UPDATE: Read Benjamin Pogrund's response to the original article, in today's Guardian.

This article first first appeared on the MeretzUSA blog.

I was disturbed to find that the Feb. 7 issue of the UK daily, The Guardian, includes the first of a two-part investigative report called Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria. It's introduced online as follows: "During the second world war the future South African prime minister John Vorster was interned as a Nazi sympathiser. Three decades later he was being feted in Jerusalem. In the second part of his remarkable special report, Chris McGreal investigates the clandestine alliance between Israel and the apartheid regime, cemented with the ultimate gift of friendship - A-bomb technology."

It's a challenging article, just as this is a challenging issue. Clearly, there are parallels to be drawn in terms of separation, discrimination, military repression, security threats, "native" uprisings and resistance movements, plus an actual relationship (or alliance) between Israel and the apartheid regime, apparently beginning in 1976 -- after sub-Saharan African countries were bribed or otherwise influenced to turn against Israel following the Yom Kippur War -- reversing two decades of Israel's close friendship with and assistance of the emerging African states.

The reporter makes some (minimal) efforts at contextualizing, with quoting from a few diverse sources, but always comes back to a drumbeat of quotes and arguments that would tar Israel with the apartheid brush. And there are plenty of quotes (unfortunately) and evidences that would substantiate this view.

But if one sought them out, it would not be at all difficult to find Arab-Palestinian genocidal threats and gross anti-Semitic/racist views -- both historical and contemporary-- to substantiate reasonable fears on the Jewish-Israeli side. One critical difference between the African National Congress and the PLO, is that the former never practiced terrorist actions of major consequence against white civilians (ANC military actions tended to be sabotage against property); the difference is summed up by what Israeli doves used to say with regret about Arafat as a partner for peace: that he's no Mandela.

Also, you cannot regard as typical (as the article implies) the current level of repression and military action that Israel has engaged in since the Intifada began in 2000, as a reaction to attacks that have cost hundreds of civilian lives.

In the coming spring issue of Israel Horizons, the Meretz USA publication that I edit , we examine exactly this matter with "AN APARTHEID STATE? Israel is a democracy in which Arabs vote." Its author, Benjamin Pogrund, is a native of South Africa, a journalist who opposed apartheid and has written books on Nelson Mandela and the press under apartheid. As an Israeli today, he is an activist for peace and reconciliation, including as a board member of the Palestine-Israel Journal.

Here are two sample quotes from his article in Israel Horizons:
1) In Israel, discrimination is extensive, but it is not remotely comparable with the South African panoply of discrimination enforced by parliamentary legislation.

2) The barrier/wall/fence, as it is now, is a repugnant aspect of Israeli policy.... But calling it the "Apartheid Wall" is a debasement of the word for the sake of propaganda. "Apartheid" is a lazy label for the complexities of the Middle East conflict.

Ralph Seliger
Editor, ISRAEL HORIZONS
See MeretzUSA