ARTICLE J, PART 1: APARTHEID STATE ISSUE: LIST OF BASIC LAWS, COMPARISON OF SOUTH AFRICAN LAWS AND LAWS OF ISRAEL , SUMMMARIES

Note 1: Note 1: In this and the following Articles labelled J, dealing with whether Israel is an apartheid state, the best I can do without turning this blog into a full blown course on the issue, is give general summaries of what those who/which support the allegation use as their bases for such a claim followed by a few specific illustrations by individuals and organizations. For this I am indebted to ChatGPT for providing these summaries. With these, and the Articles in which I set out Israeli legislation (Articles H, parts 5-12) in various fields anyone wanting to take a close look can do so.

Note 2: I thought I would list here the Basic Laws of Israel, many of which have been referred to in previous Articles. The comparison between South Africa and Israeli legislation contains within it the effects on the Palestinians, highly abbreviated and previously set out in various Articles. Thus the start of the actual analysis by others of whether with these laws and Israeli policies and practices under them constitute the crime of Apartheid under the AC. I will not be discussing directly whether if not, they constitute and violation of ICERD (discrimination against a race, ethnic group etc).

A ISRAEL WITHOUT A CONSTITUTION

Israelis were never able to agree on a constitution mentioned in the Proclamation. Instead it passed a number of laws it called Basic Laws, which can only be amended by a replacing Basic Law or Amendment made by a majority vote in the Israeli Parliament, called the Knesset and in some instances a special vote requiring a majority of all the members elected to the Knesset, not just those in attendance

B A LIST OF THE BASIC LAWS OF ISRAEL (by Year Adopted)

* indicates law that comes in for particularl criticism

Basic Law & Year Focus & Highlights

1 The Knesset 1958 Defines legislative powers.

2 Israel Lands 1960* Protects national ownership of state lands.

3 The President of the State 1964 Establishes presidency roles and processes.

4 The Government 1968, (1992 & 2001 amendments) Governs executive functions.

5 The State Economy 1975 Covers fiscal powers and currency regulation.

6 The Military 1976 Organizes Israel Defense Forces and subordination of military.

7 Jerusalem Law 1980* Declares Jerusalem the capital, protects holy sites.

8 The Judiciary 1984 Ensures judicial independence and structure.

9 The State Comptroller 1988 Sets oversight of government integrity.

10 Human Dignity and Liberty 1992* Enshrines core human rights with protections from overriding laws.

11 Freedom of Occupation 1994 Guarantees the right to work and livelihood.

12 The Government (restored) 2001 Reinstates parliamentary system over direct PM election.

13 Referendum 2014 Requires a referendum or large Knesset majority for territorial changes.

14 Nation-State 2018* Defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, declares Hebrew as official and Arabic with special status.

Note 3: Below is a ChatGPT summary. While it may not be completely accurate in all respects it is sufficiently accurate in most respects to post here.

C COMPARATIVE TABLE: South African Apartheid Laws vs Israeli Laws Affecting Arab/Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Category Apartheid South Africa (ASA) Israel (IL)

1 Citizenship / National Belonging

ASA Population Registration Act (1950) classified all citizens by race: White, Black, Coloured, Indian, etc. Rights were tied to racial category.

IL No legal Israeli nationality. Citizens are registered by ethno-religious affiliation (Jewish, Arab, Druze, etc.). Jewish people have collective national rights; others do not (per Nation-State Law, 2018).

2 Right of Return / Immigration

ASA Only whites had unrestricted immigration. Africans were considered “tribal subjects” not full citizens.

IL Law of Return (1950) grants automatic citizenship to Jews worldwide. Palestinian refugees, even those born in pre-1948 Palestine, are barred.

3 Family Unification / Marriage Rights

ASA Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) & Immorality Act (1950) banned interracial marriages and relationships.

IL Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law 2003–present) bars Palestinian spouses of Arab citizens from gaining citizenship/residency. Jews face no such restrictions.

4 Land Ownership and Access

ASA Group Areas Act (1950) assigned racial groups to separate residential and business zones. 87% of land was reserved for whites.

