Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa

Pretty much every country in Africa at the turn of the 20th century had a European political majority. Rhodesia, Algeria, Congo, and outside of Africa, India, Vietnam, Syria, etc. All of these countries saw their nations "destroyed" "dismantled" or "eradicated" in exchange for peace. In some cases the Europeans declared themselves independent of the European home country. That made no difference. The native populations still insisted on "destroying", "eradicating" and "dismantling" these independent nations without setting aside any territory for separate homelands.

South Africa is different from Israel, but what if it had not been? What if the Afrikaaners, instead of implementing Apartheid had partitioned South Africa - in a way that Afrikaaners got a disproportionate amount and value of land. What if the outgunned natives "forced" the Afrikaaners to fight a "defensive" war which left most black people outside of the border? Then denied the refugees reentry and citizenship because that would threaten White South Africa's Afrikaaner character. Then what if the relatively few black people who remained were given full voting rights.

Under those conditions, which I consider very similar to Israel, I would advocate a one-state solution. What is the argument that black people must accept an Afrikaaner state, still vastly disproportionate in its land allocation? Still militarily and economically dominant over the black states by design? I doubt blacks in Africa would accept that even if someone can produce a good argument.

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