Israeli apartheid

The Israeli West Bank barrier, a structure that has been called an "apartheid wall" by critics of Israeli policy. Israeli officials describe the partition, constructed in 2002, as a security fence, limiting the ability of Palestinian terrorist organizations to enter Israel .

Arab citizens of Israel
عرب إسرائيل (العرب الإسرائيليون)‏
ערבים אזרחי ישראל

Total population
over 1,144,000 over 270,000 in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights (2008) 20% of Israeli population
Languages
Palestinian Arabic and Hebrew
Religion
Islam 83% (mostly Sunni), Christianity 8.5% and Druze 8.3%

The State of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has been compared by critics of Israeli policy to South Africa's treatment of non-whites during its apartheid era. Israel has also been accused by some of committing the crime of apartheid. United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine, John Dugard, in a report to the responsible treaty monitoring bodies, has said that a system of control including separate roads, 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 the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law." Other advocates of Palestinian rights extend this analogy to include Arab citizens of Israel, describing their citizenship status as second-class. Yossi Paritzky, a former Israeli minister, has used the analogy to describe a proposed bill that banned non-Jewish citizens of Israel from purchasing land owned by the Jewish National Fund. The bill has been later overturned by Israeli High Court, who ruled that the JNF must sell land to non-Jews. Paritzky also criticised discriminatory marriage law and the exemption of Orthodox Jews from military service as reminiscent of apartheid. Yossi Sarid, an Israeli politician, has drawn parallels between apartheid and the West Bank barrier, segregated roads, 'cheap hard labour', and Palestinian enclaves. Nasser al-Qudwa also argues that the Israeli West Bank barrier draws on apartheid thinking.

Dorit Beinisch, President of the Supreme Court of Israel, in the ruling Abu Safiya v. Minister of Defence calls such allegations “improper… extreme and radical… [and] there is no basis of raising it at all”. According to Gerald Steinberg, the attempt to label Israel an apartheid state is "the embodiment of the new antisemitism that seeks to deny the Jewish people the right of equality and self-determination." In a 2004 article, he writes "The 'Zionism is apartheid' propaganda is also used to justify Palestinian terrorist attacks and the efforts to deny Israelis the basic human right of self-defense against being ripped apart in bus and cafe bombings." Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe, says, "In likening Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, the UN is engaged not in anti-racism but in anti-Semitism."

Others have held that such an allegation is "a foolish and unfair comparison", because Arab citizens of Israel have the same rights as other Israeli citizens and that "full social and political equality of all [Israel's] citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex" is specifically guaranteed by Israeli law. Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh says, "Fortunately, Arab citizens can go to the same beaches, restaurants and shopping malls as Jews in this 'apartheid' state. Moreover, they can run in any election and even have a minister in the government (Ghaleb Majadele) for the first time". Others consider that the comparison to apartheid is both defamatory and inflammatory, and reflects a double standard when applied to Israel since it makes no mention of the human and civil rights situation in neighboring Arab countries or within the Palestinian territories.

International law

Main article: Crime of apartheid

The crime of apartheid (as distinct from the analogy of apartheid) first was written into international law in 1973 when the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in response to the situation in South Africa. 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," and states that the crime of apartheid includes similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as those practiced in southern Africa. The definition of the crime of apartheid in the ICSPCA is not limited to comparisons to the South African regime.

In 2002, a statutory definition of the crime of apartheid was provided by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The crime of apartheid was included as one of several crimes against humanity, and encompassed 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."

Crime of apartheid and Israel

In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard stated that "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. South Africa's statutory research agency the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) stated in a 2009 report 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."

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." 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."

Activists for Palestinian rights have also accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid. 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 "Once again, the crime of apartheid [is] being committed by a United Nations Member State [Israel]." Zahir Kolliah has written that "In South Africa and in Palestine the indigenous populations live under apartheid regimes 'settler colonies' as described by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid". Hazeem Jamjoum states in a 2009 article that "In terms of law, describing Israel as an apartheid state does not revolve around levels of difference and similarity with the policies and practices of the South African Apartheid regime" because apartheid is a universal crime under international law.

Marriage law as example of apartheid

The measure known as the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, passed by the Knesset on 31 July 2003, during the second Palestinian uprising, the law does not enable the acquisition of Israeli citizenship or residency by a Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza Strip via marriage. The law does allow children from such marriages to live in Israel until age 12, at which age they are required to emigrate. This applies equally to a Palestinian spouse of any Israeli citizen, whether Arab or Jewish, but in practice more Israeli Arabs than Israeli Jews marry Palestinians. The law was originally intended to be temporary but has since been extended annually. In formulating the law, the government cited security concerns "that the 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 A representative for the State, said in court that "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."

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."

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." Zehava Gal-On, a founder 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." The law was also criticized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Adam and Moodley cite the marriage law as an example of how Arab Israelis "resemble in many ways 'Colored' and Indian South Africans." 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 renewed, Amos Schocken, the publisher of the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, wrote 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."

Ilan Tzion, a lawyer for Fence for Life, explained his support for the law to a reporter for the BBC."If the law is overturned, eventually Israel will become 'a Muslim state', he says, 'the Jewish people will become a minority in their own country', and thus be 'exterminated'. 'Israel is not like any other country; it was founded on the idea that it will be place for all the Jews in the world as a refuge place.'"

Political rights, voting and representation, judiciary

In Israel

See also: Arab citizens of Israel and List of Arab members of the Knesset

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. The rights of citizens are guaranteed by a set of basic laws (Israel does not have a written constitution). 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" and "Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1994)" as guaranteeing equal rights for all Israeli citizens.

Dr. Tashbih Sayyed, a Shi’ite Pakistani scholar, has visited Israel in attempt to "see if there was any truth in the media allegations that Israel was an apartheid state". He concluded that Israeli Arabs are protected by Israel's democratic principles, the Muslim Arab citizens of Israel are afforded all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship. He noted that Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. In contrast to the non-Israeli Arab world, Arab women in Israel enjoy the same status as men, and have the right to vote and to be elected to public office. Muslim women, according to Sayyed, are in fact are more liberated in Israel than in any Muslim country, since Israeli law prohibits polygamy, child marriage, and female sexual mutilation.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "Arab Israelis are citizens of Israel with equal rights" and states that "The 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. According to the 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government had done "little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens."

