South Africa

“What are we going to do about Oklahoma?" an audience member asked Howard Dean last night at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side.

Actually, Dean explained, Oklahoma is a lot like New York. "But New Yorkers are quicker on their feet about cognitive dissonance."  read more »

Jimmy Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in the title of his new book has generated a lot of controversy—the Washington Post reporting that a Middle East scholar has angrily resigned his affiliation with the Carter Center over Carter's book. The Democratic Party has of course banished Carter over the word, and, inevitably, Dershowitz has castigated the gentlemanly old prez.

The word is obviously loaded, as it echoes the South African regime that oppressed blacks, denying them many rights. Apartheid literally means separateness; and it's worth pointing out that the Israelis themselves call their forbidding wall, which goes well east of the Green Line, sometimes encircling Palestinian villages, a "separation fence." More importantly, if you've visited the Occupied Territories, apartheid seems a fair description of the isolation and abuse the Palestinians experience, and the denial of so many rights, including the freedom to move about, the freedom to seek employment. In this interview on Youtube, you can watch Avichai Sharon of Breaking the Silence describe how as an IDF soldier he used to confiscate Palestinians' cars for minor infractions and seize their keys and never return them, simply forget about them. There was a box of keys at his headquarters; no one had bothered to give them back. Jimmy Carter and a South African church leaderI met in Hebron both say that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians is in some ways "worse" than apartheid.

Apartheid is now a general term (with of course a South African shadow). According to the U.N.'s description, it means denying a subject group of different ethnicity "basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

The journalists who are now piping the Israel lobby's objections should visit the Occupied Territories and report for themselves on the real conditions of the Palestinians.

¡Hola!  read more »

Every now and then in life, and maybe just when you want it, god throws down a thunderbolt. It happened to me on Friday in Hebron, in the Occupied Territories. A group of seven Israelis and I were sitting in an Arab man's house, discussing the harassment and denial of movement to Palestinians in the center of that city—the second largest city in the West Bank—when I wondered for the 100th or thousandth time how the conditions I was seeing for myself in the occupation compared to apartheid in South Africa, which Americans rose up against 20 years ago.

Then the door opened and a group of international volunteers came in. I heard European accents, and a tall black man with a tan haversack walked across the room and took the seat right beside me.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"South Africa," he said.

"Do you know about apartheid?"

"I lived through apartheid."  read more »

"How does this compare to apartheid?"

As a detour from the beaten paths of stupidity and boredom that have come to symbolize contemporary  read more »

Many non-Jews are invited to a Passover meal, or Seder.  read more »

Lawyer fled apartheid to study law, bring Jefferson to South Africa; won Fulbright, fell in love; ra  read more »

Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World , by Eric Foner.  read more »

It's painful to think how an artist as fine and humane as Athol Fugard can see himself as quite sudd  read more »

Marathon ManLast fall, Mark Nearenberg, a 42-year-old lawyer, suddenly decided to run in the New Yor  read more »

It was an article of faith in my preadolescence that Ginger Baker, drummer, junkie and founder of th  read more »

Supermodels, particularly this one, are not famous for punctuality, but Ms.  read more »