The architecture of Israeli apartheid and the suppression of Palestinian existence

For decades, the United States government has stood firmly behind Israel. This protection has been rooted in political interest, lobbying pressure and a shared commitment to preserving Israel as a Jewish-majority state built through settler colonialism in Palestine. Anything that questions Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish-majority project is labelled “anti-Semitic”.

My analogy for Aipac is Hydra from Marvel or Lex Luthor from DC Comics: a billionaire who shapes laws and government through money, works “legally” but sets policy that serves his interests, influences elections, buys politicians and controls narratives. A hydra that is always steering but never seen. The reality is worse than this description.

This is the political machinery that forces US politicians to protect Israel at all costs. In 2017, a report was released by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (Escwa). Authored by Professor Richard Falk, emeritus professor of international law, and Professor Virginia Tilley, the report was titled Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid.

[paywall]

It establishes, on the basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Apartheid is a crime under international law, and countries have legal duties when apartheid is identified anywhere: they must not recognise the regime as lawful; they must not assist it; and they must act to end it.

If the US or the UN acknowledged Israeli apartheid, they would themselves become complicit by continuing to protect and support it. That is why the report was immediately suppressed. Under pressure from Israel and its allies, the UN secretary general pulled it from publication — not because the evidence was weak, but because the accusation was politically unacceptable.

The report states that Israel controls Palestinians by breaking them into separate groups and areas. Domain one: Palestinians with Israeli citizenshipAbout 1.7 million Palestinians live inside Israel’s recognised borders, holding Israeli passports but never allowed to be equal. Yes, they can vote.

But they are legally forbidden from challenging the very foundation of the state: its identity as a “Jewish and democratic state”. This means they are permitted to ask for crumbs — small reforms — but they cannot demand justice. They cannot legally demand an end to the racial hierarchy that controls their lives.

Citizenship without power is not freedom; it is managed inclusion. Domain two: Palestinians in East JerusalemAbout 300 000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem are treated as foreigners on their own land. Israel labels them “permanent residents”, a status so fragile it can be revoked if they cannot prove that Jerusalem is the “centre of their life”.

Imagine having to prove your right to exist where you were born. This is not accidental; it is a policy designed to protect a “demographic balance” that favours Jewish residents. A population controlled through paperwork, surveillance and fear.

Domain three: Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and GazaHere live 4.6 million Palestinians under military rule. Two peoples live on the same land: one governed by military orders, checkpoints, prison raids and curfews; the other — Jewish settlers — governed by civil law. The report states that, short of genocide itself, almost every “inhuman act” listed under the Apartheid Convention occurs here: arbitrary arrests, torture, denial of work, control of movement and the stripping away of basic human rights.

This is a laboratory of violence, a system designed to break both body and spirit. Domain four: Palestinian refugees and exilesMillions of Palestinians displaced from 1948 to the present are still banned from returning home. Israel calls their return a “demographic threat”, because their existence would end the Jewish numerical majority on which the state depends.

Their absence is intentional. Their exile is policy. Their homes, villages and olive trees were taken — and the world pretends it cannot see them.

The report explicitly compares the Israeli “archipelago of Palestinian cantons” to the Bantustan model of apartheid South Africa and the Native American reservation system in the United States, which served as a historical precedent for such reserves. The American reservation system directly informed South African reserves. Two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa recalled that then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon showed strong interest in South Africa’s Bantustan project.

What Israel has done in Palestine mirrors that system: Palestinians are confined, divided and watched, while Israel holds all power. Another example of the United States as a pioneer of settler-colonial institutions is the pass system. It was used in America to monitor movement on slave plantations and was imposed on the Apache long before it was implemented on colonised Africans. Just as South Africa’s Bantustan system shaped segregation, Professor Mahmood Mamdani shows how the US settler-colonial experience provides an even deeper model for understanding Israel’s policies towards Palestinians.

[/paywall]