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An introduction to Israel's Regime of Occupation, Settler-Colonialism and Apartheid over the Palestinian people.

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Published by Palestine Community Foundation, 2019-03-18 13:04:20

Israel's Regime of Occupation, Colonisation and Apartheid over the Palestinian People

An introduction to Israel's Regime of Occupation, Settler-Colonialism and Apartheid over the Palestinian people.

THE PALESTINIAN

PEOPLE: OCCUPIED

COLONISED

APARTHEID

AN INTRODUCTION TO ISRAEL’S REGIME OF
APARTHEID AND SETTLER-COLONIALISM
OVER THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

Who are we?
Palestine Community Foundation (PCF) is a not-for-profit aimed at

Palestinians and non-Palestinians alike; promoting Palestinian
culture, advocating for justice and building a sense of community

around Palestine in the UK.
We believe that peace can only be achieved through justice, and

justice can only be achieved through understanding.

@palestinefoundationuk

@palcommunityuk

@palestinecommunityuk

www.palestinefoundation.org.uk

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Contents Page

Israel: Occupier, Coloniser, Apartheid State?.......................................3
Occupation…………………………………………………………..………………3
Apartheid……………………………………………………………..…………….. 4
Colonialism………………………………………………………………..……….. 4

Zionism and the Foundation of Israel…………………………………………………5

United Nations 2017 ESCWA Report ‘Israeli Practices Towards the
Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid’…………………………… 5
Fragmentation………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
Israel’s Violations of the UN Apartheid Convention………………………….. 9

Domain 1: Palestinian Citizens of Israel…………………………………………….. 9
Israel a Racial State………………………………………………………………9
Israel’s Racist Laws……………………………………………………………… 10
Israel’s Theatrical Democracy……………………………………………… 10

Domain 2: Palestinian Residents of East Jerusalem………………………….. 11

Domain 3: Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territory (excluding East
Jerusalem) the West Bank and Gaza Strip…………………………………………. 13

The West Bank ………………………………………………………………….. 13
Incarceration…………………………………………………….…… 14
Building Permits……………………………………………….…… 14
Freedom of Movement……………………………………….….14
Colonisation Through Settlements……………………….… 15

The Gaza Strip………………………………………………………………….…. 18
Domain 4: Palestinian Refugees………………………………………………….….….19
What Can We Do?............................................................................... 19
BDS Fact Sheet…………………………………………………………………………………. 20
Map – The Four Domains……………………………………………………………….... 21
Useful Further Reading………………………………………………………………………22

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Israel: Occupier, Coloniser, Apartheid State?

Masquerading as a temporary ‘occupation’ Israel practices a regime of apartheid over the
Palestinian people which facilitates its settler-colonial endeavour; capture as much land and as
few Palestinians as possible. Given Israel and the occupied territories in reality constitute one
territorial unit under Israeli control, the differential treatment of Palestinians to Jewish Israelis
in this domain amounts to an apartheid, albeit a complex and sophisticated one. Palestinians
are systematically denied the rights of Jewish Israelis both in Israel itself and within the
territories, with the purpose of ensuring the dominance of one racial group, Jewish Israelis,
over another, the Palestinians.

Israel ensures the dominance of Jewish Israelis primarily through the geographical
fragmentation of Palestinians, splintering them into separate legal and political categories. It
also employs demographic engineering to maintain an overwhelmingly Jewish majority in
Israel, bans challenges to racial domination and uses Jewish-national institutions to ensure the
state exclusively privileges Jewish nationals.

By imprisoning Palestinians in militarised enclaves, forcibly removing them from their homes,
annexing their land, making their everyday lives unliveable and even by Jewishising street
names, the settler-colonial endeavours of Israel are not up for debate but are a conspicuous
reality. Colonialism is prohibited under international law and apartheid is a crime against
humanity whereby states, private institutions and individuals are obliged to take measure to
combat it. Where apartheid is the means and colonisation the end, the two are inextricably
linked. This is how it works:

Occupation:

In international law ‘occupation’ is considered a temporary form of governance between
armed conflict and peaceful resolution, where the occupying power must respect international
humanitarian law (IHL). But Israel’s ‘occupation’ is neither temporary nor protects Palestinians’
human rights.