In Gaza and the West Bank

Arabs living in Gaza, the West Bank, and some of those in East Jerusalem (areas occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and deemed to be occupied territory under international law and are mostly governed by the Palestinian Authority) are not Israeli citizens. They carry Palestinian identity cards issued by the Palestinian Authority with Israeli permission and elect members of the governing Palestinian Authority.

Amnesty International has reported that in the West Bank, Jewish settlers and Israeli 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. Some observers have also accused Israeli officials of being more lenient on Jews who kill Arabs in Israel, as compared to Israeli Arabs who kill Jews in Israel.

National identification cards

Prior to 2002 Israeli Identity Cards included a reference to the bearer's ethnic group. There were several attributions, the main ones being: Jewish, Arab, Druze and Circassian. Since 2002, the Identity card does not include reference to the bearer's ethnic group, but indicates whether holders are Jewish or not by adding the person's Hebrew date of birth. Chris McGreal, The Guardian's former chief Israel correspondent, reports that the ID system determines: "where [Arabs and Jews] are permitted to live, access to some government welfare programmes, and how they are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen." In the same article McGreal, also the chief South Africa correspondent during the apartheid years, compared Israel's Population Registry Law of 1965, which calls for the gathering of ethnic data, to South Africa's Apartheid-era Population Registration Act.

Land in Israel

93% of the land inside the Green Line is not held by private owners and is managed as public property. 79.5% of the land is owned by the Israeli government through the Israel Land Administration, and 11–13% is privately owned by the Jewish National Fund (11% according to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), 13% according to Haaretz). Under the 1952 World Zionist Organisation – Jewish Agency Status Law, and the 1954 Covenant between the state of Israel and the Jewish Agency, administration of state lands was handed to the JNF, which states explicitly on its website that the "Jewish National Fund is the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners – Jewish people everywhere." Yossi Paritzky, a former Israeli minister, has used the analogy to describe a proposed bill that banned non-Jewish citizens of Israel from purchasing land privately owned by the JNF. 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.

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. In a 2007 CERD report, the Committee noted with satisfaction the role played by the Supreme Court of Israel in combating racial discrimination, for example in matters of allocation of State land, as demonstrated by its 2000 decision in Ka’adan v. The Israel Lands Administration in which it ruled that State land should not be allocated on the basis of any discriminatory criteria or to a specific sector.

In 2006, Chris McGreal of The Guardian states 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. In response , Alex Safian of pro-Israel media watchdog group CAMERA has claimed that this is not true—according to Safian, the 79.5% of Israeli land owned directly by the ILA is available for lease to both Jews and Arabs, sometimes on beneficial terms to Arabs under Israeli affirmative action programs. While Safian concedes that the 14% of Israeli land owned by the JNF is not legally available for lease to Israel's Arab citizens, he argues that the ILA often ignores this restriction in practice. Safian further claims that "in practice JNF land has been leased to Arab citizens of Israel, both for short-term and long-term use. To cite one example of the former, JNF-owned land in the Besor Valley (Wadi Shallaleh) near Kibbutz Re'em has been leased on a yearly basis to Bedouins for use as pasture."

Land and infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Representative of a dissenting view is that of Leila Farsakh, associate professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Boston, according to whom, after 1977, "[t]he 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 holds that "[m]any view these Israeli policies of territorial integration and societal separation as apartheid, even if they were never given such a name." Along similar lines, B'Tselem wrote in 2004 that "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".

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.

In October 2005 the Israel Defense Force 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 where permitted on the road although public transport was still allowed. B'Tselem described this as a first step towards "total 'road apartheid'". Criticism of Israeli policies on similar grounds has arisen from, among others, Haggai Alon, a senior defence advisor. On December 29, 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. 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.

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". 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.

Travel and movement

See also: Palestinian freedom of movement

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. 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. 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 defacto apartheid system".

Huwwara Checkpoint, one of many Israeli checkpoints and closures that restrict the movement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and have been compared to the apartheid pass laws.

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." John Dugard has said these laws "resemble, but in severity go far beyond, apartheid's pass system".

The West Bank barrier

Main article: West Bank Barrier

In 2003, a year after Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli government announced a project of "fences and other physical obstacles" to prevent Palestinians crossing into Israel. Several figures, including Mohammad Sarwar, John Pilger, and Mustafa Barghouti and others have described the resultant West Bank barrier as an "apartheid wall".

Supporters of the West Bank barrier consider it to be largely responsible for reducing incidents of terrorism by 90% from 2002 to 2005. 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. 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.

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 it's supreme court subsequently ordered the barrier to be moved in sections where it's route was seen to cause more hardship to Palestinians than security concerns could motivate.

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." 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."

Education

See also: Education in Israel

Sign in front of the Galil school, a joint Arab-Jewish primary school in Israel

Separate and unequal education systems were a central part of the South African apartheid regime's strategy to limit black children to a life in the mines, factories and fields. Israeli Pupils’ Rights Law of 2000, prohibit discrimination of students for sectarian reasons in admission to or expulsion from an educational institution, in establishment of separate educational curricula or holding of separate classes in the same educational institution, and rights and obligations of pupils. Israel has Hebrew 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 to Hebrew schools. All of Israel's eight universities use Hebrew. The disparities in Israel's education system are not nearly so great, but the gap is wide. In 1992 a government report concluded that nearly twice as much money was allocated to each Jewish child as to each Arab pupil.

According to DIRASAT, The Arab Center for Law and Policy based in Nazareth, there is shortfall of more than 1,000 classrooms for Arab students. Furthermore, roughly 45% of Arab students applying to higher education are rejected because of their overall lower performance on matriculation and psychometric entrance exams.

A 2005 study by Daphna Golan-Agnon, co-founder of B'Tselem, on school budget allocations required all school principals in Israel to divulge their school budgets (excluding teachers' salaries). The findings revealed that for each Jewish student, schools had an average of 4,935 NIS per year, while for each Palestinian Arab student, schools had only 862 NIS per year.