IL 93% of land in Israel is state or Jewish National Fund land. JNF charter allows land leasing only to Jews. Arab citizens are effectively barred from leasing/buying much public land.

5 Settlement and Residential Segregation

ASA Blacks were confined to “homelands” and townships; could not live in white areas without permits.

IL Planning and Building Law (1965) excludes many Arab villages from state recognition. Admissions Committees Law (2011) allows Jewish towns to exclude Arab applicants.

6 Political Participation and Expression

ASA Blacks denied the vote in “white” elections; limited puppet structures in bantustans.

IL Arab citizens of Israel can vote, but Political Parties Law (1992) and Knesset Election Law allow banning of parties that challenge the “Jewish and democratic” character of the state.

7 Cultural and Historical Memory

ASA Black languages and histories suppressed; state-controlled education erased anti-apartheid narratives.

IL Nakba Law (2011) allows defunding institutions that commemorate the Palestinian Nakba. Palestinian history is excluded or downplayed from public education curricula.

8 Language Discrimination

ASA English and Afrikaans were official; African languages marginalized.

IL Basic Law: Nation-State (2018) downgraded Arabic from an official language to one with “special status.”

9 Education

ASA Bantu Education Act (1953) created separate, inferior schools for Black students, with limited funding and narrow curricula.

IL Arab and Jewish citizens attend separate schools. Arab schools receive less funding, and curricula exclude Palestinian history or identity.

10 Movement and Access

ASA Pass Laws required Black people to carry permits to enter white areas.

IL No internal pass system for Arab citizens, but security checkpoints, surveillance, and targeted policing disproportionately restrict Arab freedom of movement and access to services.

11 Political Suppression

ASA Suppression of Communism Act (1950) & Terrorism Act (1967) criminalized anti-apartheid activism.

IL Anti-Terrorism Law (2016) and Boycott Law (2011) criminalize or penalize political activity (e.g., calls for boycott or solidarity with Palestinian rights). Applied disproportionately to Arab citizens.

D A VERY BRIEF IDENTIFICATION OF ISSUES RAISED BY CRITICS RELEVANT TO THE APARTHEID POSTINGS

Note 4: Some of what is below is repetitive, if less descriptive of what has been laid out elsewhere but thought a condensation would be helpful.

1. Of particular and impactful legislation, policies and practices suggesting a separate and inferior regime for Palestinians are Israel’s policies around land and housing (see Article H-11), some of which are the following: Israel took Arab owned lands after 1948 and only leased lands owned by Israeli National Institutions to Jews; the expropriation of land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be turned over to Jews; the eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish residencies; the destruction of hundreds of houses of Palestinians in the West Bank for lack of building permits which were almost impossible to obtain for the Israeli authorities; the seizure of lands by Jewish radical settlers from Palestinians and acts by them to evict Palesetinians from their villages, all with the protection of the IDF; there are over 40 “unrecognized” Palestinian villages in Israel, where the government refuses to provide services such as electricity, water, and sewage.;the failure to identify Palestinians villages in planning documents and thwarting the possilbiity of developing any kind of self sustaining local economies; in Palestinian-majority towns and villages, zoning plans are either nonexistent or restrictive, meaning that new construction is either not allowed or is heavily limited; in comparison to Jewish towns and cities, Palestinian local councils in Israel often receive fewer resources for infrastructure and development; the Israeli military regularly confiscates Palestinian land in Area C for various reasons, such as military zones, nature reserves, and settlement expansion which reduces the amount of land available for Palestinians to build on; settlers in Area C have access to subsidized housing and infrastructure, and they do not face the same significant restrictions as Palestinians; the lack of complete control by the PA in area B (shared with Israel which has security control) means that Palestinians face significant challenges in terms of building infrastructure and homes, particularly when it comes to zoning laws and military checkpoints; the removal of Bedouins from their villages and forcing them to live in planned communities built by Israel but not a single planned community has been built for Palestinians; surrounding Arab communities in the West Bank with Israeli settlements leading to complete discontinuities from each other; and building the Separation Wall in a manner that sometimes cut off Palestinians from their orchards and pasture lands and direct access to and from other coummunities.