Its permanence is blatant. After 50 years of military rule Israel has no intention to leave.
750,000 Israeli settlers live in permanent colonies whose land includes 42% of the West Bank
and 86% of East Jerusalem.

A $3bn concrete wall with watch towers and militarised zones is no temporary structure.
Against the laws of ‘occupation’, Palestinians are consistently denied their human rights.

In short, it is not a temporary ‘occupation’ by legal definition, but a decades-long system of
apartheid and settler-colonialism.

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Apartheid:

‘Apartheid’ is the Afrikaans word for ‘apartness’ used by the ruling regime in South Africa to
describe its own regime of control it implemented until 1994. Although the term ‘apartheid’ is
still associated with South Africa, it now represents a specific category of regime defined by the
UN, with indicators against which its presence can be tested.

The standard for finding apartheid is not in its likeness to South Africa but is found in
international law. It may operate in different ways and display various characteristics
depending on its geopolitical context. Whilst comparisons to South Africa can be helpful, strict
parallels are not necessary to confirm its presence. This booklet relies on Article II of the
International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid
(1973):

“The term ‘the crime of apartheid’, which shall include similar policies and practices of racial
segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to… inhuman acts
committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of

persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

Apartheid is not only illegal under international law but described as a crime against humanity
in the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which states:

“The crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts… committed in the context of an
institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any

other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.

Colonialism:

The practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another. Israel’s
endeavours fit a specific form of colonialism, settler-colonialism.

Settler-colonialism operates by replacing indigenous inhabitants with an invasive society which
develops a distinct identity and establishes sovereignty.

There is no doubt Israel is a settler-colonialist endeavor; formed in 1948 by displacing 800,000
Palestinians and destroying more than 530 towns and villages, its continual annexation of
Palestinian land and displacement of Palestinian people makes this undeniable.

In the words of anthropologist Patrick Wolfe ‘settler colonialism destroys to replace’.

4

Zionism and the Foundation of Israel:

Arthur Balfour, in a 1919 memorandum on Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia: “the four great
powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in
age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire
and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion that is

right.”

Zionism is an ideology which resurfaced in the late 19th century in reaction to growing anti-
Semitism to justify the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, despite its
inhabitants being 90% Arab. Although it may be presented as an anti-racist national liberation
movement to protect Jews from centuries of persecution by facilitating their right to self-
determination, the material application of the ideology to the historic land of Palestine has
proven it only serves to liberate one ethnic group at the expense of another, the Palestinians.

In its historical application, it has seen Palestinians forced from their land and communities
whilst simultaneously being denied citizenship rights in Israel. Zionism has been endorsed to
justify allowing Jews from all over the world to arrive in Israel and be naturalised as citizens
and Jewish nationals. It is endorsed to justify the annexation of Palestinian territory and the
irreversible eviction from their homes. In its most extreme application, it is used to justify the
segregation of Palestinians in open-air prisons, the massacres of Palestinian men, women and
children and a regime of everyday violence.

At the heart of Israel is not an anti-racist national liberation ideology, but a racist nationalism
which upholds a system of apartheid against Palestinians and legitimises a settler-colonial
regime.

Whilst Zionism may have lost all legitimacy in the world of ideas, in the material world it
continues to be applied with unrelenting strength and power.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, prophesied its effects in his 1896 work, The Jewish
State, “If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct”.

United Nations Report:

The UN Economic Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) published the report ‘Israeli
Practices Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid’ in 2017 stating that
Israel, from the very beginning, “has established an apartheid regime that dominates the
Palestinian people as a whole”.

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Dr Tilley, who prepared the report stated, “we are no longer talking about risk of apartheid but
practice of apartheid. There is an urgency for a response as Palestinians are currently suffering
from this regime”.

The report concludes, “on the basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel
is guilty of the crime of apartheid.” However, it notes “only an international tribunal in that
sense would make such an assessment truly authoritative.” We await such a tribunal.

