Author: Daniel Mizrahi
March 5, 2025
"In Algeria, the French similarly set about, after conquest, to both separate the indigenous population and settlers on the one hand, and divide the indigenous population through ethnic and geographical markers. The first objective took its most lasting form through the indigenous code of 1881, which made Algerians French nationals but not citizens. It further set out the different laws and courts that would apply to the 'Indigenes', and would differ from those available to the settlers. The second objective was secured through the administrative codification of the difference between indigenous Algerians - most importantly those between Arabs and Berbers, as well as between different Berber groups- and the eventual extraction of Jewish North Africans from the indigenous population all together… Simultaneously, the French imposed strict geographic divisions between the indigenous population, creating military imposed cantons…
The French policy was thus threefold: control the indigenous population through geographic containment and separation, emphasize and institutionalize supposedly innate religious and ethnic differences between different indigenous groups, and create a handpicked 'indigenous élite' to whom the day to day running of settler rule could be outsourced - always under the settler state's tight supervision. Such a policy allowed simultaneously for the stratification of indigenous society, undermining alternative forms of organization and resistance, and securing settler rule in the process."
Engelt Sai, "Settler Colonialism, an Introduction", Pluto Press, (2022) pp. 103-105.
Introduction
According to recent estimates, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, there are about 7.1 million Israeli Jews[1] and some 7.4[2] million Palestinians. Additionally, there are approximately 5.6 million Palestinian refugees in neighboring Arab countries[3], most of them living within 100 kilometers of their place of origin[4], who are forbidden by the Israeli state to return to their homeland in contravention of international law. According to data from the Israeli government, of the current Israeli Jewish population, around 21%[5] were born in different countries and have migrated and settled in occupied Palestine with the support of the Israeli state, while the remaining 79% are almost exclusively[6] descendants of settlers who did the same during the last century. Only 100 years ago, Jews comprised less than 4%[7] of the population of the country.
Despite being a demographic minority, the Israeli settler population has effectively established a system of Jewish supremacy at the expense of the native Palestinian population throughout the whole country, from 1948 Palestine to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Some argue that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza enjoy some form of self-rule, and therefore, the current situation cannot be called an occupation. But the International Court of Justice (ICJ)[8], the UN and several human rights organizations[9] have acknowledged that even though there are some areas where Palestinians are given extremely limited self-governing powers, only one authority, the Israeli state, rules the entire territory and its population.
This regime calls itself a democracy, but only Israeli Jews enjoy full civil rights under its grip. From the Palestinian population, only 2 out of 7 million currently living in Palestine have the right to vote. And even this right is dramatically restricted. Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship (1948 Palestinians) are inferior, according to Israeli law; this point will be explained later in this article.
The remaining Palestinian population is further divided into several other legal categories, a division that is designed to enable the further dispossession of native land and labor. Without a doubt, this reality could not be sustained without continuous and systematic human and civil rights violations. These human rights abuses, as well as those committed by the anti-colonial Palestinian resistance, are not random, isolated, or irrational acts of violence. If we are to address the human suffering created by this conflict, we must recognize that the decades of violence result from the power structures created by a settler colonial movement and the resistance from the native population.
The Israeli Apartheid Caste System
Israeli Jews
Israel's Law of Return[10] ensures that any person around the world who is a Jew (including converts) or has at least one Jewish grandparent can automatically receive Israeli citizenship and settle almost anywhere in Palestine, even if they or their family have never been in the country or have any tangible connection to it. These settlers receive a broad range of benefits[11], such as social benefits, direct cash payments, tax breaks, and even a one-way plane ticket, from the Israeli state and private Zionist organizations, which encourage them to migrate. For instance, a settler who arrives after retirement age receives a full pension despite not having contributed a single penny in taxes.
It goes without saying that this so-called 'right to return' is denied to a population of about 6 million Palestinian refugees[12] and their families, even though they were born in Palestine or Palestinian refugee camps in the region and have family in the country. Many still have documentation demonstrating[13] that they have property and lands that have been illegitimately appropriated by the Israeli state.
Palestinians with Israeli Citizenship
Palestinians comprise 22% of the population with Israeli citizenship but live in only 2%[14] of the territory after 70% of their land has been appropriated by settlers and their state[15]. The land dispossession continues to this day, with the Israeli police routinely demolishing houses, especially in the southern Naqab Desert, where an entire village was recently razed to the ground by the Israeli police.[16]
The movement of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship is also restricted. They are barred from entering the Gaza Strip, where many of them have family and friends. They are also barred from entering bordering Arab states. For instance, before the establishment of the Israeli state, Palestinians in northern cities, such as Nazareth or Haifa, had strong social and economic connections in Lebanon and Syria and could travel freely across the border[17]. Now, their undeniable cultural and social bonds with the Middle East are completely severed.
They also suffer from systematic discrimination, as reflected in "over 65 Israeli laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) on the basis of their national belonging", according to the human rights organization Adalah[18]. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are barred by law from living in some Jewish-only settlements and lag in public investment in comparison with that for the Jews[19]. The lag is evident in the precarious infrastructure of their cities and towns. For example, during the deadly crime epidemic that has claimed 445 lives since the beginning of 2023, only 11% of the murders were solved by the authorities[20].
Additionally, their Palestinian identity is actively erased by the Israeli authorities. For example, in public education institutions, these Palestinians are forced to study the Israeli curriculum, which prohibits the teaching of Palestinian history[21]. Moreover, the 1948 Palestinians are also forbidden from flying the Palestinian flag in their towns and cities[22].
Supporters of the Israeli state argue that Palestinians with Israeli citizenship enjoy rights equal to those of Israeli Jews; thus, Israel is not an Apartheid state. However, as discussed above, these Palestinians face systematic, legal state discrimination. Specifically, the 2018 Jewish Nation-State Law[23] explicitly states that the only ethnic group entitled to the right of self-determination in the "Land of Israel"[24] is Jews, rendering non-Jews second-class citizens. Further, despite having the right to vote in principle, Palestinian parties have to adhere to specific Zionist guidelines[25]. In other words, a genuine democratic representation within the Israeli system is unattainable.
Therefore, it is clear that the status of Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship does not attest to the so-called "Israeli democracy"; rather, it is just another layer of the ethnic-geographical fragmentation of Palestine. Settler colonial regimes have consistently divided the native population by giving some more rights than others, such as in the case of the black, colored, Indian, and white people in Apartheid South Africa or the Peninsulares, Creoles, Mestizos, and Indigenous people in the Spanish-American colonies. Similarly, in Palestine, these subdivisions have served the settlers' interests by hindering the cohesion of the native population, thus disrupting political organization and resistance.
Jerusalem Palestinians
Jerusalem Palestinians do not have Israeli citizenship but a residence permit, which is between the rights granted to 1948 Palestinians and those to the West Bank Palestinians. Therefore, they cannot vote in national elections but can