Is Israel an Apartheid State?

But first, what is Apartheid?

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial

segregation that existed in south africa and south west
Africa (Nowadays Namibia) from 1948 to the early
1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian
political culture based on baasskap (boss ship or boss-
hood), which ensured that South Africa was dominated
politically, socially and economically by the nation’s
dominant minority white population. In this minotarian
system, there was social stratification where white
citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and
coloureds, then black Africans.
 CHAPTER 1
GOVERMENT SYSTEM

Apartheid drives from an Authoritarian Country so is Israel an

Authoritarian state? Let's make the difference between both
countries governmental systems.

ISRAELI GOVERMENT SYSTEM

• The Israeli system of government is based on

parliamentary democracy. The prime minister of Israel is
the head of government (also known as the cabinet). The
legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The judiciary is
independent of the executive and the legislature. The
political system of Israel and Its main principles are set out
 in 11 basic laws. However, Israel does not have a written
constitution.

SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERMENT SYSTEM

UNDER APARTHEID

No image available.

• The South African system of government was a unitary

parliamentary republic under a dominant-party herrenwolk
regime (white supremacist basically) A bicameral
parliament that consisted of the house of assembly and
senate. With members of the parliament being elected
mostly by the country’s white minority. The monarch was
represented in South Africa by a governor-general, while
effective power was exercised by the executive council,
headed by the Prime minister.
 CHAPTER II
ARABS IN ISRAEL, CIVIL
RIGHTS, ETC.

• First Topic. The Arab citizens of Israel.

Map of Arab citizens of Israel.

The Arab Citizens of Israel is the largest ethnic minority in the
state of Israel. The Arab citizens comprise a hybrid community
of Israeli citizens with a heritage of Palestinian citizenship.
Mixed religions (Muslim, Christian or Druze) bilingual in
Arabic and Hebrew and with varying social identities.

Additional Information

2,065,000
Over 278,000 in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights (2012)
21% Of Israeli Population (2023)
• Languages
Levantine Arabic
(Israeli Arabic, Palestinian Arabic, Lebanese Arabic, Bedouin
dialects)
Hebrew (L2)
• Religion
Islam 84%
Christianity 8%
Druze 8%
 • Second Topic. Population
In 2006, the official number of Arab residents in Israel was
1,413,500 people. About 20% of Israel's population. This figure
includes 209,000 Arabs (14% of the Israeli Arab population) in
East Jerusalem, also counted in the Palestinian statistics.
Although 98% of East Jerusalem Palestinians have either Israeli
residency or citizenship. In 2012, the official number of Arab
residents in Israel increased to 1,617,000 people, about 21% of
the Israeli population. The Arab population in 2023 was
estimated at 2,065,000 people, representing 21% of the
country’s population.
According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics census in
2010, “The Arab population lives in 134 towns and villages.
About 44 percent of them live in towns (compared to 81 percent
of the Jewish population) 48 percent live in villages with local
councils (compared to 9 percent of the Jewish population). Four
percent of the Arab citizens live in small villages with regional
councils, while the rest in unrecognized villages (the proportion
is much higher, 31 percent in the Negev)”. The Arab population
in Israel is located in Five main areas: Galilee (54.6% of total
Israeli Arabs), triangle (23.5% of total Israeli Arabs), Golan
Heights, East Jerusalem, and Northern Negev (13.5% of total
Israeli Arabs). Around 8.4% (approximately 102,000
inhabitants) of Israeli Arabs live in officially mixed Jewish-Arab
cities (excluding Arab residents in East Jerusalem), including
Haifa, Lod, Ramle, Jaffa-Tel Aviv, Acre, Nof HaGalil, and
Ma’alot Tarshiha.
In Israel's northern district, Arab citizens of Israel form a
majority of the population (52%) and about 50% of the Arab
population lives in 114 different localities throughout Israel. In
total there are 122 primarily if not entirely Arab localities in
Israel, 89 of them having populations over two thousand. The
seven townships as well as the Abu Basma Regional council
that have been constructed by the government for the Bedouin
population of the Negev, are the only Arab localities to have
been established since 1948, with the aim of relocating the Arab
Bedouin population.
46% of the country’s Arabs (622,400) people live in
predominantly Arab communities in the north. In 2021
Nazareth was the largest Arab city, with a population of 77,925,
roughly 40,000 of whom are Muslim. Jerusalem, a mixed city,
has the largest overall Arab population. Jerusalem housed
332,400 Arabs in 2016 (37.7% of the city's residents) and
together with the local council of Abu Ghosh, some 19% of the
country's entire Arab population.
14% of Arab citizens live in the Haifa District, predominantly in
the Wadi Ara region. Here is the largest Muslim city, Umm Al-
Fahm, with a population of 57,677. Baqa-Jatt is the second
largest Arab population center in the district. The city of Haifa
has an Arab population of 10%, much of it in the Wadi Nisnas,
Abbas and Halissa neighborhoods. Wadi Nisnas and Abbas
neighborhoods, are largely Christian, Halisa and Kahabir are
largely Muslim.
10% of the country's Arab population resides in the Central
District of Israel, primarily the cities of Tayibe, Tira, and
Qalansawe as well as the mixed cities of Lod and Ramla which
have mainly Jewish populations.
Of the remaining 11%, 10% live in Bedouin communities in the
northwestern Negev. The Bedouin city of Rahat is the only Arab
city in the Southern district, and it is the third largest Arab city
in Israel.
The remaining 1% of the country's Arab population lives in
cities that are almost entirely Jewish, such as Nazareth Illit with
an Arab population of 22% and Tel Aviv-Yafo 4%.
In February 2008, the government announced that the first new
Arab city would be constructed in Israel. According to Haaretz,
“Since the establishment of the State of Israel, not a single new
Arab settlement has been established, with the exception of
permanent housing projects for Bedouins in the Negev". The
city, Givat Tantur, was never constructed even after 10 years.