The ESCWA report finds that Israel maintains an apartheid regime by splintering Palestinians
into four legal domains which “enfeeble Palestinian resistance to Israeli apartheid oppression
in each of them” which reinforces the oppression of the Palestinian people as a whole.

This booklet will follow the basic structure of the four legal domains outlined in the ESCWA
report to expose how apartheid and settler-colonialism operates across them.

Israel has artificially fragmented Palestinians time and time again. Even the four domains do
not reflect the full extent of Israel’s fragmentation of the Palestinian people.

The Four Domains (see page 21):

Domain 1: Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Domain 2: Palestinian Residents of East Jerusalem

Domain 3: Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territory, excluding East Jerusalem – the West
Bank and Gaza Strip

Domain 4: Palestinian Refugees and Involuntary Exiles

Fragmentation

In the West Bank, 2.9 million Palestinians live under military rule and in the Gaza Strip 1.9
million Palestinians live under full military siege; they are forcibly divided from each other.
Residents of East Jerusalem are separated from the West Bank by the separation barrier. The
West Bank itself has been further dissected into areas A, B and C.

Areas A and B, misleadingly considered under Palestinian Authority control, consist of 165
‘islands’ scattered throughout the West Bank among Area C, which maintains full Israeli
military control. In reality, even areas A and B are under Israeli control. There are over 6 million
Palestinian refugees worldwide, of which 4.3 million are registered for humanitarian assistance
with the UN and denied the right to return to Palestine.

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The geographic fragmentation of the Palestinian people, which has become normalised and
accepted in the international community, forms the foundation of Israel’s apartheid regime.

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Israel’s Violations of the UN Apartheid Convention:

The Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid declares
apartheid a crime against humanity and lists acts that fall within the ambit of the crime.
Palestinians are victims of Israel’s apartheid practices by being:

• Denied the right to freedom of movement and residence
• Denied the right to nationality in Israel
• Denied the right to leave and return to their country
• Subjected to cruel and degrading treatment, murder and unlawful imprisonment

(especially in Gaza)
• Forcibly removed from land and property
• Denied the right to work, education and healthcare
• Physically segregated
• Forced into living conditions calculated to cause physical destruction in whole or in

part
• Persecuted for opposing apartheid

Domain 1: Palestinian Citizens of Israel
Naomi Klein: ‘Democracy is not just the right to vote, it is the right to live in dignity’.

Israel markets itself as a liberal democracy, in reality this could not be further from the truth.
1.8 million Palestinian citizens of Israel (20% of Israel’s population) are openly subjected to
differential treatment to Israeli Jews by the state apparatus, making them second-class
citizens. They receive less funding for fundamental rights like education, inferior social services,
restrictions on jobs and are subject to over 65 racist state laws.

Israel - a Racial State

Israel recognises ethnicity over nationality, forcing all citizens to carry an Israeli identity card
labelling them ‘Arab, Druze, Jewish…’ etc. Enshrined in Israel’s Basic Laws, the closest thing it
has to a constitution, Israel exposes its apartheid by openly privileging Jewish nationals; the
2018 Nation State Law states, “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they
have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”. By incorporating the ethnic
privileging of Jewish Israelis into its national legal foundation, any challenge to the Basic Laws is
considered a ‘national’ threat. As such, it is illegal for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and even
their political representatives in the Knesset, to attempt to oppose this inbuilt oppression.

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Israel’s Racist Laws

Palestinian citizens of Israel are subjected to over 65 discriminatory state laws. Through the
Absentee Property Law (1950) which labels expelled refugees after the Nakba ‘absentees’,
Palestinians may be forcibly removed from their home even if they have lived there for
decades and replaced with a Jewish family. Whilst the Law of Return (1950) and Israeli
Citizenship Law (1952) allow every Jewish person to immigrate to Israel and become a ‘Jewish
national’.

