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We 66 British academics and Israeli citizens reject the government’s imposition of the IHRA

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We 66 British academics and Israeli citizens reject the government’s imposition of the IHRA

The flawed definition threatens not only the fight against antisemitism, but Palestinian self-determination, academic freedom and our right to criticise the Israeli government.

Introduction

The open letter presented below was first published at the beginning of February 2021. The version here was published on the the Vashti Media website on 4th February 2021. It is reproduced here exactly as it was there.

We, British academics and Israeli citizens, strongly oppose the government’s imposition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism on universities in England, and call on all academic senates to reject it.

We represent a diverse cross-disciplinary, cross-ethnic, and cross-generational group. We all share an extended history of struggles against racism. Accordingly, we have been critical of Israel’s prolonged policies of occupation, dispossession, segregation, and discrimination directed at the Palestinian population. Our perspective is deeply informed by the multiple genocides of modern times, in particular the Holocaust, in which many of us lost family members. The lesson we are determined to draw from history is of a committed struggle against all forms of racism.

It is precisely because of these personal, scholarly and political perspectives that we are perturbed by the letter sent to our vice-chancellors by Gavin Williamson, secretary of state for education, on 9 October 2020. Explicitly threatening to withhold funds, the letter pressures universities to adopt the controversial IHRA definition. Fighting antisemitism in all its forms is an absolute must. Yet the IHRA document is inherently flawed, and in ways that undermine this fight. In addition, it threatens free speech and academic freedom and constitutes an attack on both the Palestinian right to self-determination, and the struggle to democratise Israel.

The IHRA has been criticised on numerous occasions. Here, we touch on some of its aspects that are particularly distressing in the context of higher education. The document is in two parts. The first, quoted in Williamson’s letter, is a definition of antisemitism:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

This formulation is both vague in language and lacking in content, to the point of being unusable. On the one hand, it relies on unclear terms such as “certain perception” and “may be expressed as hatred”. On the other hand, it fails to mention key issues such as “prejudice” or “discrimination”. Crucially, this “definition” is considerably weaker and less effective than antiracist regulations and laws already in force, or in development, in the university sector.

Moreover, the government’s pressure on higher education institutions to adopt a definition for only one sort of racism singles out people of Jewish descent as deserving greater protection than others who regularly endure nowadays equal or more grievous manifestations of racism and discrimination.

The second part of the IHRA presents what it describes as eleven examples of contemporary antisemitism, seven of which refer to the state of Israel. Some of these mischaracterise antisemitism. They likewise have a chilling effect on university staff and students legitimately wishing to criticise Israel’s oppression of Palestinians or to study the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Finally, they interfere with our right as Israeli citizens to participate freely in the Israeli political process.

To illustrate, one example of antisemitism is “[to claim] that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”. Another antisemitic act, according to the document, is “requiring of [Israel] … a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”. Surely it should be legitimate, not least in a university setting, to debate whether Israel, as a self-proclaimed Jewish state, is “a racist endeavour”, or a “democratic nation”?

Currently, the population under Israel’s control comprises 14 million people. Nearly 5 million of those lack basic rights. Of the remaining 9 million, 21% (around 1.8 million) have been systematically discriminated against since the state’s establishment.

This discrimination manifests itself in dozens of laws and policies concerning property rights, education, and access to land and resources. All 6.8 million people thus prevented from full democratic participation are non-Jews. Emblematic of this discrimination is the Law of Return, which entitles all Jews – and only Jews – living anywhere in the world to migrate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship, a right extendable to descendants and spouses. At the same time, millions of Palestinians and their descendants, who have been displaced or exiled, are denied the right to return to their homeland.

Such discriminatory legislation and state practices in other contemporary or historical political systems – ranging from China to the USA or Australia – are legitimately and regularly scrutinised by scholars and the general public. They are variously criticised as forms of institutional racism, and compared to certain fascist regimes, including that of pre-1939 Germany; historical analogies are a standard tool in academic research. However, according to the education secretary, only those concerning the State of Israel are now forbidden to scholars and students in England. No state should be shielded from such legitimate scholarly discussion.

Furthermore, while the IHRA document considers any “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” a form of antisemitism, many in the Israeli political centre and left have often drawn such comparisons. One recent example is a statement [link broken in the original] by Yair Golan, member of Knesset and former deputy chief of the general staff of the Israeli military, in 2016. Another is the comparison between Israel and “Nazism in its early stages” made in 2018 by the Israel Prize laureate Professor Zeev Sternhell, a renowned Israeli historian and political scientist who was, until his recent death, a world-leading theorist of fascism. Such comparisons are also made regularly by the editorials of the leading Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.

