“Israel practices apartheid in the West Bank”

This statement by a former head of the Mossad caused, as expected, a multitude of reactions, with the Palestinian Authority welcoming it and Israelis condemning it.

Referring to the West Bank – Palestinian territory under Israeli occupation since 1967 – Tamir Pardo, director of Israel’s foreign intelligence service from 2011 to 2016, said in an interview published yesterday, Wednesday, by the Associated Press: “There is an apartheid regime. here (…).

When in the same area, two peoples are tried under two different judicial systems, that constitutes an apartheid regime,” Pardo stressed, referring to the fact that Palestinians arrested by the Israeli army or security services in the West Bank are tried in military courts, while Israelis living in settlements in the same area – built in violation of international law, according to the UN – are tried by their own country’s civil courts.

“We welcome these positions expressed by a growing number of Israeli officials,” Ahmad al-Diq, a political adviser at the Palestinian foreign ministry, told AFP.

“We hope this marks the beginning of raising awareness in Israeli society to support the rights of the Palestinian people and to put pressure on the Israeli government to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories,” the Palestinian official said.

In April 2021, the American NGO Human Rights Watch followed the lead of Palestinian and Israeli non-governmental organizations in using the term “apartheid” to describe Israeli policies against Palestinians and members of Israel’s Arab minority.

Amnesty International published a report on the issue in 2022. Israel’s then foreign minister, Yair Lapid, now head of the opposition centrist Yesh Atid party, called it “lies” and asked Amnesty International to withdraw the report.

“Outrageous statements and distortion of reality”

Pardo has in recent months been one of the voices expressing their opposition to the controversial justice reform plan promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. His statement yesterday follows similar comments from other Israeli officials and diplomats who believe Israel risks turning into an apartheid state if it continues to occupy the West Bank.

But this criticism has never before been articulated so clearly by an Israeli former senior official.

Netanyahu’s Likud party called the former Mossad chief’s statements “disgraceful and false.”

“Israeli hospitals treat Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians alike. Arabs and Jews study and work together in Israel,” a statement from the right-wing ruling party said.

Senior military, police and security officials who attended the Israel Security and Defense Forum (IDSF) said in a statement that the former Mossad leader’s statements constituted a “distortion of reality”, “defamation of the State of Israel and of his security forces” and that these statements are based “only on personal political opinions”.

Excluding East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel, about 490,000 Israelis live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, home to 2.9 million Palestinians.

The government that emerged from last December’s parliamentary elections led by Netanyahu is the most far-right government in the history of the Jewish state and includes nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties that promote the annexation of the West Bank and continued settlement activity in the occupied territories.

In the latest example, in late August Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sparked outrage with remarks, described by some as racist, regarding the movement of Palestinians into the occupied West Bank, with criticism of the minister coming even from the closest ally of the Jewish state, the USA. The minister argued that the right of Jewish settlers to live and move in the occupied West Bank overrides the right of Palestinians to free movement.

Numerous human rights organizations have denounced obstacles to the free movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the discrimination they say Arab citizens of Israel face.

A political regime of segregation, apartheid was abolished in South Africa in 1991. Under this regime, the country’s inhabitants were classified by birth into four categories: White, Black, Colored and Indian.

Mixed marriages and interracial sex were prohibited, blacks had access to lower quality education or health care, and most of the territory (87%) was reserved for whites, who monopolized power.