The Ban on Family Unification (2003) prohibits the unification of families where one spouse is
an Israeli citizen and the other resident of the occupied territories. ‘Nakba Law’ – Israel’s
Budget Foundations Law (2011) allows state funding to schools and other institutions to be
eliminated if they commemorate the Nakba, an integral part of Palestinian history, culture and
identity. The combined effect of these laws is the breaking up of families, forcing them to live
apart, emigrate or fear constant deportation; denigration of Palestinian culture and identity
and the strict manipulation of population demographics, limiting Palestinians to a politically
ineffective minority whilst facilitating unlimited and exclusive immigration rights for Jews.

Israel’s Theatrical Democracy

Israel’s electoral system which masquerades as a democracy is nothing more than a theatre.
Palestinians are invited to perform illusory token gestures of political participation, but are
structurally and constitutionally denied meaningful political agency. Parties which challenge
the identity of Israel as a Jewish State are denied participation in the Knesset. By manipulating
population demographics and limiting Palestinian citizenship in Israel, Palestinians must remain
an ineffective political minority. Since 1948 no Arab party has been included in a ruling
coalition in Israel.

Under its Basic Laws, Israel strives to strengthen Jewish nationalism and preserve Israel as a
Jewish State. It does this by manipulating population demographics and allowing Jewish and
Zionist organisations to fulfil government responsibilities. The Jewish Agency, World Zionist
Organisation and others allocate resources to everything from education funding to leasing
land. Palestinians are excluded from their remit resulting in Palestinian students receiving a
third of the school funding as Jewish students.

Clearly the purpose of these discrete practices by Israeli state apparatus is to establish and
maintain domination by one racial group, Jewish Israelis, over Palestinians. This is an apartheid.

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Domain 2: Palestinian Residents of East Jerusalem

After the Nakba of 1948, Israel captured Western Jerusalem forcing 80,000 Palestinians to flee.
Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 but denied Palestinian residents living there
Israeli citizenship. Nowadays, East Jerusalem is home to 300,000 Palestinians, with the city
being a place of immense cultural, religious and political significance for the Palestinian people.
After 52 years of annexation, East Jerusalem’s demographic balance has been forcibly
manipulated to the point where currently 45% of the population are Jewish Israelis living
mainly in 16 major illegal settlements. This balance is constantly being shifted to reduce the
Palestinian population through Israel’s apartheid; denying Palestinians their citizenship rights;
pressuring Palestinians to leave; enforced eviction and systematic colonisation.

Denying Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship, whilst simultaneously colonising the
land, helps maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis in Israel by ensuring Palestinians remain
an ineffective political minority. In addition to denying them rights as citizens, Palestinians’
residency rights are made deliberately precarious to facilitate their removal. Israel’s Jerusalem
Municipality has openly pursued the Jerusalem 2000 ‘master plan’, seeking to establish a 60/40
demographic balance in favour of Jewish Israelis in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians are granted the status of permanent residents in East Jerusalem, i.e. the status of
foreigners in their own birth place, where their right to remain is a privilege which may be
retracted at any time. Palestinians are forced to prove Jerusalem is their ‘centre of life’,
through submission of extensive documents which include proving home ownership, school
registration, involvement in local organisations and much more. From 1996-2014, 11,000
Palestinians had their Jerusalem residency revoked.

Completed in 2016, the Separation Barrier in Jerusalem makes up over 200km of concrete and
completely seals off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Cutting through the lives of
Palestinians, many are forced to cross checkpoints every day to reach their homes, workplace
or simply go about their daily lives. Despite paying taxes, Palestinians in East Jerusalem are
given second-class infrastructure in their neighbourhoods. Everything from pavements, roads
and sewage systems to school and cultural facilities are underserviced compared to the Jewish
neighbourhoods and settlements. In Palestinian neighbourhoods 76% of all residents and
83.4% of the children live below the poverty line.

These racist-segregationist policies systematically deny Palestinians their rights whilst granting
rights to Jewish nationals. The extent of Israeli colonisation of East Jerusalem is vast. The
statistics speak for themselves:Israel has allocated 87% of East Jerusalem for Jewish Israeli
development. From 2009-2014 Israel demolished 467 Palestinian structures. Since 1967 Israel
has revoked residency permits of at least 14,300 Palestinians living in Jerusalem.Emboldened
by Trump’s decision in 2017 to recognise the whole of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Israel’s
colonisation of Jerusalem is not slowing down. This is settler-colonialism. This is an apartheid.

