[ Israel has erected “a formal, full-fledged apartheid
regime,” the editorial of Haaretz newspaper said yesterday, in a
stark warning about the direction of the occupation state.]
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HAARETZ: ISRAEL HAS ERECTED ‘A FORMAL, FULL-FLEDGED APARTHEID
REGIME’  
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Middle East Monitor
February 28, 2023
Informed Content
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_ Israel has erected “a formal, full-fledged apartheid regime,”
the editorial of Haaretz newspaper said yesterday, in a stark warning
about the direction of the occupation state. _

Israel Squatter Settlement. (Palestinian News & Information
Agency-WAFA // Juan Cole Informed Content),

 

Drawing attention to measures introduced by the far-right government
led by Benjamin Netanyahu, _Haaretz’s_ editorial said that they
include the contentious decision to grant Israel’s finance minister,
Bezalel Smotrich, control over the occupied West Bank.

For decades, Israel has governed the occupied Palestinian territories
beyond the 1949 Green (Armistice) Line through a military
administration. Indeed, that is a “principle of international
law”. An agreement was reached during January’s coalition talks,
however, to place the occupied territories under civilian rule.

“Once the agreement is implemented, Smotrich will in effect become
the governor of the West Bank, holding powers that will allow him to
control nearly almost all areas of life there, including planning,
building and infrastructure, which he intends to use to expand the
settlement enterprise and stop all Palestinian development,”
said _Haaretz_.

Although this is unlikely to have any bearing on the pace of illegal
settlement construction or the inhuman treatment of Palestinians,
transferring control from the military admiration to a civilian
authority has major ramifications. According to _Haaretz_, it will
constitute a de jure annexation of the occupied West Bank. Formal
annexation was meant to have been locked away following the so-called
Abraham Accords, and Arab leaders defended the normalisation
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by saying that it had prevented Israel from formally annexing the West
Bank.

Past Israeli governments have been cautious about interfering with the
formal governing structure in the occupied Palestinian territory, even
though they pushed ahead with a policy of maximum settlement expansion
and ethnic cleansing. At least in theory, Israel portrayed itself to
be an occupying military force temporarily and, until an agreed
solution is reached with the Palestinians, it would remain an
occupying power. In practice, however, Israel has shown no signs of
ending the occupation and treats the West Bank as part of what will be
“Greater Israel”.

“In legal terms, the assignment of governmental powers in the West
Bank to its new civilian governor… constitutes de jure annexation of
the West Bank,” said _Haaretz_. “In light of the fact that there
is no intention of granting civil rights to the millions of
Palestinians living in the West Bank, the result… is a formal,
full-fledged apartheid regime.”

This, added the newspaper, is a “severe breach international law.”
Major human rights organisations have already concluded that Israel is
guilty of the crime of apartheid, including Amnesty International
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Rights Watch
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_Creative Commons LicenseThis work by Middle East Monitor
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Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
License._

* Israel
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* Palestine
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* Palestinians
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* Bezalel Smotrich
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* Netanyahu government
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* Israeli government
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* Right-wing governments
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* Fascism
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* Occupied Territories
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* apartheid
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