The use of such analogies is hardly new. In late 1948, a prominent group of Jewish intellectuals and Rabbis, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, published a long analysis in the New York Times accusing Menachem Begin, Israel’s future prime minister, of leading ”a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”

With its eleven “illustrative examples”, the IHRA definition has already been used to repress freedom of speech and academic freedom (see here, here and here). Alarmingly, it has served to frame the struggle against Israel’s occupation and dispossession as antisemitic. As recently stated in a letter to the Guardian by 122 Palestinian and Arab intellectuals:

We believe that no right to self-determination should include the right to uproot another people and prevent them from returning to their land, or any other means of securing a demographic majority within the state. The demand by Palestinians for their right of return to the land from which they themselves, their parents and their grandparents were expelled cannot be construed as antisemitic… It is a right recognized by international law as represented in UN general assembly resolution 194 of 1948… To level a charge of antisemitism against anyone who regards the existing state of Israel as racist, notwithstanding the actual institutional and constitutional discrimination upon which it is based, amounts to granting Israel absolute impunity.

In her recent letter endorsing the imposition of the IHRA on universities in England, Kate Green, MP and shadow secretary of state for education, states that “[w]e can only [fight antisemitism] by listening to and engaging with the Jewish community.” However, as Israeli citizens settled in the UK, many of us of Jewish descent, and alongside many in the UK’s Jewish community, we demand that our voice, too, be heard: the IHRA document is a step in the wrong direction. It singles out the persecution of Jews; it inhibits free speech and academic freedom; it deprives Palestinians of a legitimate voice within the UK public space; and, finally, it inhibits us, as Israeli nationals, from exercising our democratic right to challenge our government.

For these and other reasons, even the lead drafter of the IHRA, Kenneth Stern, has publicly warned:

Right-wing Jewish groups took the “working definition”, which had some examples about Israel …, and decided to weaponize it. … [This document] was never intended to be a campus hate speech code … but [at the hands of the Right it has been used as] an attack on academic freedom and free speech, and will harm not only pro-Palestinian advocates, but also Jewish students and faculty, and the academy itself. … I’m a Zionist. But on … campus, where the purpose is to explore ideas, anti-Zionists have a right to free expression. … Further, there’s a debate inside the Jewish community whether being Jewish requires one to be a Zionist. I don’t know if this question can be resolved, but it should frighten all Jews that the government is essentially defining the answer for us.

These concerns are shared by many others, including hundreds of UK students, scholars of antisemitism and racism, and numerous Palestinian, Jewish and social justice groups and campaigners in the UK and around the world, such as the Institute of Race Relations, Liberty, former Court of Appeal judge Sir Stephen Sedley and Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner.

UK universities must remain firm in their commitment to academic freedom and freedom of speech, and to the fight against all forms of racism, including antisemitism. The flawed IHRA definition does a disservice to both of these goals. We therefore call on academic senates in England to reject the governmental decree to adopt it or, where adopted already, to revoke it.

