'This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank
And, at the very time when Condi Rice is saying that she will defend Israel from non-existent attack, a group of visitors from the ANC have travelled to the West Bank and have concluded that what is being done to the Palestinians there is in some respects worse than what was imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.
Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank.
After a five-day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, some delegates expressed shock and dismay at conditions in the Israeli-controlled heart of Hebron. Uniquely among West Bank cities, 800 settlers now live there and segregation has seen the closure of nearly 3,000 Palestinian businesses and housing units. Palestinian cars (and in some sections pedestrians) are prohibited from using the once busy streets.
"Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here," said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the West Bank. "There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it's impossible."
Mrs Madlala-Routledge was careful to point out that there are differences between Apartheid and the situation in the Occupied Territories, but members of the team were also quick to point out that, where similarities exist, they are far worse in this case than they ever were under the Apartheid regime.
Fatima Hassan, a leading South African human rights lawyer, said: "The issue of separate roads, [different registration] of cars driven by different nationalities, the indignity of producing a permit any time a soldier asks for it, and of waiting in long queues in the boiling sun at checkpoints just to enter your own city, I think is worse than what we experienced during apartheid." She was speaking after the tour, which included a visit to the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem and a meeting with Israel's Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch.
One prominent member of the delegation, who declined to be named, said South Africa had been "much poorer" both during and after apartheid than the Palestinian territories. But he added: "The daily indignity to which the Palestinian population is subjected far outstrips the apartheid regime. And the effectiveness with which the bureaucracy implements the repressive measures far exceed that of the apartheid regime."
And the situation in Hebron, which is almost unique in the way it's 800 settlers have the city run to suit their convenience at the expense of the Palestinian majority, was brought home to the visiting delegation by an extraordinary example of the way the military in Hebron are there simply to facilitate the settlers wishes.
In Hebron's main Shuhada Street, the South African delegation was plunged into a confrontation after one of the local settlers' leaders disrupted the tour by unleashing a barrage of abuse through a megaphone at one of the Israeli guides. Amid angry arguments, police arrested three of the Israeli guides.
Mrs Madlala Routledge exclaimed: "This is ridiculous. Why are they arresting our guides and leaving the man with the megaphone?"
I have seen documentaries showing the behaviour of the settlers in Hebron and the way they treat the local Palestinian population is simply appalling. This was also noted by the visiting dignitaries.
Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliament member, said that the visit to Yad Vashem had been "extremely moving" because his mother had been a Holocaust survivor who lost many members of her family. "As you walk into Yad Vashem you see a quote that says in effect you should know a country not only by what it does but what it tolerates," he said. "So I found it very shocking to then come and here and see footage of teenagers heaping abuse on Palestinian children as they come out of school, and throwing stones at them. And that this should be done in the name of Judaism I find totally reprehensible.
"What the Holocaust teaches us more than anything else is that we must never turn our heads away in the face of injustice."
But these daily injustices are not only ignored, they are actually justified by the kind of comment made recently by Rice, which seeks to make every Israeli action a defensive one.
For some bizarre reason the US have decided to view the people carrying out the longest occupation in modern history as the victims of the piece. I find it simply gobsmacking and it undermines every action the US takes anywhere in the name of freedom and democracy.
You cannot back the very people carrying out a brutal occupation whilst stealing someone else's land and expect to be taken remotely seriously when you spout about liberation. It simply isn't credible.
And the last people such hogwash was ever going to work on were the South Africans. They have suffered under such oppression. And if they say what is taking place in the West Bank is worse than what took place under Apartheid South Africa then the US should bow it's head in shame at what it is facilitating. For even a cursory glance at the UN's voting record on this subject, and the American practice of vetoing any resolution critical of Israel, shows that Israel could not behave in this way without American connivance.
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