Explaining and analyzing the existence of apartheid in the occupied territories for the international community can help lead the struggle of the Palestinian people to victory.
The evidence shows that acts of racial discrimination against Palestinian Muslims and Arabs have been proven to the people of the world more than before, and this has helped anti-racist movements against Israel reach a favorable position.
Comparisons between Israel and South Africa based on the existence of racial discrimination in both regimes have been made since the mid-1990s and popularized since the early 2000s. Of course, even before this date, some Israeli officials had warned about the possibility of this regime turning into an apartheid system like South Africa.
For example, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned in 1976 that if Israel annexes the West Bank and attracts Arab populations living in that region into its domain of influence, the regime will be in danger of becoming an apartheid state.
In the 1990s, the term “Israeli apartheid” became popular after the Oslo Accords. At this point, the Zionist regime accepted the limited autonomy of the Palestinians in the form of self-governing organizations and established checkpoints in the occupied territories.
In 2007, the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, Ehud Olmert, said that if the two-state solution fails, Israel will face a South African-style struggle and people living in occupied territories will demand equal citizenship rights. He warned that as soon as this happens, the life of the Israeli government will end.
Also in 2014, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned that if Israel does not accept the two-state solution, it may soon be recognized as an apartheid state.
Despite these warnings, the Jewish State Bill, passed in July 2008, says that “the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.” The bill also allows for the creation of separate cities in Israel where residency is based on religious or ethnic privileges.
This bill is compared with a similar law in South Africa that was enacted in 1950 and proves that apartheid was also established in Israel.
At that time, the Zionist newspaper Ha'aretz called the status of the Jewish state bill “the cornerstone of apartheid.”
Some of the laws of the Israel have explicitly or implicitly discriminated against Palestinians and Arab immigrants and have actually distinguished Jewish citizens from non-Jewish citizens for racial reasons.
In relation to security, land, citizenship rights, education, culture and representation in parliament, they clearly confirm that apartheid exists in the Israeli regime.
In a 2007 report, John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on Palestinian affairs, wrote that “In Israel, various forms of colonialism and apartheid have emerged, which are contrary to international law.” He suggested that the legal consequences of a long-term occupation in Israel, which has colonial and apartheid characteristics, be sent to the International Court of Justice.
Following Dugard's report, the Humanities Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa conducted a legal inquiry in 2009 on Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories.
Pointing out that one of the most notorious aspects of apartheid in South Africa was the policy of racial blockade under the name of “Bantunstan”, this report added that “Israel's actions in the occupied Palestinian territories are like the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
In this research, it is stated that “The government of Israel, with the aim of maintaining the system, controls the domination of the Jews over the Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, and this system is a violation based on apartheid.”
During the apartheid regime in South Africa, separate areas for the lives of blacks, coloreds and Asians were formed under the name of Bantunistan and were administered racially.
Inside the black territories (Bantunstan), a separate education department was established, and the per capita expenses of each black student was a quarter of the expenses of a white student.
In Bantunstans, many black teachers had a low social status. And the number of students in each class compared to blacks was twice that of whites outside of Bantunistan, and black schools had fewer classes than white schools.
Many experts, including Noam Chomsky, believe that the situation in Palestine is much worse than in Bantunistan or the black lands of South Africa.
In April 2021, Human Rights Watch published a report accusing Israeli authorities of crimes of apartheid and persecution under international law and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate “systematic discrimination”.
Subsequently, in March 2022 Michael Link, a Canadian law professor, for the first time as a UN rapporteur, explicitly confirmed the existence of apartheid against Arabs and said that “The two-tier system of Israeli domination over the Palestinians can no longer be called the unintended consequence of a temporary occupation.”
In her October 2022 report, Michael Link's successor, Francesca Albanese, asked the UN General Assembly to “develop a plan to end the Israeli colonial occupation and the existence of the apartheid regime.”
Following the release of the report, Navi Pillai, head of the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Palestinian conflict, said in an interview with The Times of Israel that apartheid in Israel was “a manifestation of occupation.”
As a result of these reports, at the end of December 2022, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution in which the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is sought regarding the existence of apartheid in Israel and its consequences.
Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, on the similarities between South Africa and Israel, believes that international pressure can help end apartheid in Israel. He says that “If apartheid ends, the occupation will also end.”
In 2014, Bishop Tutu addressed the General Assembly of the Protestant Church in America and said that “Israel has created the reality of apartheid within its borders, to end the existence of a permanent apartheid state in the occupied territories, attention should be paid to the two-state solution.”
The BBC reported in 2012 that Bishop Tutu “accused Israel of practicing apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians and said that “I was deeply disturbed during my visit to the Holy Land; this trip reminded me of what happened to us blacks in South Africa. The basic structures of apartheid in Israel with regard to inheritance rights, ownership, share of state water and land and access to state welfare resources, completely put Israel in line. It justifies an apartheid regime.”
In May 2021, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned of the risk of “long-term apartheid” in Israel if the Palestinians are unable to get their own state, explaining the clashes between Arabs and Jews in some Israeli cities.
“The evidence clearly shows that if we have a solution other than the two-state solution in the future, we will have elements of apartheid for a long time,” he said.
As Bishop Tutu said after visiting the occupied territories that the intensification of international pressures can lead to the collapse of the Zionist regime in the same way that it led the apartheid regime in South Africa to collapse and the defeat of the racists will take place.
In order to speed up this process, it is necessary to explain the existential dimensions of apartheid in Israel to different countries and to the international community on a continued basis and with careful planning. And it was with the help of international institutions such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Zionist regime and its supporters will be forced to accept the votes of the Palestinian people. The Ministry of foreign affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran can play a leading role in this regard.
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