Signed,

Professor Hagit Borer FBA, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Moshe Behar, University of Manchester
Dr Yonatan Shemmer, University of Sheffield
Dr Hedi Viterbo, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Yael Friedman, University of Portsmouth
Dr Ophira Gamliel, University of Glasgow
Dr Moriel Ram, Newcastle University
Professor Neve Gordon, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Emeritus Moshé Machover, King’s College London
Dr Catherine Rottenberg, University of Nottingham
PhD Candidate Daphna Baram, Lancaster University
Dr Yuval Evri, King’s College London
Dr Yohai Hakak, Brunel University London
Dr Judit Druks, University College London
PhD Candidate Edith Pick, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Emeritus Avi Shlaim FBA, Oxford University
Dr Merav Amir, Queen’s University Belfast
Dr Hagar Kotef, SOAS, University of London
Professor Emerita, Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East London, recipient of the 2018 International Sociological Association Distinguished Award for Excellence in Research and Practice
Dr Assaf Givati, King’s College London
Professor Yossef Rapoport, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Haim Yacobi, University College London
Professor Gilat Levy, London School of Economics
Dr Noam Leshem, Durham University
Dr Chana Morgenstern, University of Cambridge
Professor Amir Paz-Fuchs, University of Sussex
PhD Candidate Maayan Niezna, University of Kent
Professor Emeritus, Ephraim Nimni, Queen’s University Belfast
Dr Eytan Zweig, University of York
Dr Anat Pick, Queen Mary, University of London
Professor Joseph Raz FBA, KCL, winner of the 2018 Tang Prize for the Rule of Law
Dr Itamar Kastner, University of Edinburgh
Professor Dori Kimel, University of Oxford
Professor Eyal Weizman MBE FBA, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Daniel Mann, King’s College London
Dr Shaul Bar-Haim, University of Essex
Dr Idit Nathan, University of the Arts London
Dr Ariel Caine, Goldsmiths University of London
Professor Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter
Professor Oreet Ashery, University of Oxford, recipient of a 2020 Turner Bursary
Dr Jon Simons, Retired
Dr Noam Maggor, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Pil Kollectiv, University of Reading, Fellow of the HEA
Dr Galia Kollectiv, University of Reading, Fellow of the HEA
Dr Maayan Geva, University of Roehampton
Dr Adi Kuntsman, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr Shaul Mitelpunkt, University of York
Dr Daniel Rubinstein, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London
Dr Tamar Keren-Portnoy, University of York
Dr Yael Padan, University College London
Dr Roman Vater, University of Cambridge
Dr Shai Kassirer, University Of Brighton
PhD Candidate Shira Wachsmann, Royal College of Art
Professor Oren Yiftachel, University College London
Professor Erez Levon, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Amos Paran, University College London
Dr Raz Weiner, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Deborah Talmi, University of Cambridge
Dr Emerita Susie Malka Kaneti Barry, Brunel University
PhD Candidate Ronit Matar, University of Essex
PhD Candidate Michal Rotem, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Mollie Gerver, University of Essex
Professor Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, SOAS
PhD candidate Lior Suchoy, Imperial College London
Dr Michal Sapir, Independent
Dr Uri Davis, University of Exeter & Al-Quds University

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2021 starts with continuing Zionist attacks on the Palestinian population

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2021 starts with continuing Zionist attacks on the Palestinian population

Israeli airstrikes damage children’s hospital and school in the Gaza Strip

Ramallah, January 23, 2021—Israeli warplanes launched five missiles at targets in Gaza City in late December, damaging a children’s hospital, school, center for disabled people, and several residential buildings.

Israeli airstrikes struck areas in the north, east, and west of Gaza City. The Israeli attacks damaged the Gaza Center for People with Disabilities, the Shuhada Gaza School, and the Mohammad Al-Dura Children’s Hospital, all located in the At-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, according to information collected by DCIP. The Israeli military claimed the attacks targeted Hamas locations in response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel.

When the missiles struck the area, 16 Palestinian children were patients in the children’s hospital, including three in the intensive care unit. An ensuing power cut interrupted patient care at Mohammad Al-Dura Children’s Hospital.

“The explosions caused great bewilderment among the sick children in the hospital,” Dr. Majed Hamada, Head of Mohammad Al-Dura’s Children Hospital, told Defense for Children International – Palestine. “The explosion shattered ten windows,” he added, telling DCIP that none of the patients or staff sustained injuries.

“I was going to bring medication for the kids when I saw the sky turn red,” Eman Bilal, a nurse at the hospital, told DCIP. “After that, we heard the huge explosion that shook the building and shattered the windows. Everyone at the hospital panicked, parents were scared to the point they started carrying their sick children and running towards safer rooms.”

The Gaza Center for People with Disabilities in At-Tuffah, which provides educational and training services for 60 students with disabilities aged between 14 and 28, sustained damage that interrupted classes and other services for at least one day. Around 20 windows were shattered and three doors were damaged, according to the director of the center, Salah Al-Amasi.

The Shuhada Gaza School, also in the At-Tuffah neighborhood, sustained damage to 52 windows and five doors during the airstrikes, according to the principal, Ihab Quqah. The building is home to both the Shuhada Gaza Public School, which educates around 620 pupils aged between 6 and 11 years old in the morning, and UNRWA’s Al-Daraj School, which educates 1000 pupils aged between 6 and 14 years old later in the day.

“Israeli forces’ use of explosive weapons in densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip is very likely to have indiscriminate effects,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Programme Director at DCIP. “While no casualties resulted here, Israeli forces regularly treat Palestinian public infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as acceptable collateral damaging and attacking essential facilities such as hospitals and schools.”

