Letter to the Guardian – Israel, apartheid and antisemitism

A Palestinian child walks on a segregated route in the H2 area of Hebron, West Bank,

Letter to The Guardian, 19 August 2019

Ya’ir Klein (Letters, 16 August) is perfectly entitled to his view that “accusing Israel of being an apartheid state practising ethnic cleansing” is incorrect. But he has no right to stop others reviewing the acres of evidence to the contrary and deciding that “apartheid” is a spot-on designation, with “ethnic cleansing” not far behind.

Just as examples: Israel administers two legal systems in the West Bank; two systems for permitting housing development in Israel and in the West Bank (yes for Jews and no for Palestinians); two West Bank road systems, swish, new and fast for (Jewish) settlers and potholed, rock-strewn and punctuated by checkpoints for Palestinians. It has run a decades-long campaign to destroy Bedouin homes, rights and culture in the Negev, driving shepherd communities off the land and into horrific crime-ridden “new town” slums. It even has the brand new Nation-State Law, explicitly excluding the 20% of its population who are Palestinian from any right to self-determination, and putting Arabic right back in its second-class place.

Naomi Wayne