A 2004 Human Rights Watch report identified "huge disparities in education spending" and stated that "discrimination against Arab children colours every aspect" of the education system. Exam pass-rate for Arab pupils were about one-third lower than that for their Jewish compatriots.

A 2007 CERD report, noted with "deep concern", that separate sectors are maintained for Jewish and Arab eduction. It recommended that Israel should assess the extent to which maintenance of separate Arab and Jewish "sectors" may amount to racial segregation, and that mixed Arab-Jewish communities and schools, and intercultural education should be promoted. In 2008 report submitted by Israel,it responded that parents are entitled to enroll their children to educational institution of their choice, whether the spoken language Hebrew, Arabic or bilingual.It also noted that Israel promotes variety of programs, that promote intercultural cooperation, tolerance and understanding.

2009 education ministry figures show 32 per cent of Arab students passed their matriculation exam last year, compared to 60 per cent of Jewish students. The pass rate had dramatically dropped from the 50.7 per cent of Arab pupils who matriculated in 2006.

Use of the apartheid analogy

The idea of "Israeli apartheid" emerged in the final years of the white South African regime (in the early 1990s), when Palestinians opposed to South African apartheid drew the link between Israel and South Africa. Comparisons between Israeli policies and apartheid have been made by groups and individuals, including:

• Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other South African anti-apartheid leaders
• Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States,
• The government of South Africa
• Former United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
• President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
• Israeli journalists Meron Benvenisti and Akiva Eldar
• Israel's attorney-general Michael Ben-Yair
• The Syrian Government
• Pro-Palestinian student groups in the UK, U.S., and Canada
• The Congress of South African Trade Unions
• The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa
• The Canadian Union of Public Employees
• Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem
• Author Naomi Klein
• Henry Siegman, former national director of the American Jewish Congress.
• Ehud Barak, defence minister of Israel, said that a failure to make peace with the Palestinians would leave either a state with no Jewish majority or an "apartheid" regime.
• Yitzhak Laor, an Israeli poet, author and journalist.

Some commentators including Brockmann, Klein and UK MP Gerald Kaufman have suggested sanctions against Israel along the South African model to ultimately improve the situation. Contemporary global political discourse regarding Israel incorporates usages of, and controversy over, the phrase "Israeli apartheid" and its variations.

In relation to the Israeli disengagement plan

See also: Israeli disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan plan was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank.

A 2005 paper by Professor Oren Yiftachel, Chair of the Geography Department at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, predicted that Israel's unilateral disengagement plan will result in "creeping apartheid" in the West Bank, Gaza, and in Israel itself. Yiftachel argues that, "Needless to say, the reality of apartheid existed for decades in Israel/Palestine, but this is the first time a Prime Minister spells out clearly the strengthening of this reality as a long-term political platform" and that the plan would entrench a situation that can be described as "neither two states nor one," separating Israelis from Palestinians without giving Palestinians true sovereignty.

Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli political scientist and the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, predicted that the interim disengagement plan would become permanent, with the West Bank barrier entrenching both the isolation of Palestinian communities and the existence of Israeli settlements. He warned that Israel is moving towards the model of apartheid South Africa through the creation of "Bantustan" like conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Economist, in an article on the debate over withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, asserted that "Keeping the occupied land will force on Israel the impossible choice of being either an apartheid state, or a binational one with Jews as a minority."

Michael Tarazi, a Palestinian proponent of the binational solution has argued that it is in Palestine's interest to "make this an argument about apartheid," even to the extent of advocating Israeli settlement: "The longer they stay out there, the more Israel will appear to the world to be essentially an apartheid state".

By notable authors

Geoffrey Wheatcroft has noted that, historically, Israeli officials had mulled the possibility of adopting the South African apartheid model as one that the state of Israel itself might emulate. In the late 1970s "(t)hey didn't wish to copy what was once called 'petty apartheid', the everyday harassment of black South Africans, but 'grand apartheid', the Nationalists' attempt to conjure away the problem of minority rule by dividing the country into supposedly autonomous cantons or 'homelands'."

Uri Davis wrote in 1987 that apartheid in Israel is a legal reality, even though it has a different legal structure than in the Republic of South Africa. He asserts that where the Republic of South Africa had an official value system of apartheid and made a key legal distinction between "white", "coloured", "Indian" and "black", Israel has an official value system of Zionism and makes a key legal distinction between "Jew" and "non-Jew". He suggests that this distinction is made in a two-tier structure that had concealed Israeli apartheid legislation for "almost four decades" at the time when he wrote.

Uri Avnery applies parts of the analogy to "the reality in the occupied Palestinian territories" which he describes as "in many respects similar to reality under the apartheid regime," but warns that there are also important differences between the two conflicts.

It has been alleged that, after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War David Ben-Gurion predicted on Israeli radio that Israel would become an apartheid state if it did not "rid itself of the territories and their Arab population as soon as possible".

By Adam and Moodley

File:Adam Moodley book.jpg

Adam and Moodley apply lessons that were learned in South Africa to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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, apply lessons learned in South Africa to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They divide academic and journalistic commentators on the analogy into three groups:

• "The majority is incensed by the very analogy and deplores what it deems its propagandistic goals."
• "'Israel is Apartheid' advocates include most Palestinians, many Third World academics, and several Jewish post-Zionists who idealistically predict an ultimate South African solution of a common or binational state."
• A third group which sees both similarities and differences, and which looks to South African history for guidance in bringing resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Adam and Moodley also suggest that political actors such as former Israeli Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak used the analogy "self-servingly in their exhortations and rationalizations" and that such actors "have repeatedly deplored the occupation and seeming 'South Africanization' but have done everything to entrench it."

Adam and Moodley argue that notwithstanding universal suffrage within Israel proper "if the Palestinian territories under more or less permanent Israeli occupation and settler presence are considered part of the entity under analysis, the comparison between a disenfranchised African population in apartheid South Africa and the three and a half million stateless Palestinians under Israeli domination gains more validity."

