Apartheid In Palestine

The Palestinians’ struggle against systematic Israeli oppression is once again drawing the global attention following the brutal forced displacement in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. These evictions were what triggered the latest round of hostilities and mass deaths of Palestinians who are fighting for their basic rights and dignity, and resolutely defending their lands and right to exist. The younger generations of Arabs may not have witnessed the “Nakba” in 1948, but today we are living a new version of the “Catastrophe” to reaffirm that the Palestinian nation has been living in an “ongoing Nakba” since 1948. Human Rights Watch issued on April 2021 “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” an important report that is considered a breakthrough. The report highlights the deprivations, separations and violence by Israeli authorities against Palestinians that are categorized as crimes against humanity: apartheid and persecution. Such discrimination and repression against Palestinians have been systematically enforced by Israeli legislations for years within long-term strategies and policies. The report states that the term “apartheid” is being increasingly used in a descriptive or comparative manner between Israel and Palestine, but rarely used from a legal perspective based on the international crimes of apartheid or persecution.