Utolsó frissítés: 2026.06.03. — Szerző: Anti-Propaganda News Blog
The existence and prevalence of apartheid in Israel—whether only in the occupied Palestinian territories (the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip), or throughout the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River under Israeli control—has become a global legal and political issue since the early 2020s. Building on earlier analyses by Palestinian civil society organizations, regional and international human rights organizations have published significant reports concluding that Israel maintains a system of apartheid governance. Many of these reports applied the legal test for apartheid, as developed by international conventions and statutes, to reach this conclusion.
What is apartheid?
Apartheid is a discriminatory political and legal system that emerged from the white settler-colonial states of South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. The apartheid The word means „separation” in Afrikaans and described the white minority’s legally enshrined system of domination over the indigenous African population in South Africa, South West Africa (Namibia), and other colonial states in the region. South Africa formally adopted apartheid as a political system following the election of the National Party in 1948. At the height of its political existence in South Africa, apartheid enshrined discriminatory political and legal privileges that favored the white minority population, granting them exclusive or preferential rights in voting, property ownership, political representation and lawmaking, judicial appointments, corporate and union leadership, and educational opportunities. Through legislative, police, and military repression, these rights were denied to the majority Black African population.
Apartheid collapsed in South Africa between the 1980s and the early 1990s as a result of decades of widespread civil disobedience, armed resistance, and increasing international political and economic sanctions. Yet even after black majority rule was established in South Africa and Namibia, the economic distortions of apartheid continued to have a profound impact well into the twenty-first century.
International Law and Apartheid
Although apartheid is commonly associated with its South African roots, it has a universal definition enshrined in international law that prohibits apartheid wherever and whenever it exists in the world. The two most important international documents prohibiting the crime of apartheid are the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Article 1 of the 1973 Convention against Apartheid declared that apartheid is a „crime against humanity.” Article 2 defines the crime of apartheid against humanity as encompassing:
„similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as were practiced in South Africa, and shall apply to the following inhumane acts committed with the intent to establish and maintain the domination of one racial group over any other racial group and to systematically oppress them.”
The 1998 Rome Statute, adopted four years after the fall of apartheid in South Africa, provides a forward-looking, universally applicable definition of apartheid. In Article 7(2)(h), the Statute defines the crime against humanity of apartheid as follows:
„such inhumane acts […], committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over one or more other racial groups, and with the intent to perpetuate that regime.”
It is noteworthy that the Rome Statute makes no specific reference to South Africa, indicating that the existence of apartheid in the world is not limited either in time or geographically.
The International Legal Test for Apartheid
Although the 1973 Apartheid Convention and the 1998 Rome Statute contained some minor differences in their respective definitions of apartheid, these differences are reconcilable. Accordingly, the contemporary definition of the „crime of apartheid against humanity,” which draws upon and is consistent with these two legal documents, consists of the following three-part test:
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There is an institutionalized regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination;
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which was established with the intent to maintain the dominance of one racial group over another; and
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which details the inhumane acts committed as an integral part of the regime.
The continued existence of the crime of apartheid in the modern world must be determined by applying this test, rather than by examining whether the specific attributes of South African apartheid can be found in a contemporary situation of systematic racial discrimination.
In addition to these two authoritative prohibitions under international law, apartheid is also prohibited as an internationally unlawful act under international human rights law by the 1965. Furthermore, in international humanitarian law (the law of war and occupation), apartheid is prohibited as an unlawful act under Article 85(4) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. It defines „the practice of apartheid and other inhuman and degrading practices based on racial discrimination that violate human dignity” as serious violations.
Apartheid in Israel/Palestine
Beginning in the early 2020s, the international and regional human rights movements began applying this definition of apartheid under international law to the situation in Palestine, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), or, more broadly, to the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River under Israeli control.
The Application of the Apartheid Test to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)
Numerous human rights organizations—including Addameer and the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories—have concluded that Israel has instituted apartheid in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and in Gaza. They argue that all three elements of the apartheid test are met. Yesh Din has stated that Israel practices apartheid in the West Bank, while Al-Mezan has reported that the blockade of Gaza is an integral part of the Israeli apartheid regime.
1. An institutionalized regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination
Regarding the first part of the apartheid test, these human rights advocates pointed out that Israel has established a dual legal and political system in the occupied Palestinian territories, a fact reinforced by the dual categorization of identity cards. In the occupied Palestinian territories, more than 700,000 Israeli settlers—exclusively Jewish— enjoy the full range of legal, political, social, and judicial rights, just like other Israeli Jewish citizens. In contrast, the nearly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank are largely governed by more than 1,800 Israeli military orders, enforced by a military court system with a conviction rate exceeding 99 percent. In East Jerusalem, more than 360,000 Palestinians have residency status without citizenship or voting rights and live in overcrowded neighborhoods, with scarce municipal services and a standard of living significantly lower than that of Jewish Israelis living in Jerusalem. In Gaza, meanwhile, more than two million Palestinians have been confined since 2007 to a narrow strip of land under a comprehensive Israeli air, and land blockade, which, according to former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, constitutes the prohibited practice of collective punishment.
2. The deliberate introduction of systematic discrimination
The second step of the apartheid test asks whether this systematic discrimination was introduced with the intent to maintain the domination of one racial group over another. Human rights advocates have pointed out that the recent Israeli government has embraced a widely accepted political consensus that Israel will retain East Jerusalem and most or all of the West Bank, regardless of whether a peace agreement is reached or not. Under such an arrangement, Palestinians would remain under Israel’s permanent security and political control, without citizenship or internationally recognized rights.
