Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

“Peace process” is a very funny word for what’s happened, actually—it’s a “peace process” in the same sense that it was a “peace process” in South Africa when they instituted apartheid [the system of official white supremacy]. So when South Africa instituted its apartheid system in the 1950s and set up the Bantustans [partially self-governing black territories], that was also a “peace process”—it stabilized the country, there was peace for a while, and so on. Well, in many ways that’s similar to what’s called “the peace process” in the Middle East right now, although if you look closely, that comparison is not quite fair. It’s unfair to South Africa. See, the Bantustans that South Africa set up in the 1950s were much more viable economically than any scattered fragment that may someday be allowed for a Palestinian state under the Oslo Agreements.