In part, analysts like Adam and Moodley argue, this 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." Israel also claims to be a home for the worldwide Jewish diaspora and a strategic outpost of the Western world which "is heavily bankrolled by U.S. taxpayers" who can be viewed as sharing a collective responsibility for its behaviors. Radical Islamists, according to some analysts, "use Israeli policies to mobilize anti-Western sentiment", leading to a situation in which "(u)nconditional U.S. support for Israeli expansionism potentially unites Muslim moderates with jihadists." As a result of these factors, according to this analysis, the West Bank Barrier — nicknamed the "apartheid wall" — has become a critical frontline in the War on Terrorism.

At the same time, 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." 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. "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 that "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."

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."

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 that "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."

By the United Nations

John Dugard, a South African professor of international law and an ad hoc Judge on the International Court of Justice, serving as the Special Rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories described the situation in the West Bank as "an apartheid regime ... worse than the one that existed in South Africa." In 2007, in advance of a report from the United Nations Human Rights Council, Dugard wrote that "Israel's laws and practices in the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories] certainly resemble aspects of apartheid." Referring to Israel's actions in the occupied West Bank, he wrote, "Can it seriously be denied that the purpose [...] is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group (Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them? Israel denies that this is its intention or purpose. But such an intention or purpose may be inferred from the actions described in this report."

The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) is South Africa's statutory research agency. In June 2009, it released an exhaustive study indicating that Israel practices both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and suggesting that an advisory opinion on the legal consequences should be sought from the International Court of Justice. The study was conducted by an international team of scholars and practitioners of international public law from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel and the West Bank. The study reviewed Israel's practices in the territories according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid provided by international law. The project was suggested by the January 2007 report by South African jurist John Dugard, in his capacity as Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Danny Rubinstein, a columnist at Ha'aretz also reportedly likened Israel to apartheid South Africa during a United Nations conference at the European Parliament in Brussels on 30 August 2007, stating: "Israel today was an apartheid State with four different Palestinian groups: those in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians, each of which had a different status."

The current President of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, reported the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, "likened Israel's policies toward the Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of blacks under apartheid. ... Brockmann stressed that it was important for the United Nations to use the heavily-charged term since it was the institution itself that had passed the International Convention against the crime of apartheid."

By Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, Camp David Accords negotiator, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and author of the 2006 book entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, maintained in that book that Israel's options included a "system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights. This is the policy now being followed ..." Carter has also argued that the Israeli system is in some cases more onerous than that of the apartheid government of South Africa. Carter's use of the term "apartheid" has been calibrated to avoid specific accusations of racism against the government of Israel, and has been carefully limited to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. For instance, in a news release, Carter described discussing his book and his use of the word "apartheid" with the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, and noted, "I made clear in the book's text and in my response to the rabbis that the system of apartheid in Palestine is not based on racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis for Palestinian land and the resulting suppression of protests that involve violence."

President Carter has frequently reiterated the point that his "use of 'apartheid' does not apply to circumstances within Israel." Regarding the title of his book Carter has said:

"It's not Israel. The book has nothing to do with what's going on inside Israel which is a wonderful democracy, you know, where everyone has guaranteed equal rights and where, under the law, Arabs and Jews who are Israelis have the same privileges about Israel. That's been most of the controversy because people assume it's about Israel. It's not.

"I've never alleged that the framework of apartheid existed within Israel at all, and that what does exist in the West Bank is based on trying to take Palestinian land and not on racism. So it was a very clear distinction."

In his review of Carter's book Joseph Lelyveld notes that South Africa's Apartheid policy was also about land as much as racism, and comments that the use of "apartheid" by Carter is "basically a slogan, not reasoned argument".

By notable academic, political and media figures

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Carter, commented that the absence of a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is likely to produce a situation which de facto will resemble apartheid.

University of Chicago political science professor John Mearsheimer stated in June 2008 that, "Five, 10 or 15 years ago, it was unthinkable to mention ‘apartheid’ in relation to Israel. Now [Jimmy] Carter has used it in the title of his book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid". Mearsheimer added, "Israel is, in effect, creating an apartheid state."

Yakov Malik, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations accused Israel—an ally of the US in the Cold War against the Soviets—of promulgating a "racist policy of apartheid against Palestinians" following the imposition of Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the Six-Day War of 1967. Israel accused the Soviet Union of publishing anti-Zionist tracts.

Raja G. Khouri, a member of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and former president of the Canadian Arab Federation, supports the apartheid analogy, and holds that the Israeli policies in question are not motivated by racism.

British journalist Melanie Phillips has criticized Desmond Tutu for comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa. Having made the comparison in an article for The Guardian in 2002, Tutu stated that people are scared to say the "Jewish lobby" in the U.S. is powerful. "So what?" he asked. "The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust." Phillips wrote of Tutu's article: "I never thought that I would see brazenly printed in a reputable British newspaper not only a repetition of the lie of Jewish power but the comparison of that power with Hitler, Stalin and other tyrants. I never thought I would see such a thing issuing from a Christian archbishop ... How can Christians maintain a virtual silence about the persecution of their fellow worshippers by Muslims across the world, while denouncing the Israelis who are in the front line against precisely this terror?"

In December, 2006, Maurice Ostroff of the Jerusalem Post criticized Tutu for being well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided: "If he took the opportunity during his forthcoming visit to impartially examine all the facts, he would discover – to his pleasant surprise – that accusations of Israeli apartheid are mean-spirited and wrong-headed... He would find that whereas the apartheid of the old South Africa was entrenched in law, Israel's Declaration of Independence absolutely ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race, or gender.

American academic Norman Finkelstein defends Carter's analysis in Palestine Peace Not Apartheid as both historically accurate and non-controversial outside the United States: "After four decades of Israeli occupation, the infrastructure and superstructure of apartheid have been put in place. Outside the never-never land of mainstream American Jewry and U.S. media[,] this reality is barely disputed."

Adrian Guelke, Professor of Comparative Politics at Queen's University Belfast and Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict wrote that "Comparison of Israel's policies with the South African policy of apartheid has become a very common theme of Palestinian discourse at both an analytical and polemical level and, it should be noted, use of the analogy is by no means confined to Palestinians." Since the breakdown of the peace process in 2000, he observed, "the use of this analogy has mushroomed."

