neighborhood" she proceeds to go and scream at some palestinian girls that they are whores. You see a lot of every day casual racism directed at the victims of Israeli apartheid. In a lot of ways the film demonstrates that the situation is quite a bit worse for the Palestinians. Leaders of Bantustans had power but the palestinians are at the mercy of Israel and the weapons the world's most powerful nation pays for.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 01:42

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# ? May 19, 2013 11:42

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

Israel wasn't South Africa's only friend- the United States bore that shame as well.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 02:06

Spiderfist Island: Feb 19, 2011

Pope Guilty posted:

Israel wasn't South Africa's only friend- the United States bore that shame as well.

At least the US wasn't so brazen as to house "diplomatic missions" from the Bantustans like Israel did. And then there's the matter that SA was most probably the one who sold nuclear secrets to Israel, and also that "we're both beset by hostile brown people" quote.

The US supported South Africa during Apartheid primarily as a boneheaded anticommunist policy rather than explicit racism. My friend from South Africa said that during apartheid, if you were an Afrikaner and supported racial equality there was a good chance you were a Communist or at least a dirty pinko. Obviously, as the 80s went on, more and more people realized how disgusting the situation there was regardless of political ideology, but the USA still considered it in the interests of Cold War policy to support the Apartheid regimes.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 02:33

ThirdPartyView: Mar 7, 2005; Always bet on Duke!

Spiderfist Island posted:

And then there's the matter that SA was most probably the one who sold nuclear secrets to Israel,

Wasn't that the other way around (Israel tried to sell it to South Africa)? I thought Shimon Peres had a letter offering to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 1970s?

# ? Jan 21, 2013 02:43

Spiderfist Island: Feb 19, 2011

ThirdPartyView posted:

Wasn't that the other way around (Israel tried to sell it to South Africa)? I thought Shimon Peres had a letter offering to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 1970s?

Maybe, I'm not too sure on the matter. You're probably right that it was the other way around.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 02:48

Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; Look at my horse; my horse is amazing.

I got the impression that Israel and Apartheid South Africa's nuclear weapon (and ballistic missile) programs were clandestinely joint efforts. I'm pretty sure I've read some military nerds' analysis of how a lot of the missiles were basically the same just with different names and minor cosmetic differences.

I think it's difficult to come up with hard evidence, though.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 07:46

EBT: Oct 29, 2005; Edible Bondage Tape. It's real. Look it up. I'd know. I'm a scientist

Spiderfist Island posted:

Maybe, I'm not too sure on the matter. You're probably right that it was the other way around.

France gave it to Israel.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 10:14

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; Mass extinction, darling, hypocrisy. These things are not good for me. Do you see what I see, dear?

EBT posted:

France gave it to Israel.

This. This has always been my understanding.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 10:16

lowly abject turd: Mar 23, 2009

ThirdPartyView posted:

Wasn't that the other way around (Israel tried to sell it to South Africa)? I thought Shimon Peres had a letter offering to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 1970s?

This guy is right

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...nuclear-weapons

also the french hooked up the isrealis though i don't think there's any hard evidence.

# ? Jan 21, 2013 21:39

Fire: Aug 26, 2002; As for myself I am a 28 year old special ed teacher from Jacksonville. Ironically, I myself also have asperger's syndrome. I'm a gamer, both video games and also tabletop role-playing games. I have an interest in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

The pettyness of Israel know no bounds

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/30/headlines#1306

quote:

Israel Makes Landmark No-Show at U.N. Human Rights Council Session

Israel has become the first country to boycott a U.N. Human Rights Council review of its record on human rights. The acting president of the Human Rights Council convened the session in Geneva on Tuesday, only to see that no Israeli representatives had shown up.
Remigiusz Henczel: "We were to convene this afternoon to proceed with the review of Israel; however, I see that the delegation of Israel is not in the room."
Israel severed contacts with the council last year after the body launched an investigation of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

When the whole world is against them they act hurt and cry crocodile tears and refuse to even consider that "maybe we're the ones who are wrong"

Fire fucked around with this message at Feb 2, 2013 around 18:00

# ? Feb 2, 2013 17:47

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

Fire posted:

The pettyness of Israel know no bounds

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/30/headlines#1306

When the whole world is against them they act butthurt and cry crocodile tears and refuse to even consider that "maybe we're the ones who are wrong"

Fire, "butthurt" trivializes surprise sex, but otherwise right on.