International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and requires that all parties to an armed conflict distinguish between military targets, civilians, and civilian objects. Israel as the occupying power in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the Gaza Strip, is required to protect the Palestinian civilian population from violence.

Israeli warplanes struck a United Nations-run school in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in the Al-Shati refugee camp located in the northwest of Gaza City on August 13, 2020, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The munition did not detonate on impact. UNRWA officials confirmed reports that the UNRWA Beach Co-Educational School ‘D’ in the Al-Shati refugee camp was damaged by an Israeli missile that did not detonate. Students were not allowed on the premises, having only returned to school less than a week earlier following a five-month school closure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

DCIP and numerous other human rights organizations have extensively documented Israeli forces’ targeting of schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, as well as the killing and maiming of children in and around such infrastructure.

DCIP’s investigation into all Palestinian child fatalities during the Israeli military’s assault on the Gaza Strip in summer 2014, known as Operation Protective Edge, found overwhelming and repeated evidence that Israeli forces committed grave violations against children amounting to war crimes. This included direct targeting of children by Israeli drone-fired missiles and attacks carried out against schools. In at least three incidents, Israeli forces carried out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks against schools.

This article first appeared on Defense for Children International – Palestine

Israeli forces kill 17-year-old Palestinian boy, allege attempted stabbing

Ramallah, January 26, 2021—Israeli forces shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy Tuesday afternoon in the northern occupied West Bank after the teen allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier nearby.

Attallah Mohammad Harb Rayan, 17, from Qawarat Bani Hassan, a town located southwest of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was shot dead by Israeli forces around noon at the Hares Junction near the illegal Israeli settlements, Revava and Barqan, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces shot Attallah after he allegedly carried a knife and attempted to attack an Israeli soldier stationed at the junction, according to Israeli army radio. 

“Israeli forces frequently resort to lethal force in circumstances not justified by international law,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program Director at DCIP. “Children suspected of committing criminal acts should be apprehended in accordance with international law and afforded due process of law.”

Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.

Attallah is the first Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in 2021. In 2020, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, six of whom were killed with live ammunition, according to documentation collected by DCIP. 

Israeli forces killed 17-year-old Mahmoud Omar Sadeq Kmail on December 22, after he allegedly shot at Israeli paramilitary border police forces deployed in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City. On December 4, Israeli forces shot and killed 15-year-old Ali Ayman Saleh Abu Alia in Al-Mughayyir, a village northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Ali did not present any threat to Israeli forces at the time he was killed, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The Israeli military has reportedly opened an investigation into Ali’s killing following international condemnation of the killing.

Israeli forces are rarely held accountable for grave violations against Palestinian children, including unlawful killings and excessive use of force. According to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, around 80 percent of complaints filed with Israeli authorities by Palestinians for alleged violations and harm by Israeli soldiers between 2017 and 2018 were closed with no criminal investigation opened. Of complaints where a criminal investigation was opened, only three incidents (3.2 percent) resulted in indictments. Overall, the chances that a complaint leads to an indictment of an Israeli soldier for violence, including killing, or other harm is 0.7 percent, according to Yesh Din.

This article first appeared on Defense for Children International – Palestine

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A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid

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The report reproduced below was published by B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories – at the beginning of January 2021. It is presented as it was in the original. (However, there’s a broken link in the original pdf on page 5 – permit required.)

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.

When B’Tselem was founded in 1989, we limited our mandate to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, and refrained from addressing human rights inside the State of Israel established in 1948 or from taking a comprehensive approach to the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Yet the situation has changed. The regime’s organizing principle has gained visibility in recent years, as evidenced by the Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People passed in 2018, or open talk of formally annexing parts of the West Bank in 2020. Taken together with the facts described above, this means that what happens in the Occupied Territories can no longer be treated as separate from the reality in the entire area under Israel’s control. The terms we have used in recent years to describe the situation – such as “prolonged occupation” or a “one-state reality” – are no longer adequate. To continue effectively fighting human rights violations, it is essential to examine and define the regime that governs the entire area.

This paper analyzes how the Israeli regime works to advance its goals in the entire area under its control. We do not provide a historical review or an evaluation of the Palestinian and Jewish national movements, or of the former South Africa regime. While these are important questions, they are beyond the purview of a human rights organization. Rather, this document presents the principles that guide the regime, demonstrates how it implements them and points to the conclusion that emerges from all of this as to how the regime should be defined and what that means for human rights.

Divide, separate, rule

In the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. A key method in pursuing this goal is engineering space differently for each group.