Fifty-three Stanford University faculty from various fields other than Middle East, Palestine or Israel studies, as well as staff from Stanford's conservative think tank, the Hoover Institution signed a letter expressing the view that "Israel is not an Apartheid State" and that "the State of Israel has nothing in common with apartheid"; that within its national territory Israel is a liberal democracy in which Arab citizens of Israel enjoy civil, religious, social, and political equality. They alleged that likening Israel to apartheid South Africa was a "smear," part of a campaign of "malicious propaganda."

Ian Buruma has argued that even though there is social discrimination against Arabs in Israel and that "the ideal of a Jewish state smacks of racism", the analogy is "intellectually lazy, morally questionable and possibly even mendacious", as "[n]on-Jews, mostly Arab Muslims, make up 20% of the Israeli population, and they enjoy full citizen's rights" and "[i]nside the state of Israel, there is no apartheid".

An early example of the use of the word is a full-page advertisement placed in the New York Times in March 1988 by hundreds of intellectuals, academics, and activists declaring Israel to be "an apartheid state, founded on pillage and predicated on exclusivity".

Jamal Dajani of Link TV has asked "How long can Israelis live in this denial and pretend that apartheid-like conditions do not exist?"

By South Africans

By the government of South Africa

On November 24, 2009, the South African government responded to Israeli plans to expand the settlement of Gilo in East Jerusalem by condemning it harshly, stating that "We condemn the fact that Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem is coupled with Israel's campaign to evict and displace the original Palestinian residents from the City." The South African government drew a parallel between Israel's actions in Jerusalem and forced removals of persons effected as part of the South African apartheid regime.

On 21 April 2010, the South African government expressed "the greatest concern" over Israeli Infiltration Order 1650, saying that the order has a broad definition of "infiltrator" and unclear terms as to which permits would allow a person to reside in the West Bank, as well as how valid residency might be proven. The South African government said the terms of the order are "reminiscent of pass laws under apartheid South Africa".

By South African individuals or organizations

In 2002 Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote a series of articles in major newspapers, comparing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to apartheid South Africa, and calling for the international community to divest support from Israel until the territories were no longer occupied. In an April 2010 open letter to the University of Berkeley, Tutu wrote "I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government."

Other prominent South African anti-apartheid activists have used apartheid comparisons to criticize the occupation of the West Bank, and particularly the construction of the separation barrier. These include Farid Esack, a writer who is currently William Henry Bloomberg Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School, Ronnie Kasrils, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Dennis Goldberg, and Arun Ghandhi,

On 15 May 2008, 34 leading South African activists published an open letter in The Citizen, under the heading "We fought apartheid; we see no reason to celebrate it in Israel now!". The signatories, who included Kasrils and several other government ministers, COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, Ahmed Kathrada, Sam Ramsamy and Blade Nzimande, wrote "Apartheid is a crime against humanity. It was when it was done against South Africans; it is so when it is done against Palestinians!"

On 6 June 2008, Mr. Kgalema Motlanthe, the Deputy President of the African National Congress, who had recently visited the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, told a delegation of Arab Knesset members visiting South Africa to study its democratic constitution that conditions for Palestinians under occupation were "worse than conditions were for Blacks under the Apartheid regime."

In a letter to the President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Ontario, Willie Madisha, the President of COSATU wrote, "As someone who lived in apartheid South Africa and who has visited Palestine I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, I believe that some of the atrocities committed against the South Africans by the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa pale in comparison to those committed against the Palestinians."

Hendrik Verwoerd, then prime minister of South Africa and the architect of South Africa's apartheid policies, said in 1961 that "The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state."

Former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti relates in his 1986 book Conflicts and Contradictions that during the 1970s, an official of the South African apartheid compared Israeli-Palestinian relations to South African policy for the Transkei in a meeting. The Israeli officials present expressed shock at the comparison, and the South African official said "I understand your reaction. But aren't we actually doing the same thing? We are faced with the same existential problem, therefore we arrive at the same solution. The only difference is that yours is pragmatic and ours is ideological."

In 2008 a delegation of ANC veterans visited Israel and the Occupied Territories, and said that in some respects it was worse than apartheid. One member said "The daily indignity to which the Palestinian population is subjected far outstrips the apartheid regime." Another member, human rights lawyer Fatima Hassan, cited the separate roads, different registration of cars, the indignity of having to produce a permit, and long queues at checkpoints as worse than what they had experienced during apartheid. But she also thought the apartheid comparison was a potential "red herring". Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliament member, was shocked to see footage of teenagers heaping abuse on and throwing stones at Palestinian children, especially done in the name of Judaism. The delegation's final formal statement made no mention of comparisons with apartheid and Dennis Davis, a high court judge, said he thought the use of the term in the Middle East context was "very unhelpful". Davis also noted that "There's no racial superiority here. There's no pervading ideology that confirms the inferiority of Palestinians." and concluded "But I think it's incredibly unhelpful to say you can simply take this to be apartheid and therefore the South African struggle is the same and the South African solution is the same. That's a very lazy form of reasoning." One of the Jewish members of the delegation said that the comparison with apartheid is very relevant and that the Israelis are even more efficient in implementing the separation-of-races regime than the South Africans were, and that if he were to say this publicly, he would be attacked by the members of the Jewish community.

In May 2009, The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa released a legal study with the findings that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories. According to this study, Israel practices the "three pillars" of apartheid in the occupied territories:

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."

By Israelis

Jamal Zahalka, an Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset argued that an apartheid system has already taken shape in that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are separated into "cantons" and Palestinians are required to carry permits to travel between them. Azmi Bishara, a former Knesset member, argued that the Palestinian situation had been caused by "colonialist apartheid."

Michael Ben-Yair, attorney-general of Israel from 1993 to 1996 referred to Israel establishing, "an apartheid regime in the occupied territories", in an essay published in Haaretz.

Ehud Olmert, then Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, commented in April 2004 that; "More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against 'occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state." Olmert made a similar remark in November 2007 as Prime Minister: "If the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the State of Israel is finished."

Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak used the analogy when speaking in a national security conference in Israel. According to Barak, unless Israel makes peace with the Palestinians it will be faced with either a state with no Jewish ­majority or an "apartheid" regime. "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic," Barak said. "If this bloc of millions of ­Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

According to former Italian Prime Minister Massimo d'Alema, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had described to him "at length" that he felt the "bantustan model" was the most appropriate solution to the conflict in the West Bank. The term “Bantustan” historically refers to the separate territorial areas designated as homelands under the South African apartheid State.

Some Israelis have compared the separation plan to apartheid, such as political scientist, Meron Benvenisti, and journalist, Amira Hass. Ami Ayalon, a former admiral, claiming it "ha[d] some apartheid characteristics." Shulamit Aloni, former education minister and leader of Meretz, said that the state of Israel is "practicing its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population."

A major 2002 study of Israeli settlement practices by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem concluded: "Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa." A more recent B'Tselem publication on the road system Israel has established in the West Bank concluded that it "bears striking similarities to the racist Apartheid regime," and even "entails a greater degree of arbitrariness than was the case with the regime that existed in South Africa."

Academic and political activist Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen who describes himself as an "anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew", has written several books on the subject, including Israel: An Apartheid State in 1987.

Daphna Golan-Agnon, co-founder of B'Tselem and founding director of Bat Shalom writes in her 2002 book Next Year in Jerusalem, "I'm not sure if the use of the term apartheid helps us to understand the discrimination against Palestinians in Israel or the oppression against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. I'm not sure the discussion about how we are like or unlike South Africa helps move us forward to a solution. But the comparison reminds us that hundreds of laws do not make discrimination just and that the international community, the same international community we want to belong to, did not permit the perpetuation of apartheid. And it doesn't matter how we explain it and how many articles are written by Israeli scholars and lawyers—there are two groups living in this small piece of land, and one enjoys rights and liberty while the other does not."

In his article "Is it Apartheid?" Israeli anti-Zionist activist Professor Moshé Machover states "... talk of Israeli 'apartheid' serves to divert attention from much greater dangers. For, as far as most Palestinians are concerned, the Zionist policy is far worse than apartheid. Apartheid can be reversed. Ethnic cleansing is immeasurably harder to reverse; at least not in the short or medium term."

By activists

An Israeli Apartheid Week has been established to draw attention to the analogy and build support for an international boycott movement against Israel. The Jerusalem Post notes that the annual event began in 2005 in Toronto and now involves "festivities taking place over 14 days in over 40 cities across the globe."

Criticism of the apartheid analogy

Those who criticize the analogy argue that Israeli policies have little or no comparison to apartheid South Africa, and that the motivation and historical context of Israel's policies are different. It is argued that Israel itself is a democratic and pluralist state, while the West Bank and Gaza are not part of sovereign Israel and cannot be compared to the internal policies of apartheid South Africa.

Differences between Israeli and South African policies

the equivalence simply isn't true. Israel is not an apartheid state. Israel's human rights record in the occupied territories, its settlement policy, and its firm responses to terror may sometimes warrant criticism. And Prime Minister Ehud Olmert himself recently warned that Israel could face an apartheid-style struggle if it did not reach a deal with the Palestinians and end the occupation in the West Bank. But racism and discrimination do not form the rationale for Israel's policies and actions. Arab citizens of Israel can vote and serve in the Knesset; black South Africans could not vote until 1994. There are no laws in Israel that discriminate against Arab citizens or separate them from Jews. Unlike the United Kingdom, Greece, and Norway, Israel has no state religion, and it recognizes Arabic as one of its official languages."

— Kadalie, Rhoda and Julia Bertelsmann, black South Africans whose families fought against apartheid

Academic Susie Jacobs states that the apartheid analogy is "inadequate", and that it it is a rhetoric which skims over substantive differences. She points out that Apartheid was a great deal more than segregation, instead it was a society almost wholly based on racial criteria.

StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, argues that apartheid in the Republic of South Africa was an official policy of discrimination against blacks enforced through police violence, based on minority control over a majority population who could not vote. They point out that in contrast, Israel is a majority-rule democracy with equal rights for all citizens including Arab citizens of Israel who vote freely. Israel contends with prejudice in its population as all societies do, but such prejudices are opposed by law. They also point out that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not governed by Israel but by the Palestinian Authority.

Unlike South Africa, where Apartheid prevented Black majority rule, within Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip—the territory Israel controls—there are currently more Jews than Palestinians, although Jews are only 48% of the population as a whole. However, most of the West Bank and all of Gaza are not expected to be controlled by Israel after a final settlement.

Benjamin Pogrund, author and member of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations World Conference against Racism, has argued that the petty apartheid which characterized apartheid-era South Africa does not exist within Israel:

"The difference between the current Israeli situation and apartheid South Africa is emphasized at a very human level: Jewish and Arab babies are born in the same delivery room, with the same facilities, attended by the same doctors and nurses, with the mothers recovering in adjoining beds in a ward. Two years ago I had major surgery in a Jerusalem hospital: the surgeon was Jewish, the anaesthetist was Arab, the doctors and nurses who looked after me were Jews and Arabs. Jews and Arabs share meals in restaurants and travel on the same trains, buses and taxis, and visit each other’s homes. Could any of this possibly have happened under apartheid? Of course not."

In response to increasing inequality between the Jewish and Arab populations, the Israeli government established a committee to consider, among other issues, policies of affirmative action for housing Arab citizens. According to Israel advocacy group, Stand With Us, the city of Jerusalem gives Arab residents free professional advice to assist with the housing permit process and structural regulations, advice which is not available to Jewish residents on the same terms.

Differences in motivations

Critics of the claim that Israel is motivated by racism argue that, unlike apartheid, Israeli practices, even if they deserve to be criticized, are not prompted by racial hatred.

