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Discrimination |
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Racial and ethnic segregation |
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Israeli apartheid is a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel. This system is characterized by near-total physical separation between the Palestinian and the Israeli settler population of the West Bank, as well as the judicial separation that governs both communities, which discriminates against the Palestinians in a wide range of ways. Israel also discriminates against Palestinian refugees in the diaspora and against its own Palestinian citizens.
Since the 1948 Palestine war, Israel has been denying Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled from what became its territory the right of return and right to their lost properties. And since the 1967 Six Day War, Israel has been occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which is now the longest military occupation in modern history, and in contravention of international law has been constructing large settlements there that separate Palestinian communities from one another and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. The settlements are mostly encircled by the Israeli West Bank barrier, which intentionally separates the Israeli and Palestinian populations, a policy called Hafrada. While the Jewish settlers are subject to Israeli civil law, the Palestinian population is subject to military law. Settlers also have access to separate roads and exploit the region's natural resources at its Palestinian inhabitants' expense.[citation needed]
Comparisons between Israel–Palestine and South African apartheid were prevalent in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.[2][3] Since the definition of apartheid as a crime in the 2002 Rome Statute, attention has shifted to the question of international law.[4] In December 2019, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination[5] announced it was reviewing the Palestinian complaint that Israel's policies in the West Bank amount to apartheid.[6] Since then, several Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights organizations have characterized the situation as apartheid, including Yesh Din, B'Tselem,[7][8][9] Human Rights Watch,[9][10] and Amnesty International. This view has been supported by United Nations investigators,[11] the African National Congress (ANC),[12] several human rights groups,[13][14] and many prominent Israeli political and cultural figures.[15][16][17] The International Court of Justice in its 2024 advisory opinion found that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories constitutes systemic discrimination and is in breach of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid. There is not yet consensus as to whether the discrimination amounts to apartheid; in separate opinions, judges were split on the question.[18][19][20][21][22][23]
Elements of Israeli apartheid include the Law of Return, the 2003 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, the 2018 Nation-State Law, and many laws regarding security, freedom of movement, land and planning, citizenship, political representation in the Knesset (legislature), education, and culture. Israel says its policies are driven by security considerations[24][25][26][27] and that the accusation is factually and morally inaccurate and intended to delegitimize Israel.[28][26][29][30] It also often calls the charge antisemitic, which critics have called weaponization of antisemitism.[31][32][33][34][35]
A regime that uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another is an apartheid regime. Israeli apartheid, which promotes the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians, was not born in one day or of a single speech. It is a process that has gradually grown more institutionalized and explicit, with mechanisms introduced over time in law and practice to promote Jewish supremacy. These accumulated measures, their pervasiveness in legislation and political practice, and the public and judicial support they receive – all form the basis for our conclusion that the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met.
Tuesday's lengthy ANC statement accused Israel of 'crude viciousness,' comparing it to South Africa's past apartheid regime.
12 Israeli human rights organizations have since expressed "grave concern" about attempts to associate Amnesty's report with antisemitism, and they have rejected the Commission's failure to recognize Israel's apartheid. These organizations argue that weaponizing antisemitism to silence legitimate criticism actually undermines attempts to address rising antisemitism.Republished from Geddie, Eve (13 March 2023). "EU needs to understand the realities in the West Bank". Politico. Retrieved 19 April 2024. Eve Geddie was writing as the director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office.
Amnesty's report is important and for many advocates it is affirming of what they have been stating all along is a racist regime of systemic discrimination. However, for many longstanding critics of Israel, accusations of Israeli apartheid are not new, nor is the predictable backlash against them whereby antisemitism has been weaponized by Israel and its supporters. This backlash is now been directed against Amnesty International
As Human Rights Watch noted, the first example opens the door to reflexively labeling as antisemitic human rights organizations and lawyers who argue that current Israeli government policies constitute apartheid against Palestinians
There have been a few lines of attack on Penslar, and there are thus a few issues at hand. First, there is the notion that he called Israel a regime of apartheid. & What makes the series of events at Harvard so disheartening is not that the attack on Penslar is unique but that it transparently gives the game away: There is no set of credentials that can prevent a person who is earnestly trying to do work in this space from getting sucked into the politicization and, yes, weaponization of antisemitism. This is the way that current public debates over antisemitism tend to go, in Congress and on debate stages, on social media and between friends, within families and within organizations. But when fact and understanding and nuance of the issue are all considered secondary, what gets sacrificed isn't just an individual's career or standing or time, but comprehension of the actual issue that is antisemitism.