Jewish citizens live as though the entire area were a single space (excluding the Gaza Strip). The Green Line means next to nothing for them: whether they live west of it, within Israel’s sovereign territory, or east of it, in settlements not formally annexed to Israel, is irrelevant to their rights or status.

Where Palestinians live, on the other hand, is crucial. The Israeli regime has divided the area into several units that it defines and governs differently, according Palestinians different rights in each. This division is relevant to Palestinians only. The geographic space, which is contiguous for Jews, is a fragmented mosaic for Palestinians:

  • Palestinians who live on land defined in 1948 as Israeli sovereign territory (sometimes called Arab-Israelis) are Israeli citizens and make up 17% of the state’s citizenry. While this status affords them many rights, they do not enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens by either law or practice – as detailed further in this paper.
  • Roughly 350,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, which consists of some 70,000 dunams [1 dunam = 1,000 square meters] that Israel annexed to its sovereign territory in 1967. They are defined as permanent residents of Israel – a status that allows them to live and work in Israel without needing special permits, to receive social benefits and health insurance, and to vote in municipal elections. Yet permanent residency, unlike citizenship, may be revoked at any time, at the complete discretion of the Minister of the Interior. In certain circumstances, it can also expire.
  • Although Israel never formally annexed the West Bank, it treats the territory as its own. More than 2.6 million Palestinian subjects live in the West Bank, in dozens of disconnected enclaves, under rigid military rule and without political rights. In about 40% of the territory, Israel has transferred some civilian powers to the Palestinian Authority (PA). However, the PA is still subordinate to Israel and can only exercise its limited powers with Israel’s consent.
  • The Gaza Strip is home to about two million Palestinians, also denied political rights. In 2005, Israel withdrew its forces from the Gaza Strip, dismantled the settlements it built there and abdicated any responsibility for the fate of the Palestinian population. After the Hamas takeover in 2007, Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip that is still in place. Throughout all of these years, Israel has continued to control nearly every aspect of life in Gaza from outside.

Israel accords Palestinians a different package of rights in every one of these units – all of which are inferior compared to the rights afforded to Jewish citizens. The goal of Jewish supremacy is advanced differently in every unit, and the resulting forms of injustice differ: the lived experience of Palestinians in blockaded Gaza is unlike that of Palestinian subjects in the West Bank, permanent residents in East Jerusalem or Palestinian citizens within sovereign Israeli territory. Yet these are variations on the fact that all Palestinians living under Israeli rule are treated as inferior in rights and status to Jews who live in the very same area.

Detailed below are four major methods the Israeli regime uses to advance Jewish supremacy. Two are implemented similarly throughout the entire area: restricting migration by non-Jews and taking over Palestinian land to build Jewish-only communities, while relegating Palestinians to small enclaves. The other two are implemented primarily in the Occupied Territories: draconian restrictions on the movement of non-citizen Palestinians and denial of their political rights. Control over these aspects of life lies entirely in Israel’s hands: in the entire area, Israel has sole power over the population registry, land allocation, voter rolls and the right (or denial thereof) to travel within, enter or exit any part of the area.

A. Immigration – for Jews only:

Any Jew in the world and his or her children, grandchildren and spouses are entitled to immigrate to Israel at any time and receive Israeli citizenship, with all of its associated rights. They receive this status even if they choose to live in a West Bank settlement not formally annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory.

In contrast, non-Jews have no right to legal status in Israeli-controlled areas. Granting status is at the almost complete discretion of officials – the Minister of the Interior (within sovereign Israel) or the military commander (in the Occupied Territories). Despite this official distinction, the organizing principle remains the same: Palestinians living in other countries cannot immigrate to the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, even if they, their parents or their grandparents were born and lived there. The only way Palestinians can immigrate to areas controlled by Israel is by marrying a Palestinian who already lives there – as citizen, resident or subject – as well as meeting a series of conditions and receiving Israeli approval.

Israel not only hampers Palestinian immigration but also impedes Palestinian relocation between the units, if the move – in the perception of the regime – would upgrade their status. For instance, Palestinian citizens of Israel or residents of East Jerusalem can easily relocate to the West Bank (although they risk their rights and status in doing so). Palestinians in the Occupied Territories cannot obtain Israeli citizenship and relocate to Israeli sovereign territory, except for in very rare instances, which depend on the approval of Israeli officials.

