Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister from 1992-1995, was the first to advocate for the construction of a physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians. Following the 1995 Beit Lid suicide bombing that killed 22 Israelis, Rabin stated that separation is necessary to protect the majority of Israeli Jews from Palestinian terrorism.[15]Ehud Barak, Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001, stated that "good fences make good neighbors."[16] Since its first public introductions, the concept-turned-policy or paradigm has dominated Israeli political and cultural discourse and debate.[3][17][6]
The separation policy was maintained by successive Israeli governments, which constructed the Israel-Gaza barrier and the Israeli West Bank barrier (Geder Ha'hafrada, Hebrew for "separation fence").[6] In 2005, Israel carried out the disengagement from Gaza, which included the evacuation of Israeli settlements and the IDF from the Gaza Strip. The West Bank closures have also been cited as an example of the policy.[6][8][18]
Other names for hafrada when discussed in English include unilateral separation[6][19] or unilateral disengagement.[23]Aaron Klieman has distinguished between partition plans based on "hafrada", which he translated as "detachment"; and "hipardut", translated as "disengagement."[24] The Hebrew word Hafrada can imply both "separation" and "segregation."[25][17] Critics have linked the Hafrada policy to apartheid,[10] and others argue the word "hafrada" bears a "striking similarity" to the South African use of the term.[26]
^According to the Milon and Masada dictionaries, hafrada translates into English as "separation", "division", "disengagement", "severance", "disassociation" or "divorce". Milon: English Hebrew Dictionary
^Smith & Cordell 2013, p. 25: "The Hebrew term Hafrada is the official descriptor of the policy of the Israeli Government to separate the Palestinian population in the territories occupied by Israel from the Israeli population, by means such as the West Bank barrier and the unilateral disengagement from those territories. The barrier is thus sometimes called gader ha'hafrada (separation fence) in Hebrew. The term Hafrada has striking similarities with the term apanheid, as this term mean 'apartness' in Afrikaans and Hafrada is the closest Hebrew equivalent."
^Alcalai, Reuben (1981). The Complete Hebrew-English Dictionary. Masada.
^Undoing and Redoing Corpus Planning, Michael G. Clyne, p.403, "In the Language of "us" and "them" we could have expected an undoing when an integrative policy of the two communities was introduced. Obviously the [Peace] Process moves in the opposite direction: separation. Actually, one of the most popular arguments use by the government to justify its policy is the "danger" ("the demographic bomb", "the Arab womb") of a "bi-national state" if no separation is made: the Process is thus a measure taken to secure the Jewish majority. The term ‘separation’ ‘’hafrada’’ has become extremely popular during the Process referring to fences built around Palestinian autonomous enclaves, to roads pave in the Territories exclusively for Israelis to the decrease of the number of Palestinians employed in Israel or allowed to enter into it altogether. The stereotypes of the Palestinian society as backward" have not changed either."
^Aaron S. Klieman (15 January 2000). Compromising Palestine: A Guide to Final Status Negotiations. Columbia University Press. p. 1. ISBN0-231-11789-2.
^Beyond the Two-State Solution: A Jewish Political Essay, Yehouda Shenhav, "Israel's present separation policy – known in Israel as hafrada, a Hebrew Word which can mean both segregation and separation – is a natural continuation of the cultural-political position designed by the new nostalgia and of the demographic project, which constitutes the continuation of the war through other means."