FW de Klerk talks about the decision to free Mandela. The idea of homeland for the black population fell apart as did formal apartheid.
Israel today has been compared to the apartheid state and the stalled peace process envisages a “two state solution”. How this can happen now is far from clear as Palestinian land has been fragmented and reduced with the process continuing to appease the far-right settlers. How can these Palestinian fragments be more than “Bantustans” dominated by the US-backed Israeli state? The whole population needs to live together in a single unit underpinned by equality. While we know there is still a long way to go in South Africa with mind-sets of colonial rule enduring, there are no longer the formal structures and means of oppression which are evident as Israel continues to occupy and brutally coerce Palestinians not only in Gaza but across the West Bank.
As in the former segregated South Africa the cry goes up “if we don’t do something (i.e. oppress) they will push us into the sea”. Well that hasn’t happened and with the unified state seems an unlikely possibility. At present the Palestinian population are daily facing something far worse.