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Domain 3: Palestinians in occupied Palestinian territory – the West Bank and Gaza

The West Bank

Israel operates a regime of apartheid over the occupied territories, facilitating its settler-
colonial endeavours. Of the more than 4.6 million Palestinians living there, at least 1.9 million
live in the Gaza Strip and 2.7 million in the West Bank.

Based on racial discrimination alone, Palestinians in the West Bank must live under military law
whereas Jewish settlers living in the same space are protected by Israeli civil law. Importantly,
even Jewish settlers who are not Israeli citizens are protected by Israeli civil law and not
beholden to military law.

Palestinians in the West Bank are subjected to discriminatory laws, practices and policies which
hyperregulate their everyday lives. Under a regime of intimidation and everyday violence at
the hands of Israel’s occupation forces, where Palestinians are not physically displaced from
their lands they are encouraged to do so through ‘voluntary displacement’. Over 5000 military
laws and edicts restrict everything from freedom of movement, freedom to build, work, tend
crops, transport goods and even digging for water.

The West Bank itself has been dissected into areas A, B and C. Areas A and B, supposedly under
Palestinian control, consist of 165 ‘islands’ scattered throughout the West Bank among Area C,
which maintains full Israeli military control. In parallel to the Bantustan model in South Africa,
where the white regime manufactured a scene of artificial autonomy for black South Africans
whilst maintaining actual control, Israel theatrically grants Palestinians localised autonomy
whilst the geographical entity as a whole remains beholden to Israeli law and at the mercy of
the Israeli military.

By denying Palestinians in the West Bank Israeli citizenship whilst subjecting them to violent
and intimidating military rule creates an environment not conducive to life itself, so as to force
Palestinians into ‘voluntary transfer’ where they have not already been physically expelled. In
short, Israel’s apartheid facilitates its colonisation.

Three key effects of Israel’s military law enforced upon Palestinians expose the extent of
Israel’s apartheid in the West Bank: unfair incarceration, restricted movement and restricted
building development.

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Incarceration

The duplicitous legal system between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank means
Palestinians may be imprisoned for up to 20 years for stone throwing whilst IDF soldiers face
minimal punishment for murdering incapacitated Palestinians. For instance, in 2016 IDF soldier
Elor Azaria shot dead already motionless Palestinian Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif in occupied
Al Khalil (Hebron). He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and served just half that.

Israel uses mass incarceration to discourage resistance. There are more than 7,000 Palestinian
political prisoners in Israeli jails, hundreds detained without trial. Israel regularly incarcerates
children: in 2016 five boys from Jerusalem aged 14-17 were given sentences longer than
Azaria’s, spanning 2-4 years, for throwing stones at cars.

Administrative detention (AD): a person may be held without trial without having committed
an offence, with no time limit, based on classified evidence that need not be revealed.
Individuals can be placed in AD for up to six months, after which it can be renewed time and
time again indefinitely

Building Permits

Under Israel’s apartheid in the West Bank, Palestinians must get permits to build and develop
their land which are virtually impossible to obtain. Where Israeli settlements are rapidly
developed adorned with swimming pools, private roads and state-of-the-art amenities,
Palestinians languish for years waiting for permits to simply build barns for their animals, let
alone their own houses. And when they do build without permission, they must live in constant
fear of demolition. Families often forced to live in one room, with temperatures soaring in the
summer, this is a manufactured nightmare created for Palestinians by Israel’s apartheid. From
2010-2014, 33 out of 2,020 building permits were approved (1.5%).

Freedom of Movement

Israel’s apartheid laws restrict Palestinian movement within the West Bank itself and block all
entry and exit points. Travel outside the West Bank is often denied for Palestinians while
Israeli-Jewish settlers may travel to, from and within the West Bank freely. Israel’s apartheid
artificially forces the separation between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians are forced to
wait at military barriers on a daily basis throughout the West Bank called checkpoints.

