Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria

Second part of the two part series on Israel and Apartheid.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria: "srael's critics say that as the threats to the Jewish state receded it came more and more to resemble the apartheid model - particularly in its use of land and residency laws - until the similarities outweighed the differences. Liel says that was never the intent.

'The existential problems of Israel were real,' he says. 'Of the injustice we did, we're always ashamed. We always tried to behave democratically. Of course, on the private level there was a lot of discrimination - a lot, a lot. By the government also. But it was not a philosophy that was built on racism. A lot of it was security-oriented.'

Goldreich disagrees. 'It's a gross distortion. I'm surprised at Liel. In 1967, in the six day war, in this climate of euphoria - by intent, not by will of God or accident - the Israeli government occupied the territories of the West Bank and Gaza with a captive Palestinian population obviously in order to extend the area of Israel and to push the borders more distant from where they were,' he says.

'I and others like me, active after the six day war on public platforms, tried desperately to convince audiences throughout this country that peace agreements between Israel and Palestine [offer] greater security than occupation of territory and settlements. But the government wanted territory more than it wanted security."