The Pitfalls of ‘Apartheid’ in Understanding Palestine
Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and East Jerusalem, 2 June 2017 © Abbas Momani / AFP via Getty Images
Over the past 30 years, the label of Apartheid policies in the context of Israel/Palestine has gained widespread recognition with many leading human rights organizations opting to use its legal framework to conceptualize the status of Palestine. The Apartheid framework draws heavily on two types of understanding; 1) the governance model of pre-1991 South Africa, where a white settler minority controlled the state, leading to the systemic subjugation and discrimination of the Black majority through polices of separation, and 2) the legal definition that was adopted and developed by the United Nations since the 1970's. To fully understand the implications of this label, one must distinguish between the apartheid practices in South Africa and its broader legal definition[1], acknowledge the limitations of both sets of analytical frameworks, consider how different Palestinian subgroups interact within an Apartheid framework, and grasp the unique dynamics of the region and its history. Only then can one determine whether the label of apartheid, regardless of analytical framework, is applicable without oversimplifying the complexity of the Palestinian struggle.
Apartheid can be best understood through its literal linguistic meaning by dissecting the actual word. The specification of the word is that of a ‘compound term’ that’s meaning derives from the sum of its parts. Its origins are found in Euro Latin languages, popularized in Afrikaans, and stemming from the French phrase "mettre à part," which translates to "separating" or "setting apart" in English. Before its recognition in international law through the 1973 UN International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the term was primarily associated with the governance of Southern states in Africa, where the white settler minority, vastly disproportionate in numbers, legalized their control over the state by installing policies of segregation on the Indigenous majority from access to land, resources, and state institutions.
While apartheid has a complex and varied history, often unique to the state in question and one that cannot be discussed in simply 800 words (e.g., the distinctions between Rhodesia’s restrictions on representation versus South Africa’s creation of the Bantustans or “homelands”), its core tenets remain consistently malleable. The legal definition of Apartheid is essentially a domestic system of policies designed to separate people based on racial or ethnic distinctions in order to preserve racial hierarchy. These policies often confine certain groups to specific geographic areas and social classes, restricting their access to equal rights of the privileged race and the states resources.[2] The application of the Apartheid framework in the case for Israel/Palestine places Israeli Jews as the privileged class with the Palestinians as the second, third and fourth tiered class, depending on their geographic location between the territories of Historic Palestine.
John Quigley’s 1991 article, Apartheid Outside of Africa: The Case for Israel, serves as a turning point in how scholars analyze the policies that govern Palestinians within Israel. Quigley meticulously examines how Palestinian citizens of Israel interact with the state's ideology and institutions—from its landholding policies to parliamentary representation, higher education, and even child support payments. His findings draw a clear picture of how the state systematically strips Palestinians of not just welfare benefits granted to Israeli Jews but also their ability to develop and maintain their land. The separation Quigley illustrates is not just a matter of social exclusion; it is rooted in an ideology that prioritizes Jewish supremacy over the entirety of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
At the time, Quigley’s analysis resonated deeply with a global audience, as the apartheid framework—fresh off its "success" in addressing South Africa’s racial regime—was gaining traction among legal scholars and civil society as a powerful tool for advocacy. His focus on what Zreik and Greenstein later referred to as Israel Proper brought to light a stark contradiction. Israel, often lauded as a "democratic haven in a sea of autocracy," was exposed as a state whose policies towards its Palestinian citizens were anything but democratic. This revelation wasn’t just a blow to Israel’s public image; it also slowly shifted the narrative. Instead of viewing the question of Palestine strictly through the lens of diplomacy or territorial disputes, Quigley’s work nudged the conversation towards human rights—an approach that, as Zreik would argue 11 years later, comes with its own dangers.
With the collapse of the Oslo Accords and their growing perception as the legalization of Israel’s control over the occupied territories, discussions of Israel through the framework of apartheid in the 2000s were increasingly seen as incomplete without considering the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 2010, Ran Greenstein critiqued the entire discourse on apartheid in Israel/Palestine by examining a broad spectrum of perspectives, exposing the weaknesses in each, and proposing a comprehensive redirection. From supporters of the Green Line Paradigm, which separates Israel proper from the occupied territories to those focused solely on the latter, Greenstein challenges readers to view the case of Palestine and apartheid as a unified, interconnected issue, one that incorporates Palestinians regardless of their geographic location. Although fragmented, Greenstein joins Zreik in arguing that the struggles of all Palestinians are intertwined, with each group's quest for liberation inseparably linked to the others. Greenstein prefers the approach to Apartheid to hold out for a rights-based approach as it allows the “global justice movement and struggles of diverse independent forces, civil society organizations, media activists” to associate themselves and help fight in the struggle for liberation, Palestinian liberation.
In a lecture during the midst of the second Intifada 8 years prior to Greenstein, Zreik warned that framing the Palestinian struggle in terms of rights might erase the very history and context that make the situation unique. A rights-based approach, while essential in many cases, risks reducing the larger historical injustices to mere legalistic claims, detaching the Palestinian struggle from the deeper colonial context. This is where the challenge of applying the apartheid framework becomes even more apparent. The fragmentation of Palestinians into distinct groups—refugees, those under PA governance, and those with Israeli citizenship—makes it nearly impossible to craft a unified analysis, according to Zriek. Each group faces a different set of discriminatory policies, some of which overlap, while others starkly contradict one another.
Most readers familiar with Palestine will agree that its exceptionality extends beyond discourse—it’s embedded in the grim realities on the ground. The political system between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is exceptional not only because it diverges from other systems but because it has been allowed to fester, unchecked, into a full-blown catastrophe. Like the invasive spread of Fallopia japonica, settlement expansion, the arbitrary detention of minors, state-sanctioned terrorism by armed settlers, denial of movement, and suppression of free expression have entrenched a system that fragments the oppressed into irreconcilable categories. This has made the mere restoration of stolen rights insufficient for justice.
As Zreik, Muhareb, and Asaad argue, the system in Palestine is unique and cannot be reduced to the frameworks of apartheid in South Africa or the United States, nor can justice for Palestinians be framed merely as a struggle for civil rights. Too often, the foundational element of settler colonialism is ignored in these discussions, a neglect that erases the historical context and obscures the most violent apparatus of the system we are so eager to define. To grasp the complex nature of the Zionist regime in Palestine, one must consider the ontological development of Palestinians and the profound impact of “loss” on their national liberation. Settler colonialism is not only a structural reality but the core driver of Palestinian displacement and dispossession. What the frame of Apartheid does is overshadow the core ingredient in an effort to speed through - what it defines as a ‘conflict’ - the reconciliation and restitution of Palestine.
And so, the question arises: do we try to apply the apartheid framework by separating these groups, inadvertently accepting Israel's tactic of dividing Palestinians? Or do we, as Zreik suggests, seek an alternative framework, one that can hold together the fragmented Palestinian experience without losing sight of the historical and structural forces at play? The answer is neither simple nor clear-cut, but the conversation Quigley started—and the critiques that have followed—highlight the importance of keeping history at the forefront of any analysis, no matter how tempting it may be to simplify the narrative into a neat legal category.
[1] In his comprehensive analysis on Apartheid in Israel/Palestine, Greenstein cautions the reader to understand the clear distinction between the practice, the analogy, and the legal framework when applying Apartheid to Palestine.
[2] Raef Zriek’s Article for IPS best captures the definition of Apartheid, in the clearest and most comprehensive tone as an attempt to attribute the definition to the 3 fragmented classes of Palestinians.