In Part I we aim at three interrelated goals: first, to improve understanding of the reasons for failed conflict resolution in Israel/Palestine by contrasting the situation there with successful peacemaking in South Africa; second, to critically probe analogies between the two disparate situations; and third, to draw specific lessons from the South African experience for alternatives in the Middle East.

Analogies with the South African case are increasingly applied to Israel/Palestine for two different purposes: to showcase South Africa as an inspiring model for a negotiated settlement, and to label Israel a “colonial settler state” that should be confronted with...

Although Israel and apartheid South Africa are often equated as “colonial settler societies,” we argue that the differences outweigh the similarities. This analysis questions these popular analogies.¹ We believe that when policy makers and political activists reach a more nuanced understanding of the two disparate situations, they are likely to turn away from simplistic emulations of anti-apartheid struggles against Israel and search for more realistic compromises. In this respect, the South African model of postconflict reconciliation may indeed inspire revisions of unworkable policies.

For example, we hypothesize on the basis of the South African experience: An end of violence is...

Authors writing about divided societies need to clarify their position on four contested concepts with multiple meanings, particularly for a North American audience: nationalism, patriotism, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism.

As is well known, two versions ofnationalismneed to be distinguished: civic and ethnic nationalism.Civicnationalism is based on citizenship and allocates equal rights to all residents of a state. Provided they are legal citizens, their ethnic origin, race, or religion does not matter in these terms. Western liberal democracies have embraced civic nationalism as their constitutive principle, although an unofficial and informal ethnic hierarchy and social discrimination continues to...

This introduction to South Africa is meant for readers who are not familiar with the history of the country and apartheid. The brief overview summarizes turning points and sociopolitical developments well known to area experts who may wish to skip this chapter. However, because the Middle East is being compared with the South African transition, a minimal understanding of the historical background and the evolution of apartheid is essential for grasping differences and similarities.

Old South African history books date the country’s beginning to the arrival of the first Europeans at the tip of the continent in 1652. The Dutch...

In both the South African and Israeli conflicts, the economic power imbalance is the most striking aspect. Economically, both Palestinians and black South Africans are far weaker than their wealthier and resource-rich antagonists. Common asymmetrical power notwithstanding, the difference between Jewish Israelis and white South Africans, however, lies in the extent of their dependence on their opponents. The Israeli economy can do without Palestinian labor. Only in agriculture and construction do Palestinian workers constitute a significant minority workforce. Even in these sectors they are easily substituted with Asian and Balkan guest workers. The frequent closures of Gaza and the West...

On the two assumptions that no military solution is possible in the Middle East conflict and that no solution is likely to be imposed, it would be logical that sooner or later the adversaries will have to negotiate seriously again. Four basic positions maintain fluctuating constituency support: Islamic extremist, Jewish extremist, two-state solution, and multicultural common state.

The Islamist extremist camp considers the very existence of a Jewish state on Muslim soil an insult to the faith. It aims to defeat the colonizing intruder and restore pre-Zionist Palestine. Clearly, this position, which has long been discredited among responsible Palestinians themselves,...

Human memory is never an objective fact—a collection of fixed, stored data that can be downloaded or accumulated for later use. What is remembered and how events are recalled depends very much on social conditions. Interests shape individual, as well as collective, memory. Memory, therefore, amounts to a contingent social construction.

The academic study ofcollective memoryowes much to the classic work by French historian Maurice Halbwachs who coined the term with the same book title in 1941. Conceived in the Durkheimian tradition, Halbwachs stresses that history is constantly being rewritten. Through examples from the Christian scriptures, Halbwachs...

Globalization of justice denotes the increasing universal jurisdiction over gross human rights violations. Embarrassed by the passivity during the Holocaust, public opinion in Western democracies responded to the mobilization of shame. Influential global NGOs, like “Amnesty International,” “Human Rights Watch,” or “Doctors Without Borders” concern themselves primarily with protecting victims while others in conjunction with UN-mandated bodies, such as the two special tribunals on war crimes, target perpetrators across national boundaries. Although some major powers, such as China, Russia, and the United States, still resist the politics of embarrassment in the name of national sovereignty, impunity for serious political crimes...

The unexpected collapse of the 1993 Oslo agreement shows that a formal settlement is not the end but at best the beginning of a peace process. Oslo was South Africa in 1990: the return of exiles, delineated areas of exclusive and joint jurisdiction, with the goal of a final status settlement later. While the first South African democratic elections under an agreed-upon constitution achieved this goal, Israel/Palestine reverted to an ever-escalating civil war. The many reasons for these contrasting developments need not be enumerated here, except to draw one conclusion: Unless a negotiated settlement is underwritten by other efforts to...

Many left-liberal activists advocate similar anti-apartheid strategies (divestment, boycott) against “Apartheid Israel” and assume that strong pressure would produce similar outcomes. Such idealistic optimism may foster illusions. The underlying assumption that the South Africa model of conflict resolution readily lends itself to export ignores unique historical circumstances. It may actually retard imaginative new solutions by clinging to visions or processes of negotiation that may not work in another context. Above all, in South Africa an entire regime had to be changed while in Israel the occupation and the status of the territories is the main contentious issue. Therefore, a more...