As of July 2018, 705 permanent obstacles were counted restricting Palestinian movement in
the West Bank, of which 140 were mapped checkpoints. A total of 4,924 ad-hoc ‘flying’

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checkpoints were counted between January 2017 and July 2018 (random ‘pop-up’ barriers
controlled by the IDF). Movement is restricted both within across the archipelago of Palestinian
cantons splintered across Area C.

From September 2000 to September 2005, 60 women gave birth at checkpoints in unsanitary
conditions, whereby 36 babies and five women died as a result. From 2000 to 2003, 83 medical
patients died at checkpoints after delayed or denied entry. Israel maintains apartheid roads
just for Jewish Israeli settlers such as the 7km 443 which connects settlers to Jerusalem whilst
diverting Palestinians around it. Israel completely prohibits Palestinians from using about 40km
of roads designated for settlers, and has 49km of road just for Palestinians which can be
immediately shut down by the military. Palestinian residents of the West Bank must obtain
permits to enter Israel or East Jerusalem whether for work, medical treatment or to visit
family. The application system is deliberately unclear, many applications are denied with no
explanation and predicting when the outcome of the result will be received is impossible.

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, 3 million Palestinians have been cut off from their
lands and from each other by the separation barrier. It consists of electric fencing, paved paths,
barbed-wire fences and ditches on either side. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice at
the Hague ruled that the barrier within the West Bank is unlawful for two reasons: 1. It violates
Palestinians’ human rights and 2. The barrier is deliberately designed to aid the annexation of
settlements constructed in violation of international law. It ruled Israel must stop the barrier’s
construction, dismantle it and compensate Palestinians.

Colonisation Through Settlements

By denying Palestinians in the West Bank Israeli citizenship, Palestinian citizens of Israel are
limited to a politically ineffective minority. In addition, by incapacitating Palestinian
development in the West Bank through the hyperregulation and ‘hyper-limitation’ of everyday
life, Palestinians as a whole are less capable of resisting Israel’s settler-colonialism. This can be
seen in the extent of settlement building:

Since 1967, over 200 Israeli settlements have been established in the West Bank, home to over
620,000 Israeli citizens. All lands allocated to settlements have been designated closed military
zones which Palestinians may not enter without a permit. Additional lands get confiscated for
hundreds of kilometers of bypass roads for settlers. In February 2019, Israeli ministers pledged
to settle two million Jews in the West Bank and approved the construction of 4000 new
settlement units. This is settler-colonialism. This is an apartheid.

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Gaza

Despite ‘disengagement’ from Gaza in 2005, it is still under full occupation according to the UN.
Having been under siege since 2007, the Israeli military controls movement of goods, aid, and
people in and out of the enclave. A naval blockade surrounds its coastline and a live-firing
‘security zone’ prohibits movement across the perimeter fence.

Israel’s apartheid over the Palestinian people has created a man-made humanitarian disaster in
Gaza. The UN Conference on Trade and Development 2015 report stated Gaza will be unlivable
by 2020.

A Freedom of Information Request made by Gisha human rights organisation in October 2010
revealed Israel had employed a “deliberate reductive policy” based on calculations of minimal
calorific intake required for Gaza residents to survive. But this was already well known from
Israeli official Dov Weisglass’s comment in 2006 that the plan was, “to put Palestinians on a
diet, but not make them die of hunger”. And he’s succeeded, creating widespread
malnutrition.

Under the Oslo Accords, Palestinians are permitted 20 nautical miles for fishing, but Israel
often limits this to only three. The economy is in collapse, 54% of the labour force was
unemployed in 2017, reaching highs of 70% unemployment among youth. 80% of Gaza’s
residents depend on humanitarian aid and 60% suffer from food insecurity. Electricity is
supplied for just a few hours a day and routine power cuts destroy medical equipment.

