The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) cancelled a lecture by Israel’s deputy ambassador to South Africa, in response to student and faculty protests. UKZN deputy vice-chancellor explained: “[The Israeli diplomat will bring] likely reputational damage for the institution.”

PACBI Editorial

Israeli Apartheid: What’s in a Name?

This month, almost a year after South Africans succeeded in severing institutional ties between the University of Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal cancelled a lecture by a representative of the Israeli state.  It is significant that the first major successful implementations of the academic boycott of Israeli institutions should come from South Africa.  For all who wish to see, this highlights the way formerly oppressed South Africans recognize the parallels between their oppression under apartheid rule and the apartheid that continues to be practiced on the Palestinians.  It also puts the nature of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, specifically, and the Palestinian struggle more generally, in perspective.  It forces us to move beyond an occupation-only paradigm and to think instead of three-tiers of Israeli oppression: occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.  It is the apartheid paradigm that we wish to focus on here, as it is often the least understood or recognized, despite the mounting international studies that have shown beyond doubt that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. 

It is crucial for the world to understand that ending the occupation alone will not bring about justice for the majority of the Palestinian people, 69% of whom are refugees or internally displaced persons, a whole 50% are still in exile, and only 38% live in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territory, more than 40% of whom are refugees. Nor will it address all their rights under international law.  For justice and equality to prevail, we must understand Israeli apartheid, and resist it.