Judge’s view

Richard Goldstone, a former South African Constitutional Court Justice, who led the UN’s factfinding mission on the 2008-9 Gaza fighting, in 2011, stated: ‘‘I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system … In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.

In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute … [E]qual rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.

The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain ‘‘an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group …’’ Gary A Clover, Nelson

Footnote: Debate on whether or not Israel is an apartheid state is now closed.