THIS is Apartheid, screams the latest report by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, on how the Zionist government of Israel engineers space to dominate over the Palestinians.
Like the "apartness" of the South African apartheid, Israel divides and separates the Jews and Palestinians to dominate over the latter.
"Caution, Beware of Natives" signboards of South Africa may not be up yet, but Israel's "Jews-only" nation-state law passed in 2018 took care of that.
The subtitle of B'Tselem's report says it all for the one second reader: "A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea".
And Jewish supremacy happens in four ways. The first is by way of Jews-only immigration. Any Jew from any part of the world is entitled to Israeli citizenship, even if he wants to settle in the occupied West Bank. Never mind if he has no historical links to Palestine. He is entitled to more rights than native Palestinians.
This is no surprise. After all, Israel came into being in 1948 by devious designs such as this. Historical accounts say the first Zionists began arriving in the late 19th century, with the generous help of the British.
And cruelly, as B'Tselem points out, "Palestinians living in other countries cannot immigrate to the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, even if they, their parents or their grandparents were born and lived there."
The Zionist regime is wicked to the Palestinians in another way, too. A Palestinian in the Gaza Strip cannot marry someone in the West Bank, though both are occupied territories. The second manner is by way of land grab, or what B'Tselem labels "Judaizing" of the property of Palestinians.
To Israel, land is a resource for the exclusive use of Jews. By this warped apartheid logic of the Zionists, Palestinians must be dispossessed of their land, even if this means corralling them into "small, crowded enclaves".
What an inhumanity from a people who were victims of the Holocaust. The third way is by restricting the Palestinians' movement. Unlike those of the Israelis, Palestinian movements are routinely hindered, the most ferocious being in the Gaza Strip. Blockaded 13 years ago, Palestinians there are living in an open prison.
Same restrictions apply for Palestinians to enter the Gaza Strip. The story is no different for the West Bank, whose routes to other Palestinian enclaves are controlled by Israel.
B'Tselem paints the scenario thus: "This allows the military to set up flying checkpoints, close access points to villages, block roads and stop passage through checkpoints at will." As if this isn't enough, Israel has put up a separation barrier in the West Bank.
Finally, the Palestinians in the occupied territories—some five million of them — are denied any right to political participation.
To the apartheid Israeli regime, the Palestinians have no say in how or who governs their lives and future. This is again a Jews-only right.
Israel, a nation that struts the Earth, claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East, denies the Palestinians the right of freedom of speech and association. Not even in the occupied territories.
As B'Tselem puts it: "Israeli apartheid was not born in one day or of a single speech. It is a process that has gradually grown more institutionalised and explicit, with mechanisms introduced over time in law and practice to promote Jewish supremacy."
Israel must not be allowed to so engineer a people and their space.