Israel’s policy on family unification illustrates this principle. For years, the regime has placed numerous obstacles before families in which each spouse lives in a different geographical unit. Over time, this has impeded and often prevented Palestinians marrying a Palestinian in another unit from acquiring status in that unit. As a result of this policy, tens of thousands of families have been unable to live together. When one spouse is a resident of the Gaza Strip, Israel allows the family to live there together, but if the other spouse is a resident of the West Bank, Israel demands they relocate permanently to Gaza. In 2003, the Knesset passed a Temporary Order (still in force) banning the issuance of Israeli citizenship or permanent residency to Palestinians from the Occupied Territories who marry Israelis – unlike citizens of other countries. In exceptional cases approved by the Minister of the Interior, Palestinians from the West Bank who marry Israelis may be granted status in Israel – yet it is only temporary and does not entitle them to social benefits.

Israel also undermines the right of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories – including East Jerusalem – to continue living where they were born. Since 1967, Israel has revoked the status of some 250,000 Palestinians in the West Bank (East Jerusalem included) and the Gaza Strip, in some cases on the grounds they had lived abroad for more than three years. This includes thousands of East Jerusalem residents who moved mere miles east of their homes to parts of the West Bank that are not officially annexed. All these individuals were robbed of the right to return to their homes and families, where they were born and raised.

B. Taking over land for Jews while crowding Palestinians in enclaves:

Israel practices a policy of “Judaizing” the area, based on the mindset that land is a resource meant almost exclusively to benefit the Jewish public. Land is used to develop and expand existing Jewish communities and build new ones, while Palestinians are dispossessed and corralled into small, crowded enclaves. This policy has been practiced with respect to land within sovereign Israeli territory since 1948 and applied to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967. In 2018, the underlying principle was entrenched in Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People, which stipulates that “the State considers the development of Jewish settlements a national value and will take action to encourage and promote the establishment and reinforcment of such settlements.”

Inside its sovereign territory, Israel has enacted discriminatory laws, most notably the Absentee Property Law, allowing it to expropriate vast tracts of Palestinian-owned land, including millions of dunams in communities whose residents were expelled or fled in 1948 and were barred from returning. Israel has also significantly reduced the areas designated for Palestinian local councils and communities, which now have access to less than 3% of the country’s total area. Most of the designated land is already saturated with construction. As a result, more than 90% of land in Israel’s sovereign territory is now under state control.

Israel has used this land to build hundreds of communities for Jewish citizens – yet not a single one for Palestinian citizens. The exception is a handful of towns and villages built to concentrate the Bedouin population, which has been stripped of most of its proprietary rights. Most of the land on which Bedouins used to live has been expropriated and registered as state land. Many Bedouin communities have been defined as ‘unrecognized’ and their residents as ‘invaders.’ On land historically occupied by Bedouins, Israel has built Jewish-only communities.

The Israeli regime severely restricts construction and development in the little remaining land in Palestinian communities within its sovereign territory. It also refrains from preparing master plans that reflect the population’s needs, and keeps these communities’ areas of jurisdiction virtually unchanged despite population growth. The result is small, crowded enclaves where residents have no choice but to build without permits.

Israel has also passed a law allowing communities with admission committees, numbering hundreds throughout the country, to reject Palestinian applicants on grounds of “cultural incompatibility.” This effectively prevents Palestinian citizens from living in communities designated for Jews. Officially, any Israeli citizen can live in any of the country’s cities; in practice, only 10% of Palestinian citizens do. Even then, they are usually relegated to separate neighborhoods due to lack of educational, religious and other services, the prohibitive cost of purchasing a home in other parts of the city, or discriminatory practices in land and home sales.

The regime has used the same organizing principle in the West Bank since 1967 (including East Jerusalem). Hundreds of thousands of dunams, including farmland and pastureland, have been taken from Palestinian subjects on various pretexts and used, among other things, to establish and expand settlements, including residential neighborhoods, farmland and industrial zones. All settlements are closed military zones that Palestinians are forbidden from entering without a permit. So far, Israel has established more than 280 settlements in the West Bank (East Jerusalem included), which are now home to more than 600,000 Jews. More land has been taken to build hundreds of kilometers of bypass roads for settlers.

Israel has instituted a separate planning system for Palestinians in the West Bank, chiefly designed to prevent construction and development. Large swathes of land are unavailable for construction, having been declared state land, a firing zone, a nature reserve or a national park. The authorities also refrain from drafting adequate master plans reflecting the present and future needs of Palestinian communities in what little land has been spared. The separate planning system centers on demolishing structures built without permits – here, too, for lack of choice. All this has trapped Palestinians in dozens of densely-populated enclaves, with development outside them – whether for residential or public use, including infrastructure – almost completely banned.

