Israel and South Africa in the apartheid period by Aviva Lori in Haaretz 5:27pm Sat Feb 22 '03 "The fact that I'm a Jew and my family is Israeli doesn't make me feel that Israel has the right to do the things that it does." print article Haaretz Friday, February 21, 2003 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=264719 Martin Fletcher believes an analogy can be drawn between Israel and South Africa. "I see more and more similarity between Israel and South Africa in the apartheid period," he says. "And this hurts. I say that if there isn't serious and foreseeable progress soon in the peace talks, the world will treat Israel the same way it treated South Africa. It will be subjected to all kinds of sanctions. The thing is that, to a large extent, Israel today is worse than South Africa. Because if you compare the situation of the blacks under apartheid to the situation of the Palestinians under the Israeli military occupation, the Palestinians' situation is much worse. "The idea of apartheid was that the blacks would live separately from the whites, but as long as they were living apart, they could do what they wanted. They were free to travel, to go to the cinema, to go to work, or wherever else they wanted. Here the Palestinians are not free to move because the military dictatorship of this government doesn't allow it. "I loved South Africa, but one day I realized that I couldn't remain there any longer. We had a gardener and a cook and they had a baby. One day I asked them, `Where is the baby?' and they said that he was at home, with their parents, because they weren't allowed to keep him with us. I said, `Are you crazy? Bring the baby here and raise him here.' So they brought him and a week later the police knocked on the door and said to me: `You are a very liberal person. It's very nice of you to allow them to keep the baby in your house, but you'll have to pay 10,000 rand (the equivalent of about $8,000 then), for every day that they stay with you.' In the end, I had to impose apartheid on this couple and that's when I understood that this place wasn't for me. "I wonder when the Israelis will look at the Palestinians' situation and understand that it's intolerable that a million people should live for so long stuck in their houses without being able to go anywhere. How long can this continue in the name of security? The world is losing its patience with the conflict. If Israel doesn't do something, its political situation in the world will become very uncomfortable. This is the only country in the world in which two different political systems are functioning simultaneously - a democratic one at home and a military dictatorship in the territories. One government is simultaneously running two systems and trying to juggle the two and it's not quite working. Martin Fletcher is NBC's veteran bureau chief in Israel add your comments