Former South African President De Klerk Compares Israel's Apartheid Policies to South Africa's: "In Our Case, We Failed"

Apartheid South Africa - Apartheid Israel - graphic by Progressive Alaska

Here's a longer excerpt from De Klerk's December 29th interview on BBC Radio 4:

What I supported as a younger politician was exactly what the whole world now supports for Israel and Palestine, namely separate nation states will be the solution. In our case we failed.

There were three main reasons. We failed because the whites wanted too much land for themselves. We failed because the majority of blacks said this is not how we want our political rights. And we failed because we became economically totally integrated. We became an economic omelet and you can never again divide an omelet into the white and the yellow of the egg. And we realized in the early eighties we had landed in a place which has become morally unjustified.

Mondoweiss, in an article by Adam Horowitz, covers this too.  The comments are illuminating.  One commenter observes, "So, now BOTH sides the of South African apartheid fight are calling a spade a spade in Palestine."

Indeed.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it almost 10 years ago:

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused Israel of practising apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians.
 
The Nobel peace laureate said he was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to the Holy Land, adding that "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa".

So, now both the former oppressor (and former longtime ardent Israeli ally) of blueprint Apartheid, and the formerly oppressed, have joined together in condemning Israeli policies in the Occupied West Bank.