How is Israel an apartheid state?

 Let’s start with Israel’s medical apartheid during the COVID pandemic. Israel has continuously excluded Palestinians from its vaccination programs, claiming that it’s the PA’s responsibility to vaccinate them. This is denied by article 56 of the 4th Geneva convention which clearly states that the occupying power (Israel) has the duty of ensuring preventative measures against the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. So as the occupying power in the WB and Gaza, Israel must vaccinate the citizens there. Don’t want to vaccinate Palestinians? Withdraw and stop ruling over them.

Next, demographics. Israel is built on Jewish supremacy, and that wouldn’t be possible without establishing Jewish majority. In Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have placed a 30% cap on the allowed Palestinian population, issuing thousands of “eviction” and demolition orders while encouraging Jewish immigration to Jerusalem. Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency of 250,000 Palestinians. Don’t get me started on the Israeli 1950 law of return, which gives any Jew on earth the right to citizenship in Israel, while preventing the real right of return owed to 750,000+ indigenous Palestinians ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba and the “birth” of Israel.

Next, Movement. Palestinians are restricted when it comes to movement between the 4 areas under apartheid (WB, Gaza, occupied interior and Jerusalem), and they are also restricted in terms of movement within the units themselves. Palestinians in the WB are fragmented into 227 enclaves surrounded by apartheid walls, military checkpoints and illegal Jewish settlements.

Next, Political Participation. Yes, Palestinian citizens in the occupied interior can vote in the occupation government, but any candidate who challenges the state’s status as an exclusively Jewish state is then prohibited from running in elections (ie the state is not an equal democracy and don’t you dare challenge that as a citizen). These Palestinian citizens in Israel proper can only vote for cosmetic changes but can never challenge apartheid or achieve liberation. This of course doesn’t include the rest of Palestinians under Israeli rule who are arbitrarily arrested, brutalised and murdered for peaceful protest, voicing criticism or simply displaying symbols of nationalism. Even their association with most political parties and unions is illegal under Israeli law.

Next, Land. 2018 Israeli Nation State Law: the building of Jewish settlements is considered a national value. This law supports the expansion of Jewish settlements and the simultaneous encroachment of Palestinians into tiny crowded enclaves. Adding to that discriminatory laws such as the Absentee Property Law which allows Israel to confiscate millions of acres of Palestinian land. Palestinian councils are only granted access to 3% of the land by the apartheid regime, and 93% of the land is owned by parastatal organizations, which effectively means Palestinian citizens of israel can’t access 74% of the land.

Focusing on the occupied interior, Palestinian citizens of israel are clearly second class citizens, inferior to Jewish israelis. The Adalah legal center has compiled no less than 66 racist Israeli laws against them. Starting with racial classification, Israel differentiates between citizenship and nationality. Israeli courts have explicitly rejected an “Israeli nationality”, instead opting for distinct Jewish/Arab nationality. Jewish nationality is offered to Jews worldwide regardless of citizenship status, and the 2018 nation state law states: “the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people”. How are the different citizen races equal then? Different property rights: the state incorporates parastatal organisations like JNF (Jewish National Fund) into the legal system, which guarantees Jewish control over land and resources. The JNF for example pledges loyalty only to Jewish citizens, clearly stating they do NOT have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of Israel. Segregation: Palestinians are excluded from living on Israeli lands through a racist selection committee which sets criteria for who can live in 70% of Israel’s towns. The committees are authorised to reject residency applications based on “the social and cultural fabric of towns” which basically means demographic engineering and apartheid. As a result, Palestinian citizens of israel can’t buy or lease 80% of the lands of the occupied interior because of racist policies. Resources: Less than 0.5% of Israeli government properties are in Palestinian municipalities, and Israel also segregates the schooling system for Palestinian and Jewish students with Palestinian schools being more crowded, less staffed and have fewer facilities. In 2013, Israel spent 4.5x more per student in Jewish localities than in Palestinian ones. 45% of Palestinians in the heartland live under the poverty line, that figure is just 13% for Jewish Israelis.

Finally, there are the unrecognised Palestinian villages. The Naqab (Negev) region is home to several bedouin Palestinian villages who’s existence is not recognised by the lovely state. The communities are disconnected from infrastructure, water and electricity systems. Between 2013 and 2019, 10,000+ villages were demolished. This is all being done to convert these lands to Jewish settlements.

In terms of Israeli officials using the term apartheid, get another cup of tea:

• Reuven Rivlin (president of Israel since 2014) said on 12/02/2017 that Israel’s new “regularisation law” which formally expropriates several tracts of Palestinian land “will cause Israel to be seen as an apartheid state”
• David Ben Gurion was one of the first people to use the word apartheid in relation to Israel, following the June 1967 war, he warned of israel becoming an apartheid state if it retained control of the newly occupied territories, which it did and thus became
• 1999: Ehud Barak said that keeping the occupied terrirories leads to either a non-Jewish binational state or and apartheid nondemocratic state. No other options.
• Alon Liel: Israel’s occupation of the WB as it is today is a form of Israeli apartheid, an imitation of the Bantustan model, legitimises a new 21st century model of apartheid.
• 1976: Yitzhak Rabin (war criminal btw): also predicted that maintaining control over occupied territories would lead to apartheid.

This of course doesn’t account for countless UN officials, legal experts, human rights organisations and most importantly Palestinian voices from all units from the river to the sea who have confirmed time and time again that Israel is indeed an apartheid ethno state built on Jewish supremacy. [i]