1/9 I want to share some thoughts on Bt'selem’s paper released earlier this month which concluded that Israel is an apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Whilst it has been welcomed in many progressive international circles &dubbed as ground breaking...

2/9 ...many Palestinians have been more critical pointing to both its political & intellectual deficiencies. By comparison the ESCWA report by Falk & TiIley, although not perfect, set the bar for a nuanced & de-territorial understanding of apartheid. I few further thoughts...

3/9 Bt’selem explains that its original mandate was centred around the occupation of the West Bank & Gaza but recent political manoeuvres such as the 2018 Nation State Law and the 2020 de jure annexation plans have shifted their analysis. This argued is flawed.

4/9 The Nation State Law didn’t bring anything novel to the table, rather it stated crudely what was already present in Israel’s Basic Laws. Similarly the annexation plan was a hype- de facto annexation had already happened. So in reality nothing has changed for Palestinians...

5/9...rather we are seeing an acceleration of an ongoing process that started even before 1948. It is thus disingenuous for Bt’selem to say that their analysis is shifting to reflect ground realities. It is not. It is reflective of THEIR shifting politics.

6/9 Indeed Palestinians have been using the apartheid analysis for a long time to reflect their lived experience & a more radical comprehension of apartheid, understanding it as one tool that the settler colonial regime uses to contain and maintain indigenous peoples.

7/9 1 of the most offensive parts of the paper is that the refugees are not mentioned. Instead they are described as “Palestinians living in other countries” as if in 1948 the majority of the Palestinian population went on holiday & voluntarily decided to stay away for 7 decades.

8/9 This erasure is not surprising. The Palestinian refugees number well over 7 million & their exclusion from this report is a clear reflection of settler colonial anxiety of indigenous demographics. Finally, Palestinians have been talking about apartheid for a while...

9/9The media fanfare around this paper highlights the structures of power in knowledge production. In order for our lived experience to be recognised as legitimise in the eyes of the international community it has to be said by someone other than us. And preferably by an Israeli.