FAQ 2

Is it antisemitic to call Israel an apartheid state?

The allegation

“Calling Israel an apartheid state is spewing a slanderous Big Lie. Israel is an open, pluralistic and democratic society. Charging Israel with being an ‘apartheid state’ is an antisemitic libel… By omission and/or commission, lying about Israel is lying about Jews. That’s antisemitism. That’s the ‘apartheid state’ slander”

Students Supporting Israel Movement

Brief rebuttal

The argument that describing Israel as an apartheid state is antisemitic rests on two claims: a) that the allegation is untrue, and b) that those who make it can only be doing so out of malice based on an irrational hatred of Jews, and hence of their state.

On claim a) – The world’s premier human rights organisations – B’Tselem in Israel, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many more – are unanimous in finding that the systems that Israel has installed and enforces throughout all the territories that it controls meets the definition of apartheid given in the International Convention on the Crime of Apartheid.

On claim b) – to disregard this unanimity requires a belief in pervasive antisemitism among organisations otherwise noted for their probity. It is much more plausible to see this argument as a deflection tactic used by supporters of Israel who cannot win the substantive argument, so resort to an ad hominem attack.

Since the apartheid nature of Israel’s whole system and practice of government is plain for all to see, to point it out does not require a prejudice against Jews, rather a prejudice in favour of human rights.

More detail

The International Convention on the Crime of Apartheid was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1973 and came into effect in 1976. The Convention states that apartheid is a crime against humanity and a violation of the UN Charter. It defines apartheid as a system of inhumane acts committed with the intention of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over another, through systematic oppression. This definition widens the meaning of apartheid from the specific historical context in which it was first used in post-1948 South Africa.

Israel’s actions and its system of laws broadly match the criteria listed in the Convention – Palestinians lives, opportunities and rights to life are systematically oppressed and suppressed.

Although other formidable human rights groups have designated Israel as an apartheid state, in recent years it was the 2022 Amnesty International report that gave the notion a wider international recognition. The Report affirms: “Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.”

The system of laws and practices which Israel has imposed on Palestinians varies across the territories it controls: in the West Bank and Gaza, and within the Green Line against Arab citizens of Israel. However, the Amnesty Report is categorical that the treatment of Palestinians in each and all these areas clearly amounts to apartheid.

The intention of apartheid is to maintain control by one racial group over another, with systematic repression and inhumane acts directed at the oppressed group. In practice this has involved Israeli measures and policies toward Palestinians which include expropriation of land, illegal killing, forced transfer, movement restrictions, denial of citizenship and many more.

The evidence-free claim that calling Israel an apartheid state is antisemitic did gain some traction after 2016 through the promotion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s “working definition of antisemitism”. This constructs Israel as “the collective Jew” in order to assert that things said about Israel apply to all Jews – including those who live outside Israel, may never have visited or have family in Israel, and even Jews who oppose Zionism.

The deeply flawed and propagandist IHRA definition uses this semantic trick to claim that calling Israel racist (which is certainly implied by its apartheid status) is antisemitic. On the contrary, antisemitism is a set of prejudice-based beliefs and behaviours that focus on Jews because they are Jews. Fierce criticism of the appalling behaviour of Israel is not based on the ethnicity of its dominant group, but on what the State of Israel does.