Why it is crucial to keep a spotlight on Israel’s apartheid

Unlike his predecessors, Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is unabashedly embracing apartheid.

In April this year, Human Rights Watch issued a report, titled “A Threshold Crossed”, condemning Israel for “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians”. “Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy,” the leading international NGO flatly stated. “In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” The bluntness of the claims in the 213-page report shocked some, but the debate on whether or not Israel has imposed an apartheid regime over the Palestinians has a long history.