An interview with David Cronin by An Peeters

Naar aanleiding van de vertoning van Roadmap to Apartheid in kader van het filmfestival Eye on Palestine verzorgde An P. een interview met  David Cronin.

You have written articles for big newspapers such as The Guardian, Wall Street Journal Europe, EuropeanVoice, Irish Times, and The Sunday Tribune. Now you are an editor with 'The Electronic Intifada' and call yourself a campaigning journalist. What do you mean by that and what brought you to this?

From 2001 until 2006, I worked for European Voice, a newspaper owned by the group which publishes The Economist magazine. For much of that time, I was told by editors that I had to be ‘objective’. After some time I realized that what they meant by ‘objective’ was that you were not allowed to criticize the powerful in any serious way.

Part of my job included writing about the European Union’s foreign policy. One time when I wrote an article about the Middle East, my editor told me that I must not take sides between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Later, I realized that was an absurd and disgusting thing to say, given that Israel controls almost every aspect of Palestinian life.

I grew more and more uncomfortable working for the mainstream media. I believe journalists should be making life difficult for people with power, especially when they abuse that power.  Although I don’t tell other journalists how to do their job, I personally feel that journalists be prepared to speak out on issues of importance.

You are the author of the book 'Europe's Alliance with Israel - Aiding the Occupation'.  Can you tell us briefly what your main arguments are?

The EU likes to present itself as having a balanced position with regard to the Israel-Palestine situation. The Union’s representatives tell us constantly that they are very generous to the Palestinian people because they are the world’s largest donor of aid to the Palestinian Authority.

But when I started researching the EU’s relations with Israel, I realized that Israel is treated as if it is a full member of the Union. This relationship will become stronger in the next few months if the European Parliament approves a new trade agreement between the EU and Israel. This agreement is known as ACAA (Conformity Assessment of Industry Products). While it sounds dull and technical, it’s really very political. Once ACAA comes into force, Israel would be able to export manufactured goods to the EU without having to go through quality checks here. This means that Israel will take an important step of being integrated into the EU’s single market for goods and services.

This is happening despite how the EU is legally obliged to make any trade privileges it offers to Israel conditional on respect for human rights.

There are quite a few other examples of EU-Israel cooperation I could cite. One that I regard particularly troubling is how Israeli weapons companies are benefitting from European grants for scientific research. In some cases, Belgian universities are taking part in EU-funded projects involving Israel Aerospace Industries, which makes many of the pilotless warplanes (better known as drones) that Israel uses in attacking Gaza and keeping Gazans under surveillance. I know of a project linking the Catholic University of Leuven and Israel Aerospace Industries, for example.

In my view, it is completely unacceptable that European taxpayers’ money is rewarding companies that are profiting from Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

During the film festival 'Eye on Palestine' you will introduce the recently released documentary 'Roadmap to Apartheid'. What's your opinion on this documentary?

It’s a great documentary, which everyone should watch. I’d especially recommend it to anyone who hasn’t yet had a chance to study the Israel-Palestine situation in detail. While this situation is often described as complex, the documentary shows that it is not really difficult to understand. Once you’ve watched this documentary, I’d suggest reading a concise and digestible book called Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide by Ben White.

Do you think it's a good thing to compare the situation of Apartheid South-Africa with the regime of Israel nowadays?

Yes. One thing that struck me, while I watched Roadmap to Apartheid was that even the terminology used by Zionists in Israel-Palestine and white supremacists in South Africa was very similar – or in some cases identical.  In apartheid South Africa, black political activists were often subjected to ‘administrative detention’ – where they were imprisoned without charge or trial. Israel is doing the same with Palestinian prisoners today.

The United Nations’ official definition of apartheid refers to the domination of one racial group over another. Israel is clearly practicing a form of apartheid. This form of apartheid has many components, so I’ll list just a few: Palestinians in the West Bank are deprived of proper drinking water, while Jewish settlers a few kilometers away are able to splash around in swimming pools; roads in large parts of the West Bank are reserved exclusively for Israelis; Palestinians have to endure military checkpoints on a daily basis, while Israelis don’t.

The other point I think should be highlighted is that Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians may be even more extreme than the oppression of the black majority in South Africa during its apartheid era. Apartheid in South Africa was appalling but blacks were never subjected to an all-out attack using some of the most sophisticated warplanes ever invented. The people of Gaza know all about such attacks, however. Israel terrorized the 1.5 million people living in Gaza by bombing them continuously for three weeks in late 2008 and early 2009.

In the end of the documentary a South-African activist says that it is possible for the Palestinians and the Israelis to live together in peace. What has to be done before this can happen in your opinion?  And how can people like you and me contribute to this?

One of the main reasons why white rule ended in South Africa was that ordinary people around the world boycotted South Africa and insisted that their governments take action.

We can use the same tactics against Israeli apartheid. The campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel is still quite young but it is growing all the time.

BDS can be a very powerful tool in educating the public about Israeli apartheid. I first learned about apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s when my mother was buying groceries in a shop close to where I grew up. My mother walked up to the shopkeeper and said she would not be buying the oranges on sale there because they came from South Africa, a land where black people were denied basic rights.

By refusing to buy Israeli goods and by taking part in campaigns against Israeli apartheid, we can raise awareness about the dreadful crimes Israel is committing. With enough hard work, we can defeat Israeli apartheid – just as a previous generation of activists helped put an end to white rule in South Africa.