Israeli human rights organisations, including in reports by B'Tselem and Yesh Din, have described the situation for Palestinians as apartheid.
In February 2022, 13 Israeli human rights organisations condemned the vicious attacks on Amnesty International following the publication of their report on apartheid.
B'Tselem
In January 2021, Israel's largest human rights organisation B'tselem published their report; A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.
"More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. One regime, inside the borders of the sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine million, all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories Israel took over in 1967, whose final status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects.
Over time, the distinction between the two regimes has grown divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for more than 50 years – twice as long as the State of Israel existed without it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now reside in permanent settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice. Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All this leads to the conclusion that these are not two parallel regimes that simply happen to uphold the same principle. There is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle."
- Watch B'Tselem's director, Hagai El-Ad speaking about the report on Israeli apartheid alongside Diana Buttu at a Caabu/PSC online briefing in March 2022.
- Illustrated explainer of the report here.
- Various online briefings, editorials and other background to the report here.
- It’s not proportional. It’s not temporary. It’s not legal. It’s not equal. And it’s not complicated: Believe your eyes. Follow your conscience. The reason that it looks like apartheid is simply because it is apartheid - interview with B'Tselem's director Hagai El Ad on Democracy Now May 2021
Yesh Din
Israeli human rights organisation, Yesh Din, published a legal opinion in November 2020:The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion.
"The conclusion of this legal opinion is that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank. The perpetrators are Israelis, and the victims are Palestinians.
The crime is committed because the Israeli occupation is no “ordinary” occupation regime (or a regime of domination and oppression), but one that comes with a gargantuan colonization project that has created a community of citizens of the occupying power in the occupied territory. The crime is committed because, in addition to colonizing the occupied territory, the occupying power has also gone to great lengths to cement its domination over the occupied residents and ensure their inferior status. The crime of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank because, in this context of a regime of domination and oppression of one national group by another, the Israeli authorities implement policies and practices that constitute inhuman acts as the term is defined in international law: Denial of rights from a national group, denial of resources from one group and their transfer to another, physical and legal separation between the two groups and the institution of a different legal system for each of them. This is an inexhaustive list of the inhuman acts."
- Report from Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), November 2020: A Life Exposed: Military invasions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