In any event, what is racism? Under apartheid it was skin colour. Applied to Israel that's a joke: for proof of that, just look at a crowd of Israeli Jews and their gradations in skin-colour from the "blackest" to the "whitest"... Occupation is brutalising and corrupting both Palestinians and Israelis... [b]ut it is not apartheid. Palestinians are not oppressed on racial grounds as Arabs, but, rather, as competitors — until now, at the losing end — in a national/religious conflict for land.

— Benjamin Pogrund

Israel...lacks the features of an apartheid state. The Palestinian, Druze and other minorities in Israel are guaranteed equal rights under the Basic Laws. All citizens of Israel vote in elections on an equal basis. There are no legal restrictions on movement, employment or sexual or marital relations. The universities are integrated. Opponents of Zionism have free speech and assembly and may form political organizations.

— John Strawson, professor of international law at the University of East London

John Strawson, professor of international law at the University of East London argues against likening the concept of Zionism to apartheid, saying

"...the way in which the "one-state solution" was posed recycled much of the old discourses on Zionism which constructed it as an essentially racist ideology comparable to apartheid. At the core of the argument is the position that as Israel defines itself as a Jewish state this is an ethnic state based on a racial hierarchy. In this account Jews become the South African white population and the Palestinians the non-whites. The racist content of the state was seen in many laws which discriminate against non-Jews and in favor of Jews. (25) Any discriminatory laws are seen as proof of a racist regime a position which if systematically argued would find almost all states as mainly characterized by racism. However, some apparently discriminatory laws, such as the 1950 Law of Return should perhaps be seen as affirmative action in that it turned the Nazi discrimination and definition of a Jew into the basis for citizenship in Israel. The view that Israeli as a state based on ethnic-nationalism is inevitably racist is a highly problematic. First most European states defined themselves as nation-states and ethnicity has played a major role in sustaining nationalism. Within the Middle East the relationship between ethnicity and state formation is clearly at work in Turkey where constitution defines a citizen as a Turk (despite the 30% of the population who are Kurdish), and Egypt’s official title is the "Arab Republic of Egypt" (and yet it contains large Coptic, Nubian and Berber minorities). It is not the case that supporters of the Kurdish right to self determination are denounced as racist who seek establish an exclusive ethnic state. Nor is it the case that states not based on ethnic-nationalism are consequently accommodating to the indigenous populations as the example of the United States and the position of First Nation American graphically demonstrates. The view that suggests that the attempt to create an ethnic-national state is either motivated by racism or unique is thus highly problematic given any serious study of nationalism. (26) Zionism is a form of nationalism which along with other all other nationalisms is necessarily based on the privilege of inclusion and the discrimination of exclusion.

Michael Kinsley's article "It's Not Apartheid", published in Slate and the Washington Post, states that Carter "makes no attempt to explain [the use of the word 'apartheid']" and refers to Carter's usage of the term as "a foolish and unfair comparison, unworthy of the man who won – and deserved – the Nobel Peace Prize..."

Israel has always had Arab citizens.... No doubt many Israelis have racist attitudes toward Arabs, but the official philosophy of the government is quite the opposite, and sincere efforts are made to, for example, instill humanitarian and egalitarian attitudes in children. That is not true, of course, in Arab countries, where hatred of Jews is a standard part of the curriculum."

— Michael Kinsley,"It's Not Apartheid"

Calling Israel an 'apartheid state' is absolute nonsense. You might have structures that look like apartheid, but they're not. The barrier fence has nothing to do with apartheid and everything to do with Israel's self-defense. There was no such barrier until the second intifada, when people were being murdered on the highways. And the country does not dehumanize its minority in the sense of apartheid. The issues are totally different."

— Malcolm Hedding, a South African minister and fighter against South African apartheid

Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage – you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available...Vilification and false labeling is a blind alley that is unjust and takes us nowhere...You deny Israel the fundamental right of every society to defend itself...Your criticism is willfully hypocritical....You are betraying the moderate Muslims and Jews who are working to achieve peace...To the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week I would like to say: If Israel were an apartheid state, I would not have been appointed here, nor would I have chosen to take upon myself this duty.

— Ishmael Khaldi, US Pacific Northwest deputy consul of Israel, and Bedouin Muslim, in response to Israel Apartheid Week

Criticism of the "Israeli apartheid" usage for its inherent implication of racism has been widespread. In 2003, South Africa's minister for home affairs Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi said that "The Israeli regime is not apartheid. It is a unique case of democracy". According to Fred Taub, the President of Boycott Watch, "[t]he assertion ... that Israel is practicing apartheid is not only false, but may be considered libelous. ... The fact is that it is the Arabs who are discriminating against non-Muslims, especially Jews." Similarly, in 2004, Jean-Christophe Rufin, former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières and president of Action Against Hunger, recommended in a report about anti-Semitism commissioned by French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin that charges of apartheid and racism against Israel be criminalized in France, to the extent they're unjustified. He wrote that the "perverse" and "defamatory" use of the charge of racism against the very people who were victims of racism "to an unparalleled degree" should be penalized. In his view, the accusations of racism, of apartheid, of Nazism carry grave moral implications and can put in danger the lives of French Jewish citizens. He advocated punishment of those who make accusations of racism against groups, utilizing unjustified comparisons with apartheid or Nazism. He maintained that that political opinions that are critical of any government are perfectly legitimate.

Irwin Cotler, a Canadian MP and anti-apartheid activist who was once a lawyer for Nelson Mandela said "The second manifestation [of anti-semitism] is the indictment of Israel as an apartheid state.

The idea that "Israeli apartheid" implies a policy of racial or other discrimination against Arabs or Muslims has been rejected by other figures. In 2004's The Trouble with Islam Today, Irshad Manji argues that the allegation of apartheid in Israel is deeply misleading, noting that there are in Israel several Arab political parties; that Arab-Muslim legislators have veto powers; and that Arab parties have overturned disqualifications. She also points to Arabs like Emile Habibi, who have been awarded prestigious prizes. She also observes that Israel has a free Arab press; that road signs bear Arabic translations; and that Arabs live and study alongside Jews. She also claims that Palestinans commuting from the West Bank are entitled to state benefits and legal protections.

