The analogy has been used by some scholars, United Nations investigators, and human rights groups critical of Israeli policy.
[2][3] Critics of Israeli policy say that "a system of control" in the Israeli-occupied
West Bank, including the ID system, Israeli settlements, separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens around many of these settlements,
military checkpoints, marriage law, the
West Bank barrier, use of Palestinians as cheaper labour, Palestinian West Bank
exclaves, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the
Israeli-occupied territories, resembles some aspects of the South African apartheid regime, and that elements of Israel's occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, contrary to international law.
[4] Some commentators extend the analogy to include treatment of
Arab citizens of Israel, describing their citizenship status as
second-class.
[12]
Opponents of the analogy claim that the comparison is factually,
[13] morally,
[13] and historically
[14] inaccurate and intended to delegitimize Israel.
[1][15][16][17] Opponents state that the West Bank and Gaza are not part of sovereign Israel. They argue that though the internal free movement of Palestinians is heavily regulated by the Israeli government, the territories are governed by the elected
Palestinian Authority and
Hamas leaders, so they cannot be compared to the internal policies of apartheid South Africa.
[18][19][20]
With regard to the situation within Israel itself, critics of the analogy argue that Israel cannot be called an apartheid state because unlike South Africa which enshrined its racial segregation policies in law,
Israeli law is the same for Jewish citizens and other Israeli citizens, with no explicit distinction between race, creed or sex.
[23]However, others believe that even if Israeli law does not make explicit distinction between categories of citizens, in effect it privileges Jewish citizens and discriminates against non-Jewish, and particularly Arab, citizens of the state, by creating benefits for IDF service, which is not mandatory for Arabs (but is optional).
[24][25][26]
History of the analogy[edit]
In 1961, the South African prime minister, and the architect of South Africa's apartheid policies,
Hendrik Verwoerd, dismissed an Israeli vote against South African apartheid at the United Nations, saying, "Israel is not consistent in its new anti-apartheid attitude ... they took Israel away from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state."
[27] Since then, a number of sources have used the apartheid analogy in their examination of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1967, after the
Six-Day War,
David Ben-Gurion stated that unless Israel managed to 'rid itself of the territories and their Arab population as soon as possible,' it would become an apartheid state.
[28] In the early 1970s, Arabic language magazines of the
PLO and
PFLPcompared the Israeli proposals for a Palestinian autonomy to the
Bantustan strategy of South Africa.
[27] In 1979 the Palestinian sociologist Elia Zureik argued that while not
de jure an apartheid state, Israeli society was characterized by a latent form of apartheid.
[29] The analogy emerged with some frequency in both academic and activist writings in the 1980–90s,
[30] when
Uri Davis,
Meron Benvenisti,
Richard Locke and
Anthony Stewart employed the analogy to describe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
In the 1990s, the analogy gained prominence after Israel, as a result of the
Oslo Accords, granted the Palestinians limited self-government in the form of the
Palestinian Authority and established a system of permits and checkpoints in the Palestinian Territories. The analogy has gained additional traction following Israel's construction of the
West Bank Barrier.
[27] By 2013 the analogy between the West Bank and Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa was widely drawn in international circles.
[31] Also in the United States, where the notion had previously been taboo, Israel's rule over the occupied territories was increasingly compared to apartheid.
[32][33]
Hafrada[edit]
Since its first public introductions, the concept-turned-policy or paradigm has dominated Israeli political and cultural discourse and debate.
[34][38][39]
International analysis[edit]
Analysis by Adam and Moodley[edit]
Heribert Adam of
Simon Fraser University and
Kogila Moodley of the
University of British Columbia, in their 2005 book-length study
Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking Between Israelis and Palestinians, argue the controversy over terminology arises because Israel as a state is unique in the region. Israel is perceived as a Western democracy and is thus likely to be judged by the standards of such a state. Western commentators, too, may feel "a greater affinity to a like minded polity than to an autocratic Third World state."
[55] Israel also claims to be a home for the worldwide
Jewish diaspora[55] and a strategic outpost of the Western world that "is heavily bankrolled by U.S. taxpayers" who can be viewed as sharing a
collective responsibility for its behaviors.
[55] Radical Islamists, according to some analysts, "use Israeli policies to mobilize anti-Western sentiment",
[55] leading to a situation in which "(u)nconditional U.S. support for Israeli expansionism potentially unites Muslim moderates with jihadists".
[55]
Adam and Moodley note that Jewish historical suffering has imbued
Zionism with a subjective sense of moral validity that the whites ruling South Africa never had: "Afrikaner moral standing was constantly undermined by exclusion and domination of blacks, even subconsciously in the minds of its beneficiaries. In contrast, the similar Israeli dispossession of Palestinians is perceived as self-defense and therefore not immoral."
[56] They also suggest that academic comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa that see both dominant groups as "settler societies" leave unanswered the question of "when and how settlers become indigenous", as well as failing to take into account that Israeli's
Jewish immigrants view themselves as returning home.
[57] "In their self-concept, Zionists are simply returning to their ancestral homeland from which they were dispersed two millennia ago. Originally most did not intend to exploit native labor and resources, as colonizers do." Adam and Moodley stress, "because people give meaning to their lives and interpret their worlds through these diverse ideological prisms, the perceptions are real and have to be taken seriously."
[58]
Adam and Moodley argue that notwithstanding universal suffrage within Israel proper, if the occupied Palestinian territories and settler presence are considered part of the entity under analysis, the comparison between a disenfranchised African population in apartheid South Africa and the Palestinians under Israeli occupation gains more validity.
[59]
Adam and Moodley also argue that "apartheid ideologues" who justified their rule by claiming self-defense against "African National Congress (ANC)-led communism" found that excuse outdated after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, whereas "continued Arab hostilities sustain the Israeli perception of justifiable self-defense."
[60]
Adam and Moodley contend that the relationship of South African apartheid to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been misinterpreted as justifying suicide bombing and glorifying martyrdom. They argue that the ANC "never endorsed terrorism", and stress "not one suicide has been committed in the cause of a thirty-year-long armed struggle, although in practice the ANC drifted increasingly toward violence during the latter years of apartheid."
[61]
Analysis by international legal team[edit]
In 2009, a comprehensive 18-month independent academic study was completed for the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa for the South African Department of Foreign Affairs on the legal status of Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
[62] The specific questions examined in the study were whether Israeli policies are consistent with colonialism and apartheid, as these practices and regimes are spelled out in relevant international legal instruments. The second question, regarding apartheid, was the major focus of the study. Authors and analysts contributing to the study included jurists, academics and international lawyers from Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, South Africa, England, Ireland and the United States. The team considered whether human rights law can be applied to cases of belligerent occupation, the legal context in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and related international law and comparative practices. The question of apartheid was examined through a dual approach: reference to international law and comparison to policies and practices by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Initially released as a report, the report was later edited and published in 2012 (by Pluto Press) as
Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Regarding international law, the team reported that Israel's practices in the OPT correlate almost entirely with the definition of apartheid as established in Article 2 of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. (The exception was the Convention's reference to genocidal policies, which were not found to be part of Israeli practices, although the team noted that genocide was not the policy in apartheid South Africa either.) Comparison to South African laws and practices by the apartheid regime also found strong correlations with Israeli practices, including violations of international standards for due process (such as illegal detention); discriminatory privileges based on ascribed ethnicity (legally, as Jewish or non-Jewish); draconian enforced ethnic segregation in all parts of life, including by confining groups to ethnic "reserves and ghettoes"; comprehensive restrictions on individual freedoms, such as movement and expression; a dual legal system based on ethno-national identity (Jewish or Palestinian); denationalization (denial of citizenship); and a special system of laws designed selectively to punish any Palestinian resistance to the system.