Even 96.2% of water pumped into the Gaza strip is contaminated, despite Israel being the
world’s leader in water sanitation, meaning residents must buy desalinated water.
Compounding this, power shortages impede water supply from pumps and wells leaving
residents forced to cut back on the amount of water they drink. Hospitals are forced to rely on
generators where fuel shortages may stop hospitals from functioning altogether. Washing
machines, refrigerators and water heating tanks are all ineffective during blackouts. Israel even
sprays herbicide on Palestinian crops destroying over 3,500 acres of farmland.

Since March 2018, over 250 Palestinians have been killed whilst protesting their collective
punishment and 27,000 injured in the Great Return March. A majority of which by live fire.
Massacres were also carried out in Gaza 2008-9, 2012 and 2014 killing 512 children. Just a few
hundred meters over the perimeter fence Israeli citizens live luxurious lives. This is an
apartheid.

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Domain 4: Palestinian Refugees and Involuntary Exiles

Israel denies Palestinian refugees their right to return home in order to preserve its Jewish
majority. The 1948 UN General Assembly resolution 194(III) explicitly states “the [Palestinian]
refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be
permitted to do so” and states compensation should also be made. Palestinian refugees live all
over the world, either first or up to fifth generation, having been forced to leave their homes
since 1948.

Currently over 3 million live outside the Palestinian territories, 95% of whom in neighbouring
Arab states, and just over 2 million within the territories themselves. There are between 6-8
million Palestinians worldwide, the world’s largest refugee population, with 1 in 3 refugees
globally being Palestinian. With a third of Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps and 4.3
million surviving on UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) aid, it is no surprise
Palestinians demand to be granted their right to return home.

If Israel granted Palestinians their right to return, it would either have to openly endorse an
apartheid system and abandon democracy in order to maintain itself as a Jewish state, or
embrace a democratic identity and so abandon its vision of a Jewish State.

By denying Palestinians in Domain 4 their right to return, whilst allowing exclusively
innumerable Jewish immigration, allows Israel to uphold its apartheid regime by ensuring the
dominance of one racial group over another which in turn complements its settler-colonial
endeavours.

What Can We Do?

Israel’s differential treatment of the Palestinian people to Jewish Israelis amounts to an
apartheid, albeit a complex and sophisticated one. By geographically fragmenting Palestinians
into separate entities and applying discriminatory laws, practices and policies to each of the
four Domains, Israel ensures the dominance of Jewish Israelis over the Palestinian people.

Israel’s forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes, its denial of granting refugees their
right to return, its settlement construction and exclusively Jewish immigration policy all
amount to conspicuous colonisation which privileges Jewish Israelis at the expense of
Palestinians. This is settler-colonialism. This is an apartheid.

We must continue to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as a non-
violent means of building pressure against Israel to dismantle its apartheid regime, reject
settler-colonialism for good and grant equal rights for Palestinians.

We call on the United Nations to carry out an internationally coordinated tribunal into Israel’s
apartheid. We call upon states, institutions and individuals alike to act to combat apartheid, as
is their designated duty under international law.

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The Four Domains:
Domain 1: Palestinian Citizens of Israel
Domain 2: Palestinian Residents of East Jerusalem
Domain 3: Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territory, excluding East Jerusalem – the West
Bank and Gaza Strip
Domain 4: Palestinian Refugees and Involuntary Exile

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Useful Further Reading:

• UN Economic Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) report: Israeli Practices
Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid (2017)
Accessible at: The Electronic Intifada
www.electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/2017-
03/un_apartheid_report_15_march_english_final_.pdf

• Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973)
www.treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%201015/volume-1015-i-14861-
english.pdf

• The Israeli Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories – B’Tselem
www.btselem.org

• BDS and Israeli Settler-Colonialism and Apartheid
www.bdsmovement.net/colonialism-and-apartheid/summary

• Makan – Palestine Reframed Educational Resources
www.makan.org.uk

• Israeli Apartheid Week website:
www.apartheidweek.org

Photo credits
Cover Image: Hans Verburg/Shutterstock.com
Image 1: Hans Verburg/Shutterstock.com
Image 2: Natasha Self
Image 3: Real World Photographs Inc / Shutterstock.com
Image 4: Annelies Lotteke
Image 5: Val Yankin / Shutterstock.com
Image 6: Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

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