2 Among the facts suggesting a separate and inferior or prejudicial regime for Palestinians that are Israel’s policies around movement are the following: the building of the Separation Wall that made travel between communities sometimes very difficult; the inability to obtainspermits to for Palestinians to visit relatives living in one of the other parts eg Gaza to the West Bank; the construction of checkpoints, sometimes temporary, with frequent reports of long delays and inexplicable refusals to allow passage or humiliating and degrading conduct by the Israeli personel, sometime private security companies, towards those trying to pass through; separate roadways without checkpoints for Jewish residents in the West Bank; Israel routinely restrict the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza and generally forbids them from moving between these areas; Israel controls all the routes between the Palestinian enclaves which allows the military to set up flying checkpoints, close off access points to villages, block roads and stop passage through check points at will; and difficulties travelling abroad as the West Bank and Gaza have no airports and so anyone wishing to do so must travel into Jordan which offers its own difficulties;

3 Provided as evidence suggesting a separate and inferior or prejudicial regime for Palestinians are Israel’s policies around water sharing in the West Bank, some of which are the following; in the West Bank there are significant disparities between the access to water enjoyed by Israeli communities there and neighbouring Palestinian ones; permits are necessary to build any water related structures, and are often difficult to obtain and if structures are built without them, no matter how necessasry, they are destroyed by the IDF; water scarcity is a significant problem in many Palestinian communities, whereas it is not in any of the Jewish ones; there is an Israeli water authority that controls the water system, no such authority exists for the Palestinians; and theses water supply problems impact Palestinian agriculture as well as can lead to poor sanitary conditions which lead to outbreaks of disease caused by those conditions.

4 Among the policies and practices suggesting a separate and inferior or prejudicial regime for Palestinians are Israel’s policies around immigration, citizenship and residency, (see Articles H-6,7) some of which are the following: that it permits Jews from around the world to emigrate to Israel based on proof of being Jewish, with their spouses and children but no Palestinian is so permitted even though s/he may have family there and have had ancestors live there for generations and believes s/he has an ‘inalienable right ot return’ there if s/he has Palestinian refugee status; extreme difficulty of a Palestinian living in Israel who married a Palestinian living outside of Israel to continue living there and in many circumstances impossible to do so; the banning of the issuance of Israeli citizenship or permanent residency to Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza who marry Israelis – unlike citizens of other countries; 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, including thousands of East Jerusalem esidents who moved mere miles east of their homes to parts of the West Bank that are not officially annexed. All these individuals were deprived of the right to return to their homes and families, where they were born and raised.

5 Another facet of Israeli governance suggesting a separate and inferior or prejudicial regime for Palestinians are Israel’s policies and practices around freedom of speech, voting and political association, (see Article H-12)some of which are the following: posting support of ‘liberation movements’ can result in arrest; some civil society Palestinian NGOs have been banned as terrorist organizations; bans organizations, freezes assets, and restrict movement and employment of individuals associated with some organizations without need for any criminal conviction; carrying a flag or symbol of a banned organization can lead to criminal charges; defining political or ideological motives for support of banned organiztions as terrorist activity; prohibits commemoration of the Nakba or teaching about it; restricted voting for residents of East Jerusalem.

6 Education (see Articles H-8,10) comes in for criticism as evidencing prejudice against the Palestinians with some of that evidence being the following: less money spent per student on Palestinians, segregated education systems, poorer graduation rates, poorer quality teachers, larger class sizes, more difficulty getting into post secondary schools,

7 Laws and their enforcement are given as evidence of apartheid some of which are as follows: the West Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians find themselves under different legal regimes (see Article H-9) and penalties are applied more harshly against Palestinians; restriction of legal rights againsst Palestinians but not Israelis; tried in different justice regimes, the one applied against the Palestinians few or no legal protections; tried in different courts for same crimes, one criminal and one military,

Note 3: This was a basic summary, and not of everything, and in the next couple of Articles I will give a slightly fuller idea of some of these issues as illustrated by individual critics (J-2) and well as 4 organizations (J-3).

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THE NEXT POSTING, ARTICLE J, PART 2, SOME OF THE CLAIMS THAT ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE AS WRITTEN ABOUT BY INDIVIDUAL CRITICS.