3. Inhumane acts as an integral part of the regime
The third step of the apartheid test examines whether inhumane acts were committed as an integral part of the regime. Among the inhumane acts cited by human rights advocates in connection with the occupied Palestinian territories are the denial of the right to life and liberty, the denial of full participation in all functions of society, the prevention of the exercise of freedom of movement and association, entrenched segregation in housing and the economy in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the ongoing confiscation of Palestinian public and private land, the exploitation of the dependent Palestinian workforce by Israel in the settlements and as day laborers in Israel, as well as Israel’s frequent use of collective punishment, administrative detention, torture, and executions without trial. The long-standing repetition of these acts, as well as their enactment by the Knesset and their endorsement by Israeli courts, indicates that they are not the result of random or unintentional practices, but rather form an integral part of Israel’s system of government.
Applying the definition to historic Palestine, including Israel
Applying the same three-part legal test, other recognized human rights advocates have concluded that Israel practices apartheid throughout the territory it controls between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, al-Haq, and B’Tselem, among others, have published reports essentially arguing that it is impossible to have „democracy here and apartheid there.” In their view, Israel’s strategic fragmentation of Palestinian territories and populations over the past seventy-five years—the separation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and within the Green Line; the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan; as well as the social, political, and demographic segregation of the Palestinian diaspora from one another—constitutes systematic discrimination and the prevalence of apartheid. Some commentaries have pointed out the close connection between Israeli apartheid practices and the long history of settler colonization in Palestine dating back to the early twentieth century.
Among the primary characteristics of apartheid that, according to the arguments of human rights advocates, apply to the entire territory under Israeli control, are the 1950 Law of Return (which grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel and automatically acquire Israeli citizenship), the refusal to allow the 1,000,000 Palestinian refugees from the Arab-Israeli War and the 1967 War—or their descendants—to return to their homes, as well as the mass confiscation of Palestinian homes and property, and the physical destruction of hundreds of Palestinian communities after 1948 through the 1950 Absentee Property Law and the 1953 Land Acquisition Law. Palestinian citizens of Israel are entitled to vote, run for political office, and participate in certain areas of Israeli public life; however, they face severe restrictions on land ownership and use, are denied certain state-provided social benefits (since most of them do not serve in the Israeli military, which is a prerequisite for receiving certain benefits), they face a discriminatory labor and housing market, and their socioeconomic status is significantly worse than that of Israeli Jews. The law passed by the Israeli Knesset in 2018 Basic Law: Israel, the Nation-State of the Jewish People states that the Jewish people alone have the right to self-determination on this land, and that the development of Jewish settlements is a „national value.”.
In its 2021 report, B’Tselem concluded that Israel „has established a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” which constitutes apartheid.
A Global Response to Human Rights Findings on Israeli Apartheid
Israel and its supporters generally raise three counterarguments against the label of apartheid. The first claims that such accusations are false and constitute anti-Semitism. The second is that Israel cannot be compared to apartheid-era South Africa. The third counterargument asserts that the “apartheid” label is a political distraction that only diverts decision-makers from solving real-world problems.
When the debate over Israeli apartheid unfolded in the early 2020s, governments in the Global North either criticized or ignored this new categorization, but without providing any substantive justification for their rejection. The apartheid analysis found a more receptive audience in the Global South, where countries such as South Africa, Namibia, Malaysia, and Indonesia embraced the label.
In recent years, prominent figures have stated that Israel’s established policies and practices amount to apartheid or are very similar to it. Ban Ki-moon, the former UN Secretary-General, wrote in 2021:
„Israel’s structural dominance and the oppression of the Palestinian people through indefinite occupation […] undeniably constitute apartheid.”
South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu made the following statement in 2014:
„I know firsthand that Israel has created a reality of apartheid within its borders and through its occupation.”
Michael Ben-Yair, a former Israeli attorney general, stated in 2022 that Israel:
„It has become an apartheid regime […] a one-state reality in which two different peoples live with unequal rights.”
Political and social developments in Israel and Palestine point toward the consolidation of an apartheid system both in the occupied Palestinian territories and within Israel itself. The continuous growth of the Israeli settler population, as well as the establishment and legalization of new settlements, has only deepened the discriminatory segregation of the Jewish and Palestinian populations in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The intensification of Israel’s comprehensive blockade of Gaza—while the occupying power exercises almost complete control over who and what enters and leaves the Strip—has caused widespread civilian suffering. This medieval-style siege of a significant population is unique in the modern world. The structure of discriminatory laws and practices imposed by Israel on its Palestinian citizens, which relegate them to second-class citizenship, will only intensify as the effects of the 2018 Nation-State Law become apparent.
Michael Lynk
Sources:
Addameer Prisoner Support and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School. Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank. Jerusalem: Author, 2022. https://www.addameer.org/sites/default/files/IHRC-Addameer-Submission-to…
Amnesty International. Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians. London: Author, 2022. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-ap…
B’Tselem. This is Apartheid: A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem: Author, 2021. https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
Dugard, John, and John Reynolds. “Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” European Journal of International Law 24, no. 3 (2013): 867–913.
Al-Haq. Israeli Apartheid: A Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism. Ramallah: Author, 2022. https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2022/12/22/israeli-aparthe…
Human Rights Council. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, A/HRC/49/87 (March 21, 2022). https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/A_HRC_49_87_AdvanceUne…
Human Rights Watch. Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. New York: Author, 2021. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. The Gaza Bantustan: Israeli Apartheid in the Gaza Strip. Gaza: Author, 2021. https://mezan.org/uploads/files/16381763051929.pdf
Thrall, Nathan. “The Separate Regimes Delusion.” London Review of Books (January 7, 2021). https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n02/nathan-thrall/the-separate-regim…
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid. Beirut, Lebanon: Author, 2017.
Yesh Din. The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion. Tel Aviv: Author, 2020. https://www.yesh-din.org/en/the-occupation-of-the-west-bank-and-the-crim…