# ? Feb 2, 2013 17:57

Fire: Aug 26, 2002; As for myself I am a 28 year old special ed teacher from Jacksonville. Ironically, I myself also have asperger's syndrome. I'm a gamer, both video games and also tabletop role-playing games. I have an interest in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Real hurthling! posted:

Fire, "butthurt" trivializes surprise sex, but otherwise right on.

Oh. Sorry. I thought it had meant like a child who had been spanked. I fixed it. I will try to avoid using it in the future.

# ? Feb 2, 2013 18:00

Death Himself: Sep 28, 2004; I'M GETTING FUCKED UP THE ASS OVER HERE

Real hurthling! posted:

Fire, "butthurt" trivializes surprise sex, but otherwise right on.

Wait, what? That's not what "butthurt" means. It's a reference to spanking to describe when someone is angry in an overly emotional way. Picture a kid in ye olde boarding school glowering at the nun or something after getting spanked with a ruler for shooting spitballs.

# ? Feb 2, 2013 18:00

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

my apologies. butt hurt trivializes childhood abuse

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Feb 2, 2013 18:06

Beamed: Nov 26, 2010

Real hurthling! posted:

Fire, "butthurt" trivializes surprise sex, but otherwise right on.

Is this post for real?

Real hurthling! posted:

my apologies. butt hurt trivializes childhood abuse

Is this one?!

# ? Feb 2, 2013 18:17

Fire: Aug 26, 2002; As for myself I am a 28 year old special ed teacher from Jacksonville. Ironically, I myself also have asperger's syndrome. I'm a gamer, both video games and also tabletop role-playing games. I have an interest in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Anyway, Israel is petty and responds with immaturity, takes its ball and goes home whenever they are called out on their oppression.

# ? Feb 2, 2013 18:24

Buddha.: Sep 24, 2007; "Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little."

Real hurthling! posted:

my apologies. butt hurt trivializes childhood abuse

Your perception trivializes what they are trying to say

# ? Feb 2, 2013 18:28

SirPhoebos: Dec 10, 2007; THE STRONGESTER!!

butthurt derail aside, this is all really interesting.

Right now, Devil Child is on probation, so I recommend getting in your constructive comments now while you can.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 19:26

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

This looks like a really interesting movie, and I'm glad this thread exists. I find often that a lot of people don't really know what apartheid is and just think it was a unique practice to South Africa, but often describing it as how a society divides itself to keep one group of privileged people, in this case of apartheid, racially privileged, on top and the other parts of society oppressed, tends to work. Though I normally describe it as such, that South Africa was an apartheid state, the United States under Jim Crow was an apartheid state, and Israel because of X policies is an apartheid state. Sorry if that was confusing to read, still trying to wake up.

There was a great book that came out around the time of the Marvi Mara raid called The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, http://www.amazon.com/Unspoken-Alli...secret+alliance Which explored the deep relationship between Israel and South Africa. I haven't read it in about 3 years but it was really good, I'd break it out to post some quotes from it, but its at the bottom of a 5 and half foot stack of books and I don't feel like going though that right now. I remember posting about it on facebook at the time, and this friend of mine who's a huge zionist just tried to pick apart the book without ever having read it. How he knew some parts to pick at I'm still not sure of, must have looked up some reviews of it. Maybe I'll dig back into to facebook see if I can find anything from that time.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 20:15

Paul MaudDib: May 2, 2006

KomradeX posted:

There was a great book that came out around the time of the Marvi Mara raid called The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, http://www.amazon.com/Unspoken-Alli...secret+alliance Which explored the deep relationship between Israel and South Africa. I haven't read it in about 3 years but it was really good, I'd break it out to post some quotes from it, but its at the bottom of a 5 and half foot stack of books and I don't feel like going though that right now. I remember posting about it on facebook at the time, and this friend of mine who's a huge zionist just tried to pick apart the book without ever having read it. How he knew some parts to pick at I'm still not sure of, must have looked up some reviews of it. Maybe I'll dig back into to facebook see if I can find anything from that time.

