User:JasonMacker/sandbox

The Israeli government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian territories that is often characterized as apartheid. Since 1948, the Israeli government has pursued policies that have subjected more than an estimated three million Palestinians to apartheid.

Israeli West Bank Barrier
In 2003, a year after Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli government announced a project of "fences and other physical obstacles" to prevent Palestinians crossing into Israel. Several figures, including Mohammad Sarwar, John Pilger, Mustafa Barghouti and others have described the resultant West Bank barrier as an "apartheid wall".

Some Israelis have compared the separation plan to the South African apartheid regime. Political scientist, Meron Benvenisti, wrote that Israel's disengagement from Gaza created a bantustan model for Gaza. According to Benvenisti, Ariel Sharon's intention to disengage from Gaza only after construction of the fence was completed, "along a route that will include all settlement blocs (in keeping with Binyamin Netanyahu's demand), underscores the continuity of the bantustan concept. The fence creates three bantustans on the West Bank – Jenin-Nablus, Bethlehem-Hebron and Ramallah. He called this "the real link between the Gaza and West Bank plans.".

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 in an advisory opinion that the wall is illegal where it extends beyond the 1967 Green Line into the West Bank. Israel disagreed with the ruling, but its supreme court subsequently ordered the barrier to be moved in sections where its route was seen to cause more hardship to Palestinians than security concerns could motivate.

Counter-terrorism justification
Supporters of the West Bank barrier consider it to be largely responsible for reducing incidents of terrorism by 90% from 2002 to 2005. The Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the barrier is defensive and accepted the government's position that the route of the barrier is based on security considerations.

Cemeteries
Israel has demolished several Palestinian cemeteries.

Marriage laws in Israel and the Palestinian territories
Israeli marriage law states that while Palestinians from the Palestinian territories cannot gain residency or citizenship through marriage, Jewish Israelis can.

Palestinian flag
The Palestinian flag is regularly confiscated by Israeli police.

Under Israeli military occupation
Leila Farsakh, associate professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Boston has said that after 1977, "the military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) expropriated and enclosed Palestinian land and allowed the transfer of Israeli settlers to the occupied territories." She notes that settlers continued to be governed by Israeli laws, and that a different system of military law was enacted "to regulate the civilian, economic and legal affairs of Palestinian inhabitants." She says "[m]any view these Israeli policies of territorial integration and societal separation as apartheid, even if they were never given such a name."

Under Palestinian Authority
Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and deemed to be occupied territory under international law, are under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority, and are not Israeli citizens. In some areas of the West Bank, they are under Israeli security control.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter authored a 2006 book titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter's use of the term "apartheid" was calibrated to avoid specific accusations of racism against the government of Israel, and carefully limited to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. In a letter to the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, Carter made it clear that he was not discussing the circumstances within Israel but exclusively within Gaza and the West Bank.

In 2007, in advance of a report from the United Nations Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur John Dugard said that "Israel's laws and practices in the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories] certainly resemble aspects of apartheid." Dugard asked: "Can it seriously be denied that the purpose [...] is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group (Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them?" In October 2010, Richard A. Falk reported to the General Assembly Third Committee that "the nature of the occupation as of 2010 substantiates earlier allegations of colonialism and apartheid in evidence and law to a greater extent than was the case even three years ago." Falk described it as a "cumulative process" and said "the longer it continues...the more serious is the abridgment of fundamental Palestinian rights."

Israeli Defense Minister and former prime minister Ehud Barak stated in 2010 regarding the occupied territories that "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

Under State of Palestine and Hamas Government in Gaza
In November 2014, former Attorney General of Israel (1993–1996) Michael Ben-Yair urged the European Economic Union to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, arguing that Israel had imposed an apartheid regime on the West Bank. He stated that the Jews' "national-historical affiliation with the land of Israel" must not come "at the expense of another nation", advocating for co-existence. In 2015, Meir Dagan argued that continuation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies would result in an Israel that is either a binational state or an apartheid state. Dagan, a former head of the Israeli agency Mossad, said in particular that the Operation Cast Lead military effort in Palestinian territory had failed.

Torture
According to Lisa Hajjar (2005) and Dr. Rachel Stroumsa, the director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, torture has been an abiding characteristic of Israeli methods of interrogation of Palestinians.

Reproductive rights
Palestinian women occasionally have to give birth at Israeli military checkpoints.

Organ harvesting
Israeli doctors have harvested the organs of dead Palestinians without the consent of their families.

Use of biometric and surveillance technology
Israeli authorities use biometric technology to track individuals. .

Apartheid
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 has stated on 25 March 2022 that "apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory". Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem have also characterized Israeli government policy as apartheid.

Reactions at the African Union
In February 2022, the Assembly of the African Union passed a resolution calling for the dismantlement of Israeli apartheid in the State of Palestine and recommended boycotting "the Israeli colonial system and illegal settlements" to end apartheid.

Canada
On May 4th, 2022, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, Patricia Skinner, stated "Canada rejects the view that Israel's actions constitute apartheid".

United States
The Biden administration has rejected the usage of the term apartheid. On 1 February 2022, State Department Spokesman Ned Price stated that "...we certainly reject the [apartheid] label that has been attached to this [Amnesty International report] ." .

Iran
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh stated on May 30, 2022, that "“All of the world’s freedom-seeking people, especially the Muslim people and countries, are duty-bound to act in a united manner towards all-out defense of the al-Aqsa Mosque and confrontation against the Zionist apartheid regime.”

Australia
On 2 February 2022, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed Amnesty International's report on Israeli apartheid and stated that “We do not agree with the report’s characterisations of Israel, and we remain a firm supporter of the state of Israel.”.

Multinational Corporations
Ben and Jerry's announced on July 20, 2021 it will no longer sell its ice cream in the occupied Palestinian territories. . General Mills announced on May 31, 2022 it would be fully divesting from a business venture in Israel that had operated in an East Jerusalem settlement.

Religious groups
On June 3rd, 2021, a spokesperson for the Quaker American Friends Service Committee stated that "We call on all companies to divest from Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine, and from the apartheid system it is part of." .

On 18 July 2021, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ adopted a resolution that states “What we see happening in Israel/Palestine clearly seems to fit the legal definition of apartheid as Palestinians do not have equal access to water, vaccines, jobs, the ability to travel, etc. ...”.

Denial
The abuses against the Palestinians have been denied by the Israeli government, with a foreign ministry spokesperson stating that Amnesty International's report on apartheid "...denies the State of Israel's right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people. Its extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of anti-Semitism..." .