Democratic Palestine : 3 (ص 56)
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- Democratic Palestine : 3 (ص 56)
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homelands as independent govern-
ments except South Africa. The Israeli
Foreign Ministry and its South African
embassy deny any dealings with the
homelands. The leader of the Ciskei
homeland, Lennox Sebe, visited Israel
in March 1983 and on his return said
Israel and Ciskei would have closer
cooperation, including «special
weapons and know how», Sebe said
that the Israelis had sold the Ciskei a
twin engine jet previously used by
Menahem Begin at a «nominal fee» and
that Israel donated a police dog to his
brother, Lieut. Gen. Charles Sebe, the
chief of the security police.'5
Jordan, incidentally, sold British-
made weapons - 41 Centurion tanks and
54 Tigercat missiles - to South Africa.
Since France officially complied with the
United Nations embargo on arms sales
to South Africa in 1977, Egypt has
served as a conduit for French arms to
South Africa.'5” @
Bantustans A Zionist Dream
Israeli involvement in South Africa’s
bantustans deserves special note. It is
an extension of the Zionist state’s
alliance with the apartheid regime in
Pretoria, which enacted the ‘indepen-
dence’ of Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthats-
wana and Venda to finalize the disen-
franchisement of South Africa's Black
majority. Pretoria’s final solution bears
strong resemblance to Zionist plans for
banishing the Palestinians - population
transfer expulsion, ‘autonomy’ and ‘civil
administration’. Whether Pretoria or Tel
Aviv style, the thrust is to control the land
and resources, while reducing the
inhabitants to a powerless, cheap labour
reserve. In Ciskei, for example, half of
the citizens are migrant workers in South
Africa on temporary permits, while many
others commute there for work on a daily
basis.
‘Israel’, whose own economy relies .
heavily on labour from the 1967
occupied territories, has found new ‘vir-
gin soil’ for high-profit investment. The
residents of the bantustans are doubly
vulnerable: Expelled from their country
to tribal ‘homelands’ where land,
resources and job opportunities are
extremely scarce, they are also subject
to the control of reactionary chieftains,
whom Pretoria turned into ‘presidents’ of
the artificially created ‘republics’. These
tribal chiefs, who have collaborated with
Pretoria against their own people, have
no qualms about cooperation with
Palestine’s usurpers. They play the role
which the Zionists had hoped to assign
to the village leagues in the West Bank
and to Saad Haddad’s militias in South
Lebanon. Bophuthatswana’s Manpower
Minister, Rowan Cronje, was a minister
RA
in lan Smith’s minority regime in
Rhodesia. Ciskei’s rulers have a special
reputation for ruthlessness, and have
transformed a sports stadium into a con-
centration camp for opponents of apar-
theid. Needless to say, trade unions are
suppressed when not outright banned.
Along with firms from Taiwan, ‘Is-
rael’ was first to respond to Pretoria’s
drive to gain foreign investment in order
to give the bantustans a measure of cre-
dibility. In late 1982, the Ciskei Trade
Mission opened in Tel Aviv, flying its own
flag and staffed by two Israelis, Yosef
Schneider and Nat Rosenwasser, who
are employed by the Ciskei Foreign
Ministry. Bophuthatswana also has a
representative in ‘Israel’, Shabtai Kal-
monowitz, who claims diplomatic status.
The Israeli government disclaims
any Official relations with the bantustans,
which are recognized only by South
Africa and its satellites, yet relations
flourish in the name of business. As of
March 1983, three Israeli companies
had concessions in the bantustans for a
total investment of £1.36 million. Later in
the year, two Israeli firms signed a deal
to establish the first Israeli-owned fac-
tory in Ciskei, while another landed a
construction contract in Bophuthats-
wana.
Knowing the structure of the Zionist
state, this ‘private’ business is not
divorced from the Israeli political and
military hierarchy. On the contrary, there
are concrete indications that relations
are actually state-to-state:
-In 1983, and quite officially, ‘Israel’
was visited by the rulers of both
Bophuthatswana and Ciskei, as well as
by Venda’s entire chamber of com-
merce. This was the seventh visit for
Ciskei’s Sebe, who was received at the
Israeli Ministry of Tourism and Tel Aviv’s
Trade Fair Center, which is partially
owned by the municipality. On this sup-
posedly private visit, Sebe secured a
contract with the Israeli government to
supply and train his armed forces. Ini-
tially, six planes - at least one a military
helicopter- were sold to Ciskei, and 18
Ciskei residents arrived in ‘Israel’ for
pilot training.
-During the May 1983 visit of
Bophuthatswana’s Education and Man-
power Ministers, Israel Educational
Television agreed to make a master plan
for establishing and running an educa-
tional TV station in the bantustan, to
begin operation in 1985. Ya’acov Lor-
berbaum, who manages the Israeli sta-
tion, is also professor of communica-
tions at Bar Ilan University, which has
had links with the University of
Bophuthatswana since 1981. During
their visit, the two Bophuthatswana
ministers were also given a tour of Tel
Aviv's schools by Mayor Shlomo Lahat.
Surely, the apartheid politicians in Pre-
toria are happy to see the racist ideology
of Zionism taking charge of brainwash-
ing the African masses.
-Equally indicative of the official
nature of Israeli relations with the ban-
tustans is the status of the businessmen
involved. These include prominent Likud
politicians, at least two Knesset mem-
bers, a National Religious Party activist
and retired IDF officers; one of the latter,
Tat Aluf (Brig. Gen. Res.) Efraim Poran
served as military adviser to Prime
Minister Rabin and later Begin. - هو جزء من
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