My favorite bit of the Israel-South Africa relationship is the bit where Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. If it were anyone else in the world we would be making GBS threads ourselves over the proliferation concerns but instead we're off bothering Iran about fueling the nuclear reactors we built for them.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 20:33

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Oh entirely and when one realizes that The Sampson Doctrine is a thing with them it makes it all the more terrifying. If I remember from the book correctly, South Africa had a deal with Israel to give them tritium to give their bombs more oomf, in return for helping South Africa develop the bomb. All under the table of course without reporting anything to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, so in gross violation of NPT.

I even think the armored cars you see in the trailer from the South America comparison shots were jointly developed with Israel, "to only be used in Angola." If those trucks aren't them, then there was a combat vehicle program between the two with that rule. It was obviously never going to be used just on the Angolans and was obvious a beta test to be used eventually against Palestinians.

That's not even getting into the fact that Israel was the only country in the wold to violet the boycott of South Africa as national policy. Its really disgusting.

Does anyone know about if its true that in Israel they have two kinds of license plats for cars, ones denoting Jewish Israelis and one for Arabs and non Jews? I remember reading about it from a post in an I/P thread from maybe 3 or so years back. There was a video of this crew driving along in two different cars with the plates, and at checkpoints in the car with the plates denoting Jewish they were waved through without inspection, and when in the car with the Arab plates they would always be stopped and searched. I haven't been able to find that in ages, and I would like it when ever this argument comes up so I can actually cite that and not just say this is a thing that happens and when called on it, saying I don't have the link anymore but trust me. Since that's well a very unconvincing argument

# ? Feb 3, 2013 22:19

Paul MaudDib: May 2, 2006

KomradeX posted:

Does anyone know about if its true that in Israel they have two kinds of license plats for cars, ones denoting Jewish Israelis and one for Arabs and non Jews?

http://nigelparry.com/diary/ramallah/plates.html

# ? Feb 4, 2013 00:09

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Thank you, I made sure to bookmark it

# ? Feb 4, 2013 02:22

Will Rice: Jun 6, 2006; Will Sweep!

KomradeX posted:

Oh entirely and when one realizes that The Sampson Doctrine is a thing with them it makes it all the more terrifying. If I remember from the book correctly, South Africa had a deal with Israel to give them tritium to give their bombs more oomf, in return for helping South Africa develop the bomb. All under the table of course without reporting anything to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, so in gross violation of NPT.

Israel isn't a signatory to the NPT, so that is just grotesque rather than a treaty violation.

# ? Feb 4, 2013 02:38

Business Gorillas: Mar 11, 2009

Paul MaudDib posted:

http://nigelparry.com/diary/ramallah/plates.html

I'm not trying to trivialize anything (especially butthurt), but saying that one license plate belongs to Israeli Jews and Arabs and then going on to say that said plates are separated by race is a little misleading

# ? Feb 4, 2013 06:19

poopinmymouth: Mar 2, 2005; PROUD 2 B AMERICAN (these colors don't run)

Did you read it all? One of the last paragraphs:

quote:

Surprisingly, Jewish settlers living in Bet El settlement near Ramallah do not get plates with an "R" on an orange background. They have yellow Israeli plates. In other words, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jews and Arabs have license plates that show their race.

License plates are issued by race within palestinian territory. That it is only done in the occupied areas is not a semantic free pass to say it isn't being done.

# ? Feb 4, 2013 12:24

Repubilcrat: Jul 31, 2011

Pope Guilty posted:

Israel wasn't South Africa's only friend- the United States bore that shame as well.

And how about Great Britain and other nations in Western Europe?

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:44

Repubilcrat: Jul 31, 2011

poopinmymouth posted:

Did you read it all? One of the last paragraphs:

License plates are issued by race within palestinian territory. That it is only done in the occupied areas is not a semantic free pass to say it isn't being done.

Do Israeli Arabs get yellow license plates?

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:45

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# ? May 19, 2013 11:42

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

If I recall, only Israel had a national policy based on violating the UN boycott, where in the US and other Western Nations, may not have cracked down on private companies stilling doing business with South Africa as hard as they should have. It also wasn't the UK, France or the United States that helped South Africa develop an Atomic bomb.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Roadmap to Apartheid