Arabs in Israel population pyramid in 2021.

 • Third Topic. Civil Rights
The Israeli Declaration of Independence stated that the State
of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political
rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or
Gender, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience,
language, education and culture. Paragraph 13 of the Declaration
provides that the State of Israel would be based on freedom,
justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will
ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its
inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender.
 • Fourth Topic. Jewish Intermarried Couples in Israel.
According to the Jerusalem Post, there are at least 85,000 Jewish
intermarried couples in Israel. At least 2,460 couples with one
Jewish spouse and one non-Jewish spouse registered their
marriages in 2018, a 37% increase over 2011 numbers.
The information was obtained recently by Dr. Netanel Fisher,
head of the School of Public Administration, Governance and
Law, at Sha’arei Mishpat, Academic College of Law and
Science.
According to the data, there are in total 1.3 million married
couples in Israel in which at least one spouse is Jewish, of whom
85,000 include just one Jewish spouse, meaning that
intermarried couples constitute roughly 7% of all married
couples.
A famous example is Lucy Aharish and Tsahi Halevi. A
famous couple that got married. Lucy Aharish is Arab and Tsahi
Halevi is Jewish.
 CHAPTER III
POLITICS

• Arab Political Parties

Hadash

Balad

United Arab List

Ta’al
There are three mainstream Arab parties in Israel: Hadash (a
joint Arab-Jewish party with a large Arab presence), Balad, and
the United Arab List, which is a coalition of several different
political organizations including the Islamic Movement in Israel.
In addition to these, there is Ta'al, which currently run with
Hadash. All of these parties primarily represent Arab Israeli and
Palestinian interests, and the Islamic Movement is an Islamist
organization with two factions: one that opposes Israel's
existence, and another that opposes its existence as a Jewish
state. Two Arab parties ran in Israel's first election in 1949, with
one, the Democratic List of Nazareth, winning two seats. Until
the 1960s all Arab parties in the Knesset were aligned with
Mapai, the ruling party
A minority of Arabs join and vote for Zionist parties; in the
2006 elections 30% of the Arab vote went to such parties, up
from 25% in 2003, though down on the 1999 (31%) and 1996
elections (33%). Left-wing parties (i.e. Labor Party and Meretz-
Yachad, and previously One Nation) are the most popular
parties amongst Arabs, though some Druze have also voted for
right-wing parties such as Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, as well as
the centrist Kadima.
Arab-dominated parties typically do not join governing
coalitions. However, historically these parties have formed
alliances with dovish Israeli parties and promoted the formation
of their governments by voting with them from the opposition.
Arab parties are credited with keeping Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin in power, and they have suggested they would do the
same for a government led by Labor leader Isaac Herzog and
peace negotiator Tzipi Livni. A 2015 Haaretz poll found that a
majority of Israeli Arabs would like their parties, then running
on a joint list, to join the governing coalition.

• Representation in the Knesset

Palestinian Arabs sat in the state's first parliamentary assembly
in 1949. In 2011, 13 of the 120 members of the Israeli
Parliament are Arab citizens, most representing Arab political
parties, and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian
Arab.
The 2015 elections included 18 Arab members of Knesset.
Along with 13 members of the Joint List, there were five Arab
parliamentarians representing Zionist parties, which is more than
double their number in the previous Knesset.

Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Arab party Ta'al, currently serves as

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset.
• Representation in the civil service sphere
In the public employment sphere, by the end of 2002, 6% of
56,362 Israeli civil servants were Arab.In January 2004, Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon declared that every state-run company
must have at least one Arab citizen of Israel on its board of
directors.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090327103836/http://www.sikku
y.org.il/2003/english03/pdf/civilEn03.pdf

• Representation in political, judicial and military

positions
Knesset: Arab citizens of Israel have been elected to every
Knesset, and currently hold 17 of its 120 seats. The first female
Arab MP was Hussniya Jabara, a Muslim Arab from central
Israel, who was elected in 1999.