C. Restriction of Palestinians’ freedom of movement

Israel allows its Jewish and Palestinian citizens and residents to travel freely throughout the area. Exceptions are the prohibition on entering the Gaza Strip, which it defines “hostile territory,” and the (mostly formal) prohibition on entering areas ostensibly under PA responsibility (Area A). In rare cases, Palestinian citizens or residents are permitted to enter Gaza.

Israeli citizens can also leave and reenter the country at any time. In contrast, residents of East Jerusalem do not hold Israeli passports and lengthy absence can result in revocation of status.

Israel routinely restricts the movement of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and generally forbids them from moving between the units. Palestinians from the West Bank who wish to enter Israel, East Jerusalem or the Gaza Strip must apply to the Israeli authorities. In the Gaza Strip, which has been blockaded since 2007, the entire population is imprisoned as Israel forbids almost any movement in or out – except in rare cases it defines humanitarian. Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza or Palestinians from other units who wish to enter it must also submit a special application for a permit to the Israeli authorities. The permits are issued sparingly and can only be obtained through a strict, arbitrary mechanism, or permit regime, which lacks transparency and clear rules. Israel treats every permit issued to a Palestinian as an act of grace rather than the fulfillment of a vested right.

In the West Bank, Israel controls all the routes between the Palestinian enclaves. This allows the military to set up flying כcheckpoints, close off access points to villages, block roads and stop passage through checkpoints at will. Furthermore, Israel built the Separation Barrier within the West Bank and designated Palestinian land, including farmland, trapped between the barrier and the Green Line as “the seam zone.” Palestinians in the West Bank are barred from entering this zone, subject to the same permit regime.

Palestinians in the Occupied Territories also need Israeli permission to go abroad. As a rule, Israel does not allow them to use Ben Gurion International Airport, which lies inside its sovereign territory. Palestinians from the West Bank must fly through Jordan’s international airport – but can only do so if Israel allows them to cross the border into Jordan. Every year, Israel denies thousands of requests to cross this border, with no explanation. Palestinians from Gaza must go through Egyptian-controlled Rafah Crossing – provided it is open, the Egyptian authorities let them through, and they can undertake the long journey through Egyptian territory. In rare exceptions, Israel allows Gazans to travel through its sovereign territory in an escorted shuttle, in order to reach the West Bank and from there continue to Jordan and on to their destination.

D. Denial of Palestinians’ right to political participation:

Like their Jewish counterparts, Palestinian citizens of Israel can take political action to further their interests, including voting and running for office. They can elect representatives, establish parties or join existing ones. That said, Palestinian elected officials are continually vilified – a sentiment propagated by key political figures – and the right of Palestinian citizens to political participation is under constant attack.

The roughly five million Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories cannot participate in the political system that governs their lives and determines their futures. Theoretically, most Palestinians are eligible to vote in the PA elections. Yet as the PA’s powers are limited, even if elections were held regularly (the last were in 2006), the Israeli regime would still rule Palestinians’ lives, as it retains major aspects of governance in the Occupied Territories. This includes control over immigration, the population registry, planning and land policies, water, communication infrastructure, import and export, and military control over land, sea and air space.

In East Jerusalem, Palestinians are caught between a rock and a hard place. As permanent residents of Israel, they can vote in municipal elections but not for parliament. On the other hand, Israel makes it difficult for them to participate in PA elections.

Political participation encompasses more than voting or running for office. Israel also denies Palestinians political rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of association. These rights enable individuals to critique regimes, protest policies, form associations to advance their ideas and generally work to promote social and political change.

A slew of legislation, such as the boycott law and the Nakba law, has limited Israelis’ freedom to criticize policies relating to Palestinians throughout the area. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories face even harsher restrictions: they are not allowed to demonstrate; many associations have been banned; and almost any political statement is considered incitement. These restrictions are assiduously enforced by the military courts, which have imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and are a key mechanism upholding the occupation. In East Jerusalem, Israel works to prevent any social, cultural or political activity associated in any way with the PA.

The division of space also hampers a unified Palestinian struggle against Israeli policy. The variation in laws, procedures and rights among the geographical units and the draconian movement restrictions have separated the Palestinians into distinct groups. This fragmentation not only helps Israel promote Jewish supremacy, but also thwarts criticism and resistance.