In an op-ed for the Jerusalem Post, Gerald Steinberg, Professor of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University, argued that "Black labor was exploited in slavery-like conditions under apartheid; in contrast, Palestinians are dependent on Israeli employment due to their own internal corruption and economic failures."

Criticism by South Africans

Malcolm Hedding, a South African minister who worked against South African apartheid, believes The barrier fence 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 Nationalist Party that had dominated the masses disappeared.

South African academics Julia I. Bertelsmann and Rhoda Kadalie disagree with the analogy, and believe it is motivated by politics. They say that Israel has been ranked "free" consistently in Freedom House's Freedom in the World rankings, unlike South Africa was during apartheid.

Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who with Nelson Mandela, played a key role in ending apartheid, answered in an interview with France24, "I think comparisons [between apartheid and the situation in the West Bank]are odious. I think it’s dangerous. It’s not a direct parallel."

See also

• Academic boycotts of Israel
• Anti-Zionism
• Israeli West Bank barrier
• South Africa under apartheid
• Former United States President Jimmy Carter's Palestine Peace Not Apartheid and Commentary on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid
• Israeli Apartheid Week

Further reading

• Avi Zer-Aviv – "Israeli Apartheid: Fact or Fiction?" ShalomLife February 16, 2010
• "No apartheid in the Middle East" The Guardian February 27, 2007
• Adam, Heribert and Kogila Moodley. Seeking Mandela : peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians. Politics, history, and social change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005. ISBN 1-59213-395-9; 1592133967.
• Bard, Mitchell. "Myths & Facts Online. Human Rights in Israel and the Territories", American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
• Barghouti, Omar. "Israeli Apartheid – Time for the South African Treatment".
• Buruma, Ian. "Do not treat Israel like apartheid South Africa", The Guardian, July 23, 2002.
• Carey Ron et al. The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid. Verso, 2001. ISBN 1-85984-377-8
• Carter, Jimmy. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Simon & Schuster, 2006. ISBN 0-7432-8502-6
• Collins, Frank. "Israel Prepares The Ground for An Apartheid Autonomy in The Territories" in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs October/November 1995, pg. 10 web archive
• Davis, Uri. Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within. Zed Books, 2004. ISBN 1-84277-339-9
• Farsakh, Leila: "Israel an apartheid state?", Le Monde diplomatique, November 2003
• __________. "Independence, Cantons, or Bantustans: Whither the Palestinian State?" in The Middle East Journal, 59:2, April 2005, pp. 230–245
• Falkson, Jock L. "An Apartheid State? Or The Greatest Lie Ever Told?"
• Herman, Edward "Israeli Apartheid And Terrorism" in Zmag, May 1994
• Giraut F., 2004, “Apartheid et Israël/Palestine, enseignements et contresens d’une analogie”, Cybergéo (Revue Européenne en ligne de Géographie) Points Chauds, 20 p,
• Giraut F., 2004, “Apartheid et Israël/Palestine, analogie et contresens”,Outre-Terre 9, pp. 145–154.
• Glaser, D. J. "Zionism and Apartheid: a moral comparison" in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26:3 2003
• Jamjoum, Hazem. Not an Analogy: Israel and the Crime of Apartheid
• Lewan, Kenneth M. Ist Israel Südafrika? Tossens: Dura-Verlag, 1993. ISBN 3-926703-02-4.
• Ornan, Uzi. (Hebrew article on Israel and apartheid laws) in Ha'aretz May 17, 1991
• Pogrund, Benjamin. "Apartheid? Israel is a democracy in which Arabs vote", MidEastWeb.
• Sabel, Robbie. "The Campaign to Delegitimize Israel With the False Claim of Apartheid", The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
• Shahak, Israel. "Israeli apartheid and the intifada" in Race & Class, 30:1, 1–12 (1988)
• Siegel, Jennifer. "Carter Book Slaps Israel With ‘Apartheid’ Tag, Provides Ammo to GOP", The Forward, October 17, 2006.
• Shimoni, Gideon. "Deconstructing Apartheid Accusations Against Israel", Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, September 2, 2007.
• Tutu, Desmond & Urbina Ian. Against Israeli apartheid.
• Yiftachel, O. "From Fragile ‘Peace’ to Creeping Apartheid: Notes on the Recent Politics of Israel/Palestine" Arena Journal (New Series) 16(1), 13–25, 2001
• Yiftachel, Oren (2006-06-27). Ethnocracy: land and identity politics in Israel/Palestine. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 081223927X. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
• Yiftachel, O. “Between Apartheid and Peace: Can Israel Learn from International Experience?”, Tikkun Magazine, Jan/Feb 2001,
• Template:PDFlink, United Nations, January 2006.
• This Road is for Jews Only. Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel. By SHULAMIT ALONI
• "Labor MK Raleb Majadele to be appointed first Arab minister" By Yoav Stern, Haaretz
• An Old Story: Anti-Semitism, past and present by Jack Schwartz, NRO December 4 2001
• Israeli Apartheid Week 2008
• Is Israel an Apartheid State ?
• Israel Is Not An Apartheid State
• It's Not Apartheid
• Cheerleading genocide
• 'This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank
• The "Israel Apartheid Week" libel (Jerusalem Post editoral)
• David Hoffman, "Zionism is not a 'settler-colonial undertaking'

External links

Endorse the Analogy

• It Is Apartheid
• Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
• Israeli Apartheid Week site
• Socialist Worker site on Israeli Apartheid
• "Stop the Wall" anti-apartheid campaign site
• Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid
• 'This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank
• 'Boycott apartheid Israel'

Counter the Analogy

• Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism: Debunking the Apartheid Analogy
• Zionism on the Web
• Anti-Defamation League: The Apartheid Lie
• CAMERA: The Apartheid Canard
• Myths & Facts: Human Rights in Israel and the Territories
• Israel Apartheid Resource Guide
• Zionism and Apartheid: The Analogy in the Politics of International Law
• Franchising Apartheid: Why South Africans Push the Analogy
• Lost in the Blur of Slogans

Discussion

• South Africa, Israel-Palestine, and the Contours of the Contemporary Global Order, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Christopher J. Lee (March 9, 2004)
• LinkTV Special: Occupation or Apartheid