Published: 8 February 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
But the Policy Working Group behind the verdict, headed by ex-envoy to South Africa Ilan Baruch, says the label does not fit Israel’s pre-67 borders or Gaza
ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION OF East Jerusalem and the West Bank has “created an environment characterised by the chronic and systematic violation of Palestinian human rights [which] must be universally recognised as a regime of apartheid,” according to a prominent Israeli advocacy group of ex-diplomats and academics.
“This regime, though not based on a racist constitution, aims to consolidate Jewish domination of the West Bank and East Jerusalem through the operation of a two-tiered, ethnicity-based system that privileges Jews and oppresses Palestinians. This system, in our view, meets the criteria of apartheid,” says a paper released over the weekend by the Policy Working Group (PWG).
The PWG is chaired by a former ambassador to South Africa, Ilan Baruch, and includes another ex-envoy to that country, Alon Liel (also a former director general of the Foreign Ministry), a former ambassador to France Eli Barnavi, current Meretz MK Mossi Raz, and several prominent Israeli academics.
The paper, which responds to Amnesty International’s explosive report last week accusing Israel of "the crimes of apartheid", agrees with its central message but asserts that the label of apartheid cannot be applied to the totality of Israel’s political map. It argues that the legal and political reality within the pre-67 borders and Gaza do not fit the definition for apartheid.
But it is unequivocal in its conclusion about the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). “The Palestinians constitute a solid majority. The Jewish settler population is a definite minority which entertains an ethnically exclusive and privileged supremacy.
“In order to maintain the occupation and enable ongoing settlement expansion, Israel controls the area through military force. It has created a two-tier legal system with one set of laws that apply to Israelis and another that applies to the Palestinians.