No to apartheid: That is our struggle:

The Israeli regime, which controls all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, seeks to advance and cement Jewish supremacy throughout the entire area. To that end, it has divided the area into several units, each with a different set of rights for Palestinians – always inferior to the rights of Jews. As part of this policy, Palestinians are denied many rights, including the right to self-determination.

This policy is advanced in several ways. Israel demographically engineers the space through laws and orders that allow any Jew in the world or their relatives to obtain Israeli citizenship, but almost completely deny Palestinians this possibility. It has physically engineered the entire area by taking over of millions of dunams of land and establishing Jewish-only communities, while driving Palestinians into small enclaves. Movement is engineered through restrictions on Palestinian subjects, and political engineering excludes millions of Palestinians from participating in the processes that determine their lives and futures while holding them under military occupation.

A regime that uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another is an apartheid regime. Israeli apartheid, which promotes the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians, was not born in one day or of a single speech. It is a process that has gradually grown more institutionalized and explicit, with mechanisms introduced over time in law and practice to promote Jewish supremacy. These accumulated measures, their pervasiveness in legislation and political practice, and the public and judicial support they receive – all form the basis for our conclusion that the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met.

If this regime has developed over many years, why release this paper in 2021? What has changed? Recent years have seen a rise in the motivation and willingness of Israeli officials and institutions to enshrine Jewish supremacy in law and openly state their intentions. The enactment of Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People and the declared plan to formally annex parts of the West Bank have shattered the façade Israel worked for years to maintain.

The Nation State basic law, enacted in 2018, enshrines the Jewish people’s right to self-determination to the exclusion of all others. It establishes that distinguishing Jews in Israel (and throughout the world) from non-Jews is fundamental and legitimate. Based on this distinction, the law permits institutionalized discrimination in favor of Jews in settlement, housing, land development, citizenship, language and culture. It is true that the Israeli regime largely followed these principles before. Yet Jewish supremacy has now been enshrined in basic law, making it a binding constitutional principle – unlike ordinary law or practices by authorities, which can be challenged. This signals to all state institutions that they not only can, but must, promote Jewish supremacy in the entire area under Israeli control.

Israel’s plan to formally annex parts of the West Bank also bridges the gap between the official status of the Occupied Territories, which is accompanied by empty rhetoric about negotiation of its future, and the fact that Israel actually annexed most of the West Bank long ago. Israel did not follow through on its declarations of formal annexation after July 2020, and various officials have released contradicting statements regarding the plan since. Regardless of how and when Israel advances formal annexation of one kind or another, its intention to achieve permanent control over the entire area has already been openly declared by the state’s highest officials.

The Israeli regime’s rationale, and the measures used to implement it, are reminiscent of the South African regime that sought to preserve the supremacy of white citizens, in part through partitioning the population into classes and sub-classes and ascribing different rights to each. There are, of course, differences between the regimes. For instance, the division in South Africa was based on race and skin color, while in Israel it is based on nationality and ethnicity. Segregation in South Africa was also manifested in public space, in the form of a policed, formal, public separation between people based on skin color – a degree of visibility that Israel usually avoids. Yet in public discourse and in international law, apartheid does not mean an exact copy of the former South African regime. No regime will ever be identical. ‘Apartheid’ has long been an independent term, entrenched in international conventions, referring to a regime’s organizing principle: systematically promoting the dominance of one group over another and working to cement it.

The Israeli regime does not have to declare itself an apartheid regime to be defined as such, nor is it relevant that representatives of the state broadly proclaim it a democracy. What defines apartheid is not statements but practice. While South Africa declared itself an apartheid regime in 1948, it is unreasonable to expect other states to follow suit given the historical repercussions. The response of most countries to South Africa’s apartheid is likelier to deter countries from admitting to implementing a similar regime. It is also clear that what was possible in 1948 is no longer possible today, both legally and in terms of public opinion.

As painful as it may be to look reality in the eye, it is more painful to live under a boot. The harsh reality described here may deteriorate further if new practices are introduced – with or without accompanying legislation. Nevertheless, people created this regime and people can make it worse – or work to replace it. That hope is the driving force behind this position paper. How can people fight injustice if it is unnamed? Apartheid is the organizing principle, yet recognizing this does not mean giving up. On the contrary: it is a call for change.

Fighting for a future based on human rights, liberty and justice is especially crucial now. There are various political paths to a just future here, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, but all of us must first choose to say no to apartheid.

In the UK: The Palestine Solidarity Campaign

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