Is Israel an apartheid state? My own answer is: of course, certainly, and most definitely. However, my testimony is not impartial as I belong to one party to the conflict. For this reason, I rely today on the most important reference in what pertains to to this issue, namely, the state of South Africa where the White minority government had invented the apartheid regime, until this government and the apartheid both collapsed. I can take no credit in what follows except for summarizing and translating a report issued by the Human Sciences Research Center of South Africa, which was entitled “Is Israel an Apartheid State?” The report was reviewed by Frances Remillard, who is a member of the group ‘Just Peace in the Holy Land'. In the beginning of his article, Remillard asked, "Do Israel's practices in occupied Palestinian territory, namely the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, amount to the crimes of colonialism and apartheid under international law?” To answer this question, the South African center dispatched researchers to conduct a legal study on the subject, with the aim of studying the issue from an unbiased perspective based on international law and not political rhetoric. The study took 15 months to accomplish, in which the researchers examined the pertinent international law and legal rulings, the legal status and laws governing historic Palestine from Ottoman times, in addition to Israeli laws and the rebuttal of Israel's various claims that international law does not apply to Israeli practices. International law defines apartheid as an institutionalized form of racism in which states enact laws to maintain domination by one racial group over any other racial group, which is then systematically oppressed by the first group. The report mentions that there are three pillars of apartheid used by apartheid regimes to maintain their domination: In the first pillar, the state enacts laws that are biased in favor of a particular identity, and then passes laws that grant preferential status to the preferred group while discriminating against the non-preferred group. In the second pillar, the state segregates the population into geographic areas based on their identity. The preferred identity receives preferential access to land, water, and other resources, and the government benefits from the services of the non-preferred group which is confined to ever shrinking territorial enclaves. In the third pillar, the state enacts security laws and policies designed to suppress any opposition to the regime; these laws are reinforced through assassinations, administrative detention, torture, cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, and imprisonment of the non-preferred group. On the basis of these three pillars, the South African study concluded that “Israel, since 1967, is the belligerent Occupying Power in occupied Palestinian territory, and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.” Before I continue, I pause to say, once again, that Netanyahu's fascist government does not represent all the Israelis. For instance, the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions endorsed the report published by the South African research center. In truth, there are scores of Israeli peace groups similar to this committee, which all oppose their government's policies. I can only be brief in this small article. Suffice to say that the report is a complete condemnation of all aspects of official Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories. Under the first pillar of apartheid, the report pointed out that Israel prevents natural growth in the Occupied Territories, and confines Palestinians to the boundaries of towns, municipalities and villages, denying Palestinians 90% of needed housing permits, while destroying thousands of Palestinian homes. On the other hand, Israel gives settlers benefits such as automatic Israeli citizenship, settlement housing, financial benefits and free education. Meanwhile, Palestinians who reside in or obtain the citizenship of another country are prevented from returning to East Jerusalem. Also, the Palestinians who fled in 1948 or 1967 are not allowed to return to their homes or reclaim their property. Israel also prevents the Palestinians all rights to family unification, and limits their rights in relation to trade unions, the freedom of education and the freedom of the press. Under the second pillar, the report found that Israel had committed every possible violation against international law, as it has appropriated 50% of the West Bank for the exclusive benefit of Jews including settlements, nature preserves and closed military zones. Israel has diverted all of the Jordan River water and 87% of Palestinian ground water to the state of Israel and the illegal Jewish settlers, leaving only 13% of Palestinian ground water to be distributed back to 2.5 million Palestinians. Moreover, the Palestinians pay four times more for water than Jewish settlers pay, but only receive 10 to 60 liters of water per day, compared to the 274 to 450 liters of water per day that the settlers receive. The situation is even worse in Gaza, where 90 to 95% of water is unfit for drinking. The third pillar addresses security laws designed to suppress opposition, and how Palestinians are being tried before military tribunals that violate international law, and also the issues of mass incarceration, prosecution of children, and restrictions against assemblies and protests against apartheid policies. I summarized a review that is a summary to begin with, of a report drafted by the original experts in the subject of racial segregation. It is nothing short of a condemnation coming from the victims of apartheid, against the world's only remaining apartheid state that claims to be democratic. (The full report is available online, and I can show the reader how to obtain it if he or she wishes). khazen@alhayat.com
