<H2><b>ISRAEL THE BANTUSTAN OF PALESTINE</b></H2>

One of the most informative books of recent years showing Israel's research and development into apartheid is the book by Sasha Polakow-Suransky called "The unspoken Alliance - Israel's Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa."

The story unfolds with the election of the Nationalist Party to government in South Africa and Israel's independence, both in 1948.

South Africa's apartheid state lasted from 1948 till the democratic elections on 1994 when Nelson Mandela was historically elected as first black President of a multi-racial South Africa.

Israel's apartheid state has lasted from 1948 and onwards in an undemocratic Israel which is rapidly sliding into a police state - and which is already making apartheid South Africa look like an afternoon tea party.

Polakow-Suransky's detailed research into the relationship of these two countries has unearthed a fascinating analysis of the developing relationship of two countries becoming more and more isolated by the international communities because of their oppression of the people whose countries they were occupying and ruling with brutal force.

The developing relationship depended on trade and arms manufacture and above all, the assistance, each to the other, of the nuclear industry in each country and the development of nuclear devices for assault purposes.

In the process of this developing and deepening relationship, Israel learned a great deal about how the apartheid state operated, but of course has gone many degrees further by building its Berlin Wall in the occupied territory of the West Bank.

South Africa was in dire financial straits due to Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions which helped lead to the release of Mandela after 27 years of incarceration and 4 more bloody years before the apartheid regime was forced to hold the first free elections ever in that country. The reason the BDS campaign was so successful was because the United States of America was dragged, shouting and screaming all the way, into divesting from South Africa.

The problem in 2011 with a campaign of BDS against Israel is that Israel is supported by the United States, and although the campaign is making inroads, they are slower to bite because of this propping up of a non-democratic theocratic regime which in essence is no different from those operating in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries in the region which are undergoing revolutionary uprisings which are resulting in bloody reprisals by their governments, such as in Bahrain's and Syria's brutal crackdowns on its citizens.

Polakow-Suransky's conclusions to his book about the zionist state speak for themselves:

"On the eve of the Gaza disengagement in August 2005, the Jewish population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean dropped to below 50 percent for the first time since Israel became a state in 1948. As orange-clad settlers flooded Tel-Aviv's streets to protest Ariel Sharon's decision to withdraw, Haaretz noted, 'Following the upcoming disengagement, the proportion of Jews in territories under Israeli control will jump to 56.8 percent', giving Israel some breathing room. But due to a much higher birthrate among Palestinians and the declining number of immigrants arriving in Israel, it will be scarcely more than a decade before the Arab population in Israel and the occupied territories exceeds the Jewish population.

"Meanwhile, Israel's founding generation is disappearing. The old Holocaust survivors and their children, who saw Jewish survival in the shadow of genocide as Israel's raison d'etre, are dying off. A new generation of cosmopolitan, tech-savvy Israelis is taking their place, with a vision of Israel as a modern, prosperous, industrialised state integrated into the global economy. They have known nothing but war, occupation, and international opprobrium and want desperately for Israel to be accepted as a 'normal' country in the international community. The status quo of militarism, expanded settlements, and a refusal to offer Palestinians basic democratic rights is prolonging the conflict. If Israel does not move soon to dismantle West Bank settlements on a large scale and create a viable Palestinian state, it is only a matter of time before the demographic balance shifts and places Jews in a minority within the territories they control.

"When that time comes, the charges levelled by Carter and others will begin to stick and, as Olmert feared, Jews will find themselves as a minority governing over a largely disenfranchised majority - a situation that will inevitably lead to a struggle for equal rights that garners world-wide sympathy. Worse still, Israel will be incontrovertibly branded with the apartheid label that it has fought tenaciously for decades to avoid."