Thematically, the team concluded that Israel's practices could be grouped into three "pillars" of apartheid comparable to practices in South Africa:
- The first pillar "derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews".
- The second pillar is reflected in "Israel's 'grand' policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel's extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians".
- The third pillar is "Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group."
Crime of apartheid and Israel[edit]
In 1973 the
International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the
United Nations General Assembly.
[63] The ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group ... over another racial group ... and systematically oppressing them".
[64] In 2002 the crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".
[65]
In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard stated, "elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law" and suggested that the "legal consequences of a prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid" be put to the
International Court of Justice.
[66]
In 2009 South Africa's statutory research agency the
Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) published a legal study finding that, "the State of Israel exercises control in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid." (See under above section,'Analysis by International Legal Team'.)
In 2010 United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine
Richard A. Falk reported that criminal apartheid features of the Israeli occupation had been entrenched in the three years since the report of his predecessor, John Dugard.
[67] In March 2011, Falk said, "The continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians is creating an intolerable situation ... [and] can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing."
[68]
The question of whether Israelis and Palestinians can be said to constitute "racial groups" has been a point of contention in regard to the applicability of the ICSPCA and Article 7 of the Rome Statute. Political writer Ronald Bruce St John has argued that in regards to the ICSPCA Israeli policy in the West Bank cannot technically be defined as apartheid, because it lacks the racial component. However he then states that with the 2002 introduction of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "the emphasis shifts to an identifiable national, ethnic or cultural group, as opposed to a racial group," in which case "Israeli policy in the West Bank clearly constitutes a form of apartheid with an effect on the Palestinian people much the same as apartheid had on the non-White population in South Africa."
[63] The HSRC's 2009 report states that in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jewish and Palestinian identities are "socially constructed as groups distinguished by ancestry or descent as well as nationality, ethnicity, and religion". On this basis, the study concludes that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can be considered "racial groups" for the purposes of the definition of apartheid in international law.
[62]
Activists for Palestinian rights have accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid.
[69] For example, in 2006, at the UN-sponsored International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People,
Phyllis Bennis, co-chair of the International Coordinating Network on Palestine, alleged that the crime of apartheid is being committed by Israel.
[70] Likewise, Zahir Kolliah of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid has argued that the indigenous Palestinian population lives under an apartheid regime settler colony as described by the ICSPCA.
[71]
In contrast, according to former Judge of the
Constitutional Court of South Africa Richard Goldstone, the situation in Israel does not conform to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute. As examples, Goldstone pointed to the facts that Israeli Arabs vote, have political representation in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on the Israeli Supreme Court, and that Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment. According to Goldstone, in Israel equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal, and inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
[72]
Israeli citizenship law[edit]
The
Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law was passed by the
Knesset in 2003 as an interim emergency measure after Israel had suffered its worst ever spate of suicide bombings
[73] and after several Palestinians who had been granted permanent residency on the grounds of family reunification took part in terrorist attacks in Israel.
[74] The law makes inhabitants of Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and areas governed by the Palestinian Authority ineligible for the automatic granting of Israeli citizenship and residency permits that is usually available through marriage to an Israeli citizen. This applies equally to a spouse of any Israeli citizen, whether Arab or Jewish, but in practice the law mostly affects Palestinian Israelis living in the towns bordering the West Bank.
[73] The law was intended to be temporary but has since been extended annually.
[75][76]
According to
Amnon Rubinstein, a backer of the citizenship law, there are many international precedents for banning citizens of an enemy country in wartime, and with Hamas, which runs the Palestinian Authority, refusing to recognise Israel, that label applies to the Palestinian Authority.
[73]
In formulating the law, the government cited security concerns that terrorist organizations try to enlist Palestinians who have already received or will receive Israeli documentation and that the security services have a hard time distinguishing between Palestinians who might help the terrorists and those who will not.
[77] A representative for the State, said in court, "In the past two years, 27 people who had applied for permission to join their spouses in Israel were directly involved in attempted or actual attacks."
[76]
In the Israeli Supreme Court decision on this matter, Deputy Chief Justice
Mishael Cheshin argued that, "Israeli citizens [do not] enjoy a constitutional right to bring a foreign national into Israel ... and it is the right—moreover, it is the duty—of the state, of any state, to protect its residents from those wishing to harm them. And it derives from this that the state is entitled to prevent the immigration of enemy nationals into it—even if they are spouses of Israeli citizens—while it is waging an armed conflict with that same enemy."
[78]
The law was upheld in May 2006, by the
Supreme Court of Israel on a six to five vote. Israel's Chief Justice,
Aharon Barak, sided with the minority on the bench, declaring: "This violation of rights is directed against Arab citizens of Israel. As a result, therefore, the law is a violation of the right of Arab citizens in Israel to equality."
[79] Zehava Gal-On, one of the founders of
B'Tselem and a Knesset member with the
Meretz-Yachad party, stated that with the ruling "The Supreme Court could have taken a braver decision and not relegated us to the level of an apartheid state."
[80] The law was also criticized by
Amnesty International[81] and
Human Rights Watch.
[82] In 2007, the restriction was expanded to citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
[76]
Heribert Adam and
Kogila Moodley cite the marriage law as an example of how Arab Israelis "resemble in many ways 'Colored' and Indian South Africans".
[6] They write: "Both Israeli Palestinians and Colored and Indian South Africans are restricted to second-class citizen status when another ethnic group monopolizes state power, treats the minorities as intrinsically suspect, and legally prohibits their access to land or allocates civil service positions or per capita expenditure on education differentially between dominant and minority citizens."
In June 2008 after the law was extended for another year,
Amos Schocken, the publisher of the Israeli daily
Haaretz, wrote in an opinion article, that the law severely discriminates when comparing the rights of young Israeli Jewish citizens and young Israeli Arab citizens who marry, and that its existence in the law books turns Israel into an apartheid state.
[83]
Political rights, voting and representation, judiciary[edit]
In Israel[edit]
Israel's Declaration of Independence called for the establishment of a Jewish state with equality of social and political rights, irrespective of religion, race, or sex.
[84]The rights of citizens are guaranteed by a set of
basic laws (Israel does not have a written constitution).
[85] Although this set of laws does not explicitly include the term "right to equality", the Israeli Supreme Court has consistently interpreted "Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty"
[86] and "Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1994)"
[87] as guaranteeing equal rights for all Israeli citizens.
[88] According to the 2010
U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, Israeli law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, and the government effectively enforced these prohibitions.
[89]
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs states, "Arab Israelis are citizens of Israel with equal rights" and "only legal distinction between Arab and Jewish citizens is not one of rights, but rather of civic duty". However a number of official sources acknowledge that Arab citizens of Israel experience systematic discrimination in many aspects of life. Israeli High Court Justice (Ret.) Theodor Or chaired the
Or Commission, which noted that discrimination against the country's Arab citizens had been documented in a large number of professional surveys and studies, had been confirmed in court judgments and government resolutions, and had also found expression in reports by the state comptroller and in other official documents. Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert criticised in 2008 what he called "deliberate and insufferable" discrimination against Arabs at the hands of the Israeli establishment.
[90]
According to the 2004
U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, Israel maintained the full range of normal equal rights found in Western liberal democracies, and in specific issues "generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there were problems in some areas," and the government had done "little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens".
[91] Reports of subsequent years also identified discrimination against Arab citizens as a problem area for Israel, but did not repeat the assertion that Israel had done little to reduce discrimination.
[92] Before 2004, too, there had been some significant improvements in Israeli Arab rights. For example, there has been a steady extension of Israeli Arab rights to lease or purchase land formerly restricted to Jewish applicants, such as that owned by the
Jewish National Fund or the Jewish Agency. These groups, established by Jews during the Ottoman period to aid in building up a viable Jewish community in Ottoman Palestine, purchased land, including arid desert and swamps, that could be reclaimed, leased to and farmed by Jews, thus encouraging Jewish immigration. After the establishment of the state of Israel, the
Israel Lands Authority oversaw the administration of these properties. On 8 March 2000, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israeli Arabs, too, had an equal right to purchase long-term leases of such land, even inside previously solely Jewish communities and villages. The court ruled that the government may not allocate land based on religion or ethnicity and may not prevent Arab citizens from living wherever they choose: "The principle of equality prohibits the state from distinguishing between its citizens on the basis of religion or nationality," Chief Justice Aharon Barak wrote. "The principle also applies to the allocation of state land.... The Jewish character of the state does not permit Israel to discriminate between its citizens."
[93] Commenting on this ruling, the British philosopher Bernard Harrison has written, in a book chapter dealing with the "apartheid Israel" accusation: "No doubt much more needs to be done. But we are discussing, remember, the question of whether Israel is, or is not, an 'apartheid state'. It is not merely hard, but impossible, to imagine the South African Supreme Court, under the premiership of Hendrik Verwoerd, say, delivering an analogous decision, because to have done so would have struck at the root of the entire system of apartheid, which was nothing if not a system for separating the races by separating the areas they were permitted to occupy."
[94]
Some observers have accused Israeli officials of partiality, for example being more lenient on Jews who kill Arabs in Israel, as compared to Israeli Arabs who kill Jews in Israel.
[95]
In Gaza and the West Bank[edit]
Arabs living in the
West Bank and
Gaza Strip, areas occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and deemed to be occupied territory under
international law, are under the civil control of the
Palestinian Authority, and are not Israeli citizens. In some areas of the West Bank, they are under Israeli security control.
In 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reported that Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the occupied territories are subject to different criminal laws, leading to longer detention and harsher punishments for Palestinians than for Israelis for the same offenses.
[96] Amnesty International has reported that in the West Bank, Israeli settlers and soldiers who engage in abuses against Palestinians, including unlawful killings, enjoy "impunity" from punishment and are rarely prosecuted. However Palestinians detained by Israeli security forces may be imprisoned for prolonged periods of time, and reports of their torture and other ill-treatment are not credibly investigated.
[97][98][99]
John Dugard has compared Israeli imprisonment of Palestinians to policies of Apartheid-era South Africa, saying "Apartheid's security police practiced torture on a large scale. So do the Israeli security forces. There were many political prisoners on Robben Island but there are more Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails."
[100]
In the early 2000s, several
community settlements in the Negev and the Galilee were accused of barring Arab applicants from moving in. In 2010, the Knesset passed legislation that allowed admissions committees to function in smaller communities in the Galilee and the Negev, while explicitly forbidding committees to bar applicants on the basis of race, religion, sex, ethnicity, disability, personal status, age, parenthood, sexual orientation, country of origin, political views, or political affiliation.
[101][102] Critics, however, say the law gives the privately run admissions committees a wide latitude over public lands, and believe it will worsen discrimination against the Arab minority.
[103]
Population Registry Law[edit]
Chris McGreal,
The Guardian's former chief Israel correspondent, compared Israel's Population Registry Law of 1965, which requires all residents of Israel to register their nationality, to South Africa's Apartheid-era
Population Registration Act, which categorized South Africans according to racial definitions in order to determine who could live in what land. According to McGreal, the Israeli identification cards determine where people are permitted to live, affects access to some government welfare programs, and has impact on how people are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen.
[104]
Land and infrastructure[edit]
Yossi Paritzky, a former Israeli minister, has used the apartheid analogy to describe a proposed bill that banned non-Jewish citizens of Israel from purchasing land privately owned by the
Jewish National Fund (JNF).
[9] The JNF has long insisted that its lands be sold only to Jews, due to the fact that the land was purchased with money from Jewish donors for the purpose of settling Jews in Israel.
Noam Chomsky, American professor of linguistics and political activist, has stated, "if you look at the land laws, and decode it all, what it amounts to is that about ninety percent of the land inside Israel is reserved to what's called 'people of Jewish race, religion and origin' ... That's in the contract between the state of Israel and the Jewish National Fund, which is a non-Israeli organization, which, however, by various bureaucratic arrangements, administers the land.... All of this is covered up enough so that nobody can say, "Look, here's an apartheid law."
[105]
In 2006,
Chris McGreal of
The Guardian stated that as a result of the government's control over most of the land in Israel, the vast majority of land in Israel is not available to non-Jews.
[104] In 2007 in response to a 2004 petition filed by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Attorney General
Menachem Mazuz ruled that the policy was discriminatory, it has been ruled that the JNF must sell land to non-Jews, and will be compensated with other land for any such land to ensure that the overall amount of Jewish-owned land in Israel remains unchanged.
[106]
Representative of a Palestinian view is that of
Leila Farsakh, associate professor of Political Science at
University of Massachusetts Boston, according to whom, after 1977, "the military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) expropriated and enclosed Palestinian land and allowed the transfer of Israeli settlers to the occupied territories: they continued to be governed by Israeli laws. The government also enacted different military laws and decrees to regulate the civilian, economic and legal affairs of Palestinian inhabitants. These strangled the Palestinian economy and increased its dependence and integration into Israel." Farsakh says, "[m]any view these Israeli policies of territorial integration and societal separation as apartheid, even if they were never given such a name."
[107]
Henry Siegman, a former national director of the
American Jewish Congress, has stated that the network of
settlements in the West Bank has created an "irreversible colonial project" aimed to foreclose the possibility of a viable
Palestinian state. According to Siegman, in accomplishing this Israel has "crossed the threshold from 'the only democracy in the Middle East' to the only apartheid regime in the Western world". Siegman argues that denial of both self-determination and Israeli citizenship to Palestinians amounts to a "double disenfranchisement", which when based on ethnicity amounts to racism. Siegman continues to state that reserving democracy for privileged citizens and keeping others "behind checkpoints and barbed wire fences" is the opposite of democracy.
[108]
John Dugard has compared Israel's confiscation of Palestinian farms and land, and destruction of Palestinian homes, to similar policies of Apartheid-era South Africa.
[100]
Travel and movement[edit]
Palestinians living in the non-
annexed portions of the West Bank do not have Israeli citizenship or voting rights in Israel, but are subject to movement restrictions of the Israeli government. Israel has created roads and checkpoints in the West Bank with the stated purpose of preventing the uninhibited movement of
suicide bombers and
militants in the region. The human rights NGO B'Tselem has indicated that such policies have isolated some Palestinian communities and state that Israel's road regime "based on the principle of separation through discrimination, bears striking similarities to the racist apartheid regime that existed in South Africa until 1994".
[109][110][111] The International Court of Justice stated that the fundamental rights of the Palestinian population of the occupied territories are guaranteed by the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and that Israel could not deny them on the grounds of security.
[112] Marwan Bishara, a teacher of international relations at the
American University of Paris, has claimed that the restrictions on the movement of goods between Israel and the West Bank are "a
de facto apartheid system".
[113] Michael Oren argues that none of this even remotely resembles apartheid, since "the vast majority of settlers and Palestinians choose to live apart because of cultural and historical differences, not segregation, though thousands of them do work side by side. The separate roads were created in response to terrorist attacks – not to segregate Palestinians but to save Jewish lives. And Israeli roads are used by Israeli Jews and Arabs alike."
[114]
David Saks claims that the comparison of Israel's policies in the West Bank (Gaza having been evacuated in 2005) is fundamentally false, since Israel and the Palestinian territories are in a state of war, with Israeli population centers continuously bombarded from Gaza. Saks says that the Israelis have responded to this situation with checkpoints, curfews, security fences, segregated road systems, military incursions, and other similar measures, which impact negatively on the everyday life of ordinary Palestinians, and indeed, he says, it is legitimate to demand of Israelis that they not go further than is necessary in ensuring their safety. However, he asserts it is false to accuse the Israelis of apartheid-like strategies when they are facing military threats that have no parallel in pre-1994 South Africa.
[115]
A permit and
closure system was introduced in 1990.
Leila Farsakh maintains that this system imposes "on Palestinians similar conditions to those faced by blacks under the pass laws. Like the pass laws, the permit system controlled population movement according to the settlers' unilaterally defined considerations." In response to the
al-Aqsa intifada, Israel modified the permit system and fragmented the WBGS [West Bank and Gaza Strip] territorially. "In April 2002 Israel declared that the WBGS would be cut into eight main areas, outside which Palestinians could not live without a permit."
[107] John Dugard has said these laws "resemble, but in severity go far beyond, apartheid's pass system".
[118]
B'Tselem wrote in 2004, "Palestinians are barred from or have restricted access to 450 miles of West Bank roads, a system with 'clear similarities' to South Africa's former apartheid regime."
[119]
In October 2005 the
Israel Defense Forces stopped Palestinians from driving on
Highway 60, as part of a plan for a separate Road Network for Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank. The road had been sealed after the fatal shooting of three settlers near Bethlehem. As of 2005, no private Palestinian cars were permitted on the road although public transport was still allowed. B'Tselem described this as a first step towards "total 'road apartheid'".
[120] In 2011, Major General Nitzan Alon abolished separate transportation systems on the West Bank, permitting Palestinians to ride alongside Israelis. The measure has been protested by settlers, who argue the presence of Palestinians could be a security concern; some women cited sexual harassment as an issue ("What parent would allow his daughter to travel on a bus full of Arabs?" an interviewee mused).
[121] The IDF order was reportedly overturned by
Moshe Ya'alon who, in response to pressure from settler groups, issued a directive, operative from December 2014, that would deny Palestinians passage on buses running from Israel to the West Bank. Instead they would be restricted to a route far from settlements through the
Eyal checkpoint near
Qalqilya. The measure affects Palestinians who travel towards
Ariel on the Trans-Samaria highway.
[122][123] The decision was said to be made on security grounds, though according to Haaretz military officials state that Palestinian use of such transport poses no security threat. Justice Minister
Tzipi Livini asked the Israeli
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to examine the ban's legality and Weinstein immediately demanded that Ya'alon provide an explanation for his decision.
[124] Israeli security sources were quoted saying the decision had nothing to do with public buses and said that the goal was to supervise the entrance into and exit out of Israeli territory, thereby decreasing the chance of terrorist attacks inside Israel. Critics on the left described the policy, which would make using Israeli buses very cumbersome to Palestinians, as tantamount to apartheid, and something that would render Israel a pariah state.
[125]
Criticism of Israeli policies on similar grounds has arisen from, among others,
Haggai Alon, a senior defence advisor. In an interview with
Haaretz, Haggai Alon, an adviser to the then Israeli defence minister
Amir Peretz, claimed that the army was "carrying out an apartheid policy" and was "emptying Hebron of Arabs, setting up roadblocks without anyone knowing where and how many, Judaizing the Jordan Valley and cooperating openly and blatantly with the settlers".
[126] On 29 December 2009 Israel's High Court of Justice accepted the
Association for Civil Rights in Israel's petition against an IDF order barring Palestinians from driving on
Highway 443. The ruling should come into effect five months after being issued, allowing Palestinians to use the road.
[127] According to plans laid out by the Israeli Defence Forces to implement the court's ruling, Palestinian use of the road is seen to remain limited.
[128] In March 2013, the Israeli Afikim bus company announced that, as from 4 March 2013, it would be operating separate bus lines for Jews and Arabs in the occupied territories.
[129][130][131]
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian legislator and former presidential candidate, said that apartheid was the only word to describe Israel's creation of separate roads for Palestinians, its discrimination in
allocation of water, ongoing settlement construction, and differences in per capita income between Israelis (both Jewish and non-Jewish) and Palestinians. He also asserted that the US-sponsored peace process gave Israel time to "continue settlements building, to continue having the checkpoints and restrictions, to continue creating this apartheid system".
[132] The World Bank found in 2009 that Israeli settlements in the West Bank (which amount to 15% of the population of the West Bank) are given access to over 80% of its fresh water resources, despite the fact that the Oslo accords call for "joint" management of such resources. This has created, according to the Bank, "real water shortages" for the Palestinians.
[133] In January 2012, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
French parliament published a report describing Israel's water policies in the West Bank as "a weapon serving the new apartheid". The report noted that the 450,000 Israeli settlers used more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians, "in contravention of international law", that Palestinians are not allowed to use the underground aquifers, and that Israel was deliberately destroying wells, reservoirs and water purification plants. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the report was "loaded with the language of vicious propaganda, far removed from any professional criticism with which one could argue intelligently".
[134] A report by the
Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies concludes that Israel has fulfilled the water agreements it has made with the Palestinians, and the author has commented that the situation is "just the opposite of apartheid" as Israel has provided water infrastructure to more than 700 Palestinian villages.
[135][136] The
Association for Civil Rights in Israel concluded in 2008 that a segregated road network in the West Bank, expansion of Jewish settlements, restriction of the growth of Palestinian towns and discriminatory granting of services, budgets and access to natural resources are "a blatant violation of the principle of equality and in many ways reminiscent of the Apartheid regime in South Africa". The group reversed its previous reluctance to use the comparison to South Africa because "things are getting worse rather than better", according to spokeswoman Melanie Takefman.
[137]
West Bank barrier[edit]
Supporters of the West Bank barrier consider it to be largely responsible for reducing incidents of terrorism by 90% from 2002 to 2005.
[148][149] Israel's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, stated in 2004 that the barrier is not a border but a temporary defensive measure designed to protect Israeli civilians from terrorist infiltration and attack, and can be dismantled if appropriate.
[150] The
Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the barrier is defensive and accepted the government's position that the route is based on security considerations.
[151]
The
International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 in an advisory opinion that the wall is illegal where it extends beyond the 1967
Green Line into the
West Bank. Israel disagreed with the ruling, but its supreme court subsequently ordered the barrier to be moved in sections where its route was seen to cause more hardship to Palestinians than security concerns could motivate.
[152]
In January 2004,
Ahmed Qureia, then the Palestinian Prime Minister, said that the building of the West Bank barrier, and the associated Israeli absorption of parts of the West Bank, constituted "an apartheid solution to put the Palestinians in cantons".
[153] Colin Powell, then
U.S. Secretary of State, commented on Queria's statements by affirming U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, while saying, "I don't believe that we can accept a situation that results in anything that one might characterize as apartheid or Bantuism."
[154]
Malcolm Hedding, a South African minister who worked against South African apartheid and Executive Director of the
Christian Zionist organisation '
International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem', said that the West Bank barrier has nothing to do with apartheid and everything to do with Israel's self-defense. He said that Israel has proven its desire to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians while granting political rights to its own Arab citizens within a liberal democratic system, but that the Palestinians remain committed to Israel's destruction. By contrast, he says, it was a tiny minority in South Africa that held power and once democracy came, the National Party that had dominated the masses disappeared.
[155][156][157]
Education[edit]
Separate and unequal education systems were a central part of apartheid in South Africa, as part of a deliberate strategy designed to limit black children to a life of manual labor. Some disparities between Jews and Arabs in Israel's education system exist, although they are not nearly so significant and the intent not so malign.
[104] The Israeli Pupils' Rights Law of 2000 prohibits educators from establishing different rights, obligations and disciplinary standards for students of different religions. Educational institutions may not discriminate against religious minorities in admissions or expulsion decisions, or when developing curricula or assigning students to classes.
[158] Unlike apartheid South Africa, In Israel, education is free and compulsory for all citizens, from elementary school to the end of high school, and university access is based on uniform tuition for all citizens.
[159]
Israel has Hebrew-language and Arabic-language schools, while some schools are bilingual. Most Arabs study in Arabic, while a small number of Arab parents choose to enroll their children in Hebrew schools. All of Israel's eight universities use Hebrew.
[104]In 1992 a government report concluded that nearly twice as much money was allocated to each Jewish child as to each Arab pupil.
[104] Likewise, a 2004 Human Rights Watch report identified significant disparities in education spending and stated that discrimination against Arab children affects every aspect of the education system. Exam pass-rate for Arab pupils were about one-third lower than that for their Jewish compatriots.
[104] A 2007 report of the UN
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern over the existence of separate Arab and Jewish sectors may amount to racial segregation, and recommended that mixed Arab–Jewish communities and schools, and intercultural education should be promoted.
[160] In a 2008 report Israel responded that parents are entitled to enroll their children in the educational institution of their choice, whether the spoken language is Hebrew, Arabic or bilingual. It also noted that Israel promotes a variety of programs that promote intercultural cooperation, tolerance and understanding.
[161] In 2007, Israeli Education Ministry announced a plan to increase funding for schools in Arab communities. According to a ministry official, "At the end of the process, a lot of money will be directed toward schools with students from families with low education and income levels, mainly in the Arab sector."
[162] The Education Ministry prepared a five-year plan to close the gaps and raise the number of students eligible for high school matriculation.
[163]
- Clark, Jeanne Ellen. Engaging the Apartheid Analogy in Israel/Palestine. Willamette University. p. 5
- Jump up^ Davis, Uri (2003). Apartheid Israel: possibilities for the struggle within. Zed Books. pp. 86–87. ISBN 1-84277-339-9.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Shimoni, Gideon (1980). Jews and Zionism: The South African Experience 1910–1967. Cape Town: Oxford UP. pp. 310–336. ISBN 0-19-570179-8.
- Jump up^ e.g. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard, A/HRC/4/17, 29 January 2007, pp. 3, 23 [1]
- Jump up^ Uri Davis, Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within, Zed Books, London 2004 pp. 51f
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking Between Israelis and Palestinians PDF, University College London Press, p. 15. ISBN 1-84472-130-2
- Jump up^ The A Word: Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter,CounterPunch 19 December 2006
- Jump up^ Power and History in the Middle East: A Conversation with Ilan Pappe Logos Journal, vol 3 no 1, Winter 2004
- ^ Jump up to:a b c "Our Apartheid State". Accessed: 4 April 2011. "The third racist decision was the one that banned Arab citizens of Israel from purchasing national land. Well, not all land, but only a part of it — Jewish National Fund land."
- Jump up^ Sarid, Yossi. "Yes, it is apartheid". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ "In day-long Security Council meeting, Palestine observer says Israeli security wall involves de factoannexation of occupied land". Retrieved 26 March2010. "How can these Israeli war crimes be appropriately described?" he asked. "Is this classic colonization? We believe it is worse than that. Is this a new apartheid system? We believe it is worse than that. It is a combination that has drawn upon these two ugly phenomena, amounting to the lowest level thinking of racist colonizers."
- Jump up^ Please see references:[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
- ^ Jump up to:a b "A High Holidays Resource Guide" (PDF).The Jewish Federations of North America. Israel Action Network. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
- Jump up^ "NGO 'Apartheid State' Campaign: Deliberately Immoral or Intellectually Lazy?". NGO Monitor. 22 March 2010. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
- ^ Jump up to:a b The Apartheid Propaganda Gerald M. Steinberg
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace (New York: John Wiley, 2009), pp. 20–25, 28–29, 36, 44–48
- ^ Jump up to:a b E.g., see Sabel, Robbie: "The Campaign to Delegitimize Israel with the False charge of Apartheid" at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2009. Global Law Forum, at:http://www.globallawforum.org/ViewPublication.aspx?ArticleId=110; David Matas, Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism (Toronto: The Dunburn Group, 2005), pp. 53–55
- ^ Jump up to:a b "Truth, Lies & Stereotypes" (PDF).StandWithUs. Retrieved 29 December 2006.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Bard, Mitchell G. "Myth and Fact: Apartheid?". Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara / Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved8 November 2006.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Mitchel G, Bard (2008). "Israel Is Not An Apartheid State". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved5 April 2008.
- ^ Jump up to:a b It's Not Apartheid Michael Kinsley, The Washington Post, 12 December 2006
- Jump up^ Israel has its faults, but apartheid isn't one of them The Washington Post Richard Cohen, 2 March 2010
- Jump up^ Please see references:[20][21][22]
- Jump up^ Munayyer, Yousef (23 May 2012). "Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
- Jump up^ Laor, Yitzhak (17 January 2012). "Israeli Arabs have never been equal before the law". Haaretz. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
- Jump up^ White, Ben (20 December 2011). Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy. Pluto Press.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c The Empire's New Walls: Sovereignty, Neo-liberalism, and the Production of Space in Post-apartheid South Africa and Post-Oslo Palestine/Israel. Andrew James Clarno. 2009. p. 66–67
- Jump up^ Shourideh C. Molavi,Stateless Citizenship: The Palestinian-Arab Citizens of Israel,BRILL 2013 p. 99, n. 118.
- Jump up^ Elia Zureik,The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism, Routledge & K. Paul, 1979 p. 16:'While official de jure apartheid of the African variety does not exist in Israel, national apartheid on the latent and informal levels ... is a characteristic feature of Israeli society.' cited by David Lyon 'Identification, colonialism, and control: surveillant sorting in Israel/Palestine', in Elia Zureik, David Lyon, Yasmeen Abu-Laban (eds.), Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine: Population, Territory and Power, Routledge 2011 pp. 49–65, p. 58
- Jump up^ Shourideh C. Molavi, Stateless Citizenship: The Palestinian-Arab Citizens of Israel,BRILL 2013 p. 99
- Jump up^ Settler policy imperils Israel's foundations,Financial Times, 21 February 2013: "Faced with widely drawn international parallels between the West Bank and the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa, senior figures in Mr Netanyahu's Likud party have begun to admit the danger."
- Jump up^ Obama urged: act tough on Israel or risk collapse of two-state solution (The Guardian, 19 March 2013)
- Jump up^ Palestinians draw parallels with Mandela's anti-apartheid struggle (The Guardian, 12 December 2013 "Comparisons between the former regime in South Africa and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories have become relatively commonplace—not just by Palestinians and their supporters, but also among Israelis and the international community."
- ^ Jump up to:a b Gideon Levy (4 November 2000). "Republished as an excerpt of the original 28 October 2000 article in the Courrier International, under the title Au fil des jours, Périphéries explore quelques pistes – chroniques, critiques, citations, liens pointus : Israël-Palestine, revue de presse". Périphéries. Cite error: Invalid
<ref> tag; name "Gideon_Levy" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- Jump up^ According to the Milon and Masada dictionaries, hafrada translates into English as "separation", "segregation", "division", "severance", "disassociation" or "divorce". Milon: English Hebrew DictionaryAlcalai, Reuben (1981). The Complete Hebrew-English Dictionary. Masada.
- Jump up^ Undoing and Redoing Corpus Planning, Michael G. Clyne, p.403, "In the Language of "us" and "them" we could have expected an undoing when an integrative policy of the two communities was introduced. Obviously the [Peace] Process moves in the opposite direction: separation. Actually, one of the most popular arguments use by the government to justify its policy is the "danger" (“the demographic bomb”, “the Arab womb") of a “bi-national state" if no separation is made: the Process is thus a measure taken to secure the Jewish majority. The term ‘separation’ ‘’hafrada’’ has become extremely popular during the Process referring to fences built around Palestinian autonomous enclaves, to roads pave in the Territories exclusively for Israelis to the decrease of the number of Palestinians employed in Israel or allowed to enter into it altogether. The stereotypes of the Palestinian society as backward" have not changed either."
- Jump up^ Beyond the Two-State Solution: A Jewish Political Essay, Yehouda Shenhav, "Israel's present separation policy – known in Israel as hafrada, a Hebrew Word which can mean both segregation and separation – is a natural continuation of the cultural-political position designed by the new nostalgia and of the demographic project, which constitutes the continuation of the war through other means."
- ^ Jump up to:a b Esther Zandberg (28 July 2005). "Surroundings: Separation Seems to Have Spread Everywhere".Ha'aretz. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Eric Rozenman (April & May 2001)."Today's Arab Israelis, Tomorrow's Israel: Why "Separation" Can’t Be the Answer for Peace in Policy Review". Hoover Institution. Retrieved 2007-03-17. Cite error: Invalid
<ref> tag; name "Eric_Rozenman" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Eric_Rozenman" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Jeff Halper, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). "Nishul (Displacement): Israel's form of Apartheid". Retrieved 2007-03-17. Cite error: Invalid
<ref> tag; name "Jeff_Halper" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Alain Epp Weaver (1 January 2007). "Further footnotes on Zionism, Yoder, and Boyarin". Cross Currents. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
- Jump up^ Mazin B. Qumsiyeh (28 June 2006). "Discussion on: Searching for Peace in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict" (PDF). Institute of Strategic and Development Studies, Andreas Papandreou,University of Athens. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
- Jump up^ "Transcript from broadcast of The McLaughlin Group". The McLaughlin Group. Taped 24 May 2002 & broadcast 1 to 2 June 2002. Retrieved2007-03-22.
- Jump up^ Ben Shani (19 January 2007). ""The Result of the Hafrada Policy is Quiet in Hebron, But All Await the Storm" (Hebrew)". Nana.co.il Magazine (original from Channel 10 News).
- Jump up^ Fred Schlomka (28 May 2006). "Toward a Third Intifada". Common Dreams (originally published inThe Baltimore Sun).
- ^ Jump up to:a b James Bowen (28 September 2006). "Making Israel Take Responsibility". Retrieved 2007-03-22.Cite error: Invalid
<ref> tag; name "James_Bowen" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- Jump up^ Cultural Autonomy in Contemporary Europe, edited by David J. Smith, Karl Cordell, "The Hebrew term Hafrada is the official descriptor of the policy of the Israeli Government to separate the Palestinian population in the territories occupied by Israel from the Israeli population, by means such as the West Bank barrier and the unilateral disengagement from those territories. The barrier is thus sometimes called gader ha'hafrada (separation fence) in Hebrew. The term Hafrada has striking similarities with the term apanheid, as this term mean 'apartness' in Afrikaans and Hafrada is the closest Hebrew equivalent."
- Jump up^ [2], Sunday Herald, 28 May 2006, "Even among Israelis, the term 'Hafrada', 'separation or apartheid in Hebrew' has entered the mainstream lexicon, despite strident denials by the Jewish state that it is engaged in any such process."
- ^ Jump up to:a b Neil Sandler (11 March 2002). "Israel: A Saudi Peace Proposal Puts Sharon in a Bind". Business Week Online.
- Jump up^ Tanya Reinhart (22 March 2004). "Israeli policy in Gaza: Sharon's Disengagement". Center for Research on Globalization.
- Jump up^ Aaron S. Klieman (15 January 2000). Compromising Palestine: A Guide to Final Status Negotiations. Columbia University Press. p. 1.ISBN 0-231-11789-2.
- Jump up^ [3], 13 January 2014, A/HRC/25/67, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
- Jump up^ Times of Israel
- Jump up^ Reuters
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Heriber, Adam & Moodley, Kogila. op cit. p. xiii.
- Jump up^ Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. op. cit. p. xv.
- Jump up^ Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. op. cit. p. 22.
- Jump up^ Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. op. cit. p. 25.
- Jump up^ Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking Between Israelis and Palestinians (2005) excerpt PDF, University College London Press, p. 20f. ISBN 1-84472-130-2
Second-class citizenship: "Above all, both Israeli Palestinians and Coloured and Indian South Africans are restricted to second-class citizen status when another ethnic group monopolizes state power, treats the minorities as intrinsically suspect, and legally prohibits their access to land or allocates civil service positions or per capita expenditure on education differently between dominant and minority citizens."
"Mandela's vision succeeded because it evoked a universal morality. Common ideological and economic bonds existed between the antagonists inside South Africa. An outdated racial hierarchy eventually clashed with economic imperatives when the costs exceeded the benefits of racial minority rule in a global pariah state. In the Israeli case, outside support sustains intransigence. Only when the colonial policies of occupation embarrass and threaten their stronger patrons abroad or can no longer be so easily contained inside (as apartheid racial capitalism did in the Cold War competition) can outside pressure on Israel be expected. This turning of the tables will impact the Israeli public as much as outside perception is affected by visionary local leaders and events. Despite gains in global empathy, Palestinians are still at the mercy of a superior adversary in every respect, which even a Mandela would not have been able to overcome. In this impasse, hope is offered by Israeli progressive moral dissent on the Left as well as opportunistic calculations on the Right that the occupation harms the occupier. Israel has the capacity to reach a meaningful compromise, but has yet to prove its willingness. The Palestinian mainstream has the willingness, but lacks the capacity, to initiate a fair settlement."
- Jump up^ Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. op. cit. p. xvi.
- Jump up^ Adam, Heribert & Moodley, Kogila. op. cit. p. x.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Middle East Project of the Democracy and Governance Programme, Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (May 2009). "Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law". Cape Town, South Africa: Human Sciences Research Council: 17–22. Archived from the original on 22 June 2009. Retrieved14 October 2011.
... practices in South Africa are not the test or benchmark for a finding of apartheid elsewhere, as the principal instrument which provides this test lies in the terms of the Apartheid Convention itself.
(pdf 3.0 MiB) The report does not represent an official position of the HSRC. South African Academic Study Finds that Israel is Practicing Apartheid and Colonialism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, May 2009.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Ronald Bruce St John (1 February 2007)."Apartheid By Any Other Name". Foreign Policy in Focus. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
In 1973, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
- Jump up^ United Nations (30 November 2006). "International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid" (PDF). Retrieved 25 April2010.
For the purpose of the present Convention, the term 'the crime of apartheid', which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts....
- Jump up^ United Nations (2002). "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Part 2, Article 7"(PDF). pp. 5–6. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- Jump up^ Dugard, John. "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard"(PDF). p. 3.
The international community has identified three regimes as inimical to human rights—colonialism, apartheid and foreign occupation. Israel is clearly in military occupation of the OPT. At the same time elements of the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law. What are the legal consequences of a regime of prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid for the occupied people, the occupying Power and third States? It is suggested that this question might appropriately be put to the International Court of Justice for a further advisory opinion.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Falk, Richard (30 August 2010). "Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967". A/65/331. United Nations General Assembly. Retrieved 28 October 2010.
- Jump up^ Falk, Richard (8 July 2011). "The tactic of arresting Palestinian children". al Jazeera English. Retrieved11 July 2011.
- Jump up^ MacAllister, Karine (Summer 2008). "Applicability of the Crime of Apartheid to Israel". BDS and the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement. BADIL. Retrieved16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ "United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People". 7 September 2006.
- Jump up^ Kolliah, Zahir (25 February 2007). "The South African Connection". Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. Archived from the original on 10 October 2007. Retrieved 3 March 2010.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Israel and the Apartheid Slander
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Who's a citizen? Israel.(Israel's citizenship laws). The Economist (US). 20 May 2006
- Jump up^ Right praises, Left slams High Court rejection of petitions against Citizenship Law. The Jerusalem Post. 13 January 2011
- Jump up^ Ben Lynfield. "Marriage law divides Israeli Arab families". Christian Science Monitor.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Families fight 'racist' Israeli citizenship lawHeather Sharp BBC News Tuesday, 9 March 2010
- Jump up^ Dan Izenberg (15 May 2006). "High Court upholds law denying Palestinian spouses Citizenship". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2 September 2006.
- Jump up^ "Israel's 'Demographic Demon' in Court". Middle East Report Online. 1 June 2006.
- Jump up^ Macintyre, Donald (15 May 2006). "'Racist' marriage law upheld by Israel". Jerusalem: The Independent. Retrieved 17 April 2010.
- Jump up^ Left appalled by citizenship ruling at The Jerusalem Post by Sheera Claire Frenkel
- Jump up^ Amnesty. Israel and the Occupied Territories: Torn Apart: Families split by discriminatory policies
- Jump up^ Human Rights Watch. Israel: Don't Outlaw Family Life
- Jump up^ Amos Schocken (27 June 2008). "Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ "Declaration of Israel's Independence 1948". The Knesset, Israel's parliamentry body. Retrieved29 June 2007.
- Jump up^ Basic Laws – Introduction
- Jump up^ Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty
- Jump up^ Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1994)
- Jump up^ The Arab Citizens of Israel
- Jump up^ 2010 Human Rights Report: Israel and the occupied territories
- Jump up^ Stern, Yoav (12 November 2008). "Olmert decries 'deliberate and insufferable' discrimination against Arabs". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ Israel and the occupied territories
- Jump up^ Israel and the occupied territories (2005)
Israel and the occupied territories (2006)
- Jump up^ Qadan v. Israel Lands Administration, HCJ (Israeli Supreme Court) 6698/95, 8 March 2000, as cited by Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p. 157, n. 7 (see p. 253).
- Jump up^ Bernard Harrison, The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), p. 133.
- Jump up^ Israel: One law for all? (Al Jazeera, 13 January 2010)
- Jump up^ "Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Israel".CERD/C/ISR/CO/13. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 14 June 2007. Retrieved28 October 2010.
- Jump up^ "Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories". Amnesty International. 2008. Retrieved 16 May2010.
- Jump up^ "Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories | Amnesty International Report 2009". Report2009.amnesty.org. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- Jump up^ "Israel has established a system of segregation and discrimination, in which two populations living in the same area are subject to different systems of law (...) In Africaans they call it apartheid."
- ^ Jump up to:a b Apartheid and the occupation of Palestine (Al Jazeera, 4 November 2011)
- Jump up^ http://www.nevo.co.il/law_word/law14/law-2286.pdf
- Jump up^ Jack Khoury (14 September 2011). "Israel's High Court orders Jewish Galilee town to accept Arab couple". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ New Israeli laws will increase discrimination against Arabs, critics say. 24 March 2011. Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f McGreal, Chris (6 February 2006)."Worlds apart". The Guardian (London). Retrieved5 May 2010.
- Jump up^ "Interview with Noam Chomsky" Safundi, Volume 5, Issue 1 & 2 April 2004 , pp. 1–16, by Christopher Lee
- Jump up^ Pfeffer, Anshel; Stern, Yoav (24 September 2007)."High Court delays ruling on JNF land sales to non-Jews". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Farsakh, Leila. "Israel an apartheid state?",Le Monde diplomatique, November 2003
- Jump up^ Imposing Middle East Peace (The Nation, 7 January 2010)
- Jump up^ "1 Forbidden Roads Israel's Discriminatory Road Regime in the West Bank" (PDF). B'tselem. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
- Jump up^ Forbidden Checkpoints and Roads at B'Tselem
- Jump up^ Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-semitism and the Abuse of History. University of California Press. 2008. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-520-24989-9. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
- Jump up^ see ICJ Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion) paragraphs 127 and 128
- Jump up^ Bishara, Marwan. "Israel's Pass Laws Will Wreck Peace Hopes". Retrieved 21 October 2006.
- Jump up^ "Israel isn't, and will never be, an apartheid state". Los Angeles Times. 17 May 2014.
- ^ Jump up to:a b David Saks, Israel, Democracy, and the Apartheid Myth, Midstream, Winter 2010.
- Jump up^ Israeli forces begin the removal of infrastructure of the Huwwara. Bahrain News Agency. 10 February 2011
- Jump up^ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory (2009). "West bank movement and access update: November 2009"(PDF). United Nations.
- ^ Jump up to:a bhttp://www.fairelectionsinternational.org/countries/mideast/palestine/4426.html Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped, John Dugard
- Jump up^ "Forbidden Roads: The Discriminatory West Bank Road Regime". B'Tselem. August 2004. Retrieved2 November 2006.
- Jump up^ McGreal, Chris. "Israel accused of 'road apartheid' in West Bank", The Guardian, 20 October 2005.
- Jump up^ Elhanan Miller, 'At West Bank rally, settlers demand Palestinian-free buses', The Times of Israel 7 September 2014.
- Jump up^ Chaim Levinson,'Ya'alon bans Palestinians from Israeli-run bus lines in West Bank, following settler pressure,' Haaretz 26 October 2014.
- Jump up^ Spencer Ho, 'Directive to keep returning West Bank workers off Israeli buses,'The Times of Israel 27 October 2014.
- Jump up^ Revital Hovel and Chaim Levinson,'AG orders Ya'alon: Explain why Palestinians banned from Israeli-run buses in West Bank,'Haaretz 27 October 2014.
- Jump up^ Tovah Lazaroff, Left-wing screams apartheid over new security edict for Palestinian laborers,Jerusalem Post 26 October 2014.
- Jump up^ Rapoport, Meron (27 May 2007). "The spirit of the commander prevails". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March2014.
- Jump up^ Route 443: West Bank road for Israelis onlyB'Tselem
- Jump up^ Despite court ruling, Palestinian use of Route 443 likely to be limited (Haaretz, 10 May 2010)
- Jump up^ Levinson, Chaim (3 March 2013). "Israel introduces 'Palestinian only' bus lines, following complaints from Jewish settlers". Haaretz. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
- Jump up^ Dawber, Alistair (3 March 2013). "Israel's Palestinian-only buses prompt apartheid comparisons". The Independent. Retrieved3 March 2013.
- Jump up^ Tait, Robert (3 March 2013). "Israel launches Palestinian-only buses amid accusations of racial segregation". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 March2013.
- Jump up^ "Palestinian Realities" Edited Transcript of Remarks by Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, 18 June 2008
- Jump up^ Assessment of restrictions on Palestinian water sector development, Sector Note April 2009,http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/WaterRestrictionsReport18Apr2009.pdf
- Jump up^ Ravid, Barak (17 January 2012). "French parliament report accuses Israel of water 'apartheid' in West Bank". Haaretz. Retrieved 17 January2012.
- Jump up^ "Government slams French water 'apartheid' report". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 19 January2012.
- Jump up^ Gvirtzman, Haim. "The Israeli–Palestinian Water Conflict: An Israeli Perspective" (PDF). Mideast Security and Policy Studies (94).
- Jump up^ Civil rights group claim Israeli occupation is "reminiscent of apartheid" (The Independent, 7 December 2008)
- Jump up^ United Jerusalem – Historical Perspectives – 4/13/2002
- Jump up^ 'The Security Fence Facts & Figures Dec 2003' (mfa)
- Jump up^ "Israel: West Bank Barrier Endangers Basic Rights", Human Rights Watch, 1 October 2003.
- Jump up^ Alan Blenford, "Degree of separation", The Guardian, 30 September 2003, 14.
- Jump up^ Mohammad Sarwar, 'No one sees policy as credible', The Independent, 4 August 2006.
- Jump up^ John Pilger, "John Pilger rejects the Law of Silence", New Statesman, 11 April 2005
- Jump up^ Mustafa Barghouti, quoted in Horsley, William."Europe mulls new role in Middle East", BBC, 13 December 2006.
- Jump up^ "The Apartheid Wall", Al Jazeera English, 8 December 2003
- Jump up^ "Anti-Apartheid Wall" Campaign Founded byPalestinian Environmental NGOs Network
- Jump up^ Various aspects of the security fence project onIsrael's Ministry of Foreign Affairs site
- Jump up^ Wall Street Journal, "After Sharon", 6 January 2006.
- Jump up^ Boehlert, Eric. "Fence? Security barrier? Apartheid wall?", Salon.com, 1 August 2003. Retrieved 1 January 2007.
- Jump up^ "Statement by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom", Israeli Foreign Ministry, 17 March 2004.
- Jump up^ The Supreme Court Sitting as the High Court of Justice Beit Sourik Village Council vs. The Government of Israel and Commander of the IDF Forces in the West Bank. (Articles 28–30)
- Jump up^ At Israeli Barrier, More Sound Than Fury (The New York Times, 8 October 2005)
- Jump up^ "Qureia: Israel's unilateral moves are pushing us toward a one-state solution". Haaretz. Reuters. 9 January 2004. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ PMO rejects Palestinian assertion on right to declare state, Haaretz, 11 January 2004. Retrieved 26 June 2006.
- ^ Jump up to:a b http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178431592520&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter[dead link]
- Jump up^ SPME: Malcolm Hedding: Israel and Apartheid
- Jump up^ Malcolm Hedding (11 March 2010). "Expose 'apartheid' charge's real agenda". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ "חוק זכויות התלמיד באנגלית – Pupils' Rights Law". Cms.education.gov.il. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- Jump up^ Susser, Asher. Israel, Jordan, and Palestine: The Two-State Imperative. 2011. University Press of New England. p. 130
- Jump up^ ODS Team. "Consideration of reports submitted by states parties under Article 9 of the Convention". United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- Jump up^ ODS Team. "Ods Home Page" (PDF). Daccess-dds-ny.un.org. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- Jump up^ Or Kashti (6 March 2007). "Israeli Arabs to get greater school funding, settlements less". Haaretz. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ Israel's education woes, YNet, 21 September 2010, by Tomer Velmer
- Jump up^ Yitzhak Benhorin (25 November 2008). "UN General Assembly president calls for boycott of Israel". Ynetnews. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
- Jump up^ "Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction". The Nation. 26 January 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
- Jump up^ Kaufman, Gerald (12 July 2004). "The case for sanctions against Israel". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 May 2010.
- Jump up^ UN summit: Boycott Israel (YnetNews, 31 August 2007)
- Jump up^ www.parliament.uk, Daily Hansard – Westminster Hall, 26 Jun 2007 : Column 63WH "Middle East Peace Process"
- Jump up^ Hamas seeks new Gaza policy from Egypt
