Apartheid wall

Apartheid wall is a political epithet sometimes used to describe the Israeli West Bank barrier. Some opponents of the barrier refer to it this way because they argue that its extension into the West Bank isolates Palestinian communities and consolidates the annexation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlements. The barrier, it is argued, is part of a "long-term policy of occupation, discrimination and expulsion," which effectively constitutes a feature of Israeli apartheid. a term used as an analogy for South African apartheid.

While the Israeli government cites security concerns as the rationale for the construction of the barrier, opponents of the barrier claim that it also serves to separate, isolate and disenfranchise a particular ethnic group, and argue that it is therefore racially discriminatory. These concerns have been echoed by Israeli left wing groups such as Gush Shalom and were addressed by the Israeli State Prosecution (referring only to the part built beyond the 1949 Armistice lines). According to a recent UN report, the land between the barrier and the Green Line is currently the home for over 49,400 West Bank Palestinians living in 38 villages and towns, and it is feared that they will eventually be expelled or forced to migrate.

Opponents of the term

Opponents of the term reject both the "Apartheid" and "wall" designations, mainly because they disagree with the implicit analogy with South Africa, but also because 93% of barrier is currently fenced while only seven percent is actually walled. Opponents of the term argue that apartheid was a system unique to South Africa, established to disenfranchise citizens — based on skin color — from their own country; the use of the term apartheid, it is argued, is not appropriate in the context of Israel, for West Bank Palestinians were never citizens of Israel, and Jews and Palestinians are not racially distinct. Opponents of the term claim that the barrier is not intended to separate Jews from Arabs, as over 1 million Arabs on the Israeli side of the barrier are full citizens of Israel, and constitute 15% of Israel's population. While apartheid involved the forced removal of about 1.5 million South Africans to Bantustans, opponents claim that the West Bank barrier will cause no transfer of population and insist that none of the estimated 10,000 Palestinians (0.5%) who will be left on the Israeli side of the barrier (based on the February, 2005 route) will be forced to migrate. Moreover, opponents argue, the Bantustans were created in order to force legal borders and eliminate the rights of the majority South African black population; however, it is claimed 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. Opponents also point out that the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the barrier is indeed defensive and accepted the Israeli claim that the route is based on security considerations Accordingly, they argue that if this separation barrier is an expression of apartheid, then any number of similar defensive barriers around the world must also meet that definition.

Some opponents also take issue with the apartheid analogy because of the historical claim of the Jewish people; they argue that apartheid was an outgrowth of imperialist, colonial policy, while Israel's Jewish population consisted mostly of refugees with a deep historical relationship to the land. Others question the analogy because they view the political aspirations of Palestinians to be more extreme than those of black South Africans; they point out that South African blacks did not seek the destruction of South Africa, but merely the reformation of the government, and they claim that the majority of Palestinians in the territories dispute Israel's right to exist.

Comparison between Apartheid in South Africa and Israeli West Bank barrier

Issue	Apartheid South Africa	Israel's barrier
Goal of separation	The goal of bantustans was the elimination of rights of the majority South African black population, to ensure white hegemony.	The goal of the security fence is preventing clandestine terrorist entry to Israel, which has caused the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians.
Citizenship	A central goal of official apartheid "separate development" was to strip black South Africans of their citizenship.	West Bank Palestinians were never citizens of Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli Arabs constitute 15% of the Israel's citizens.
Forced transfer	Between 1950 and 1986, about 1.5 million Africans were forcibly removed from "white" cities to rural reservations.	The security fence causes no transfer of population.
Opposition to nation	South African blacks, cordoned into bantustans, did not seek the destruction of South Africa, but rather the removal of the apartheid regime.	The majority of Palestinians in the territories dispute Israel's very right to exist; this has bred terror, and ultimately, the need for the fence.
Permanence	South African bantustans were an effort to force a permanent international status on lands, and the black population living there.	The security fence is a temporary defensive measure to save civilian lives, not a permanent border; inconveniences caused by the fence are reversible.
Colonialism	South African "separate development" was an outgrowth of imperialist, colonial policy.	Israel is "colonial" neither with regard to the source of its population (mostly refugees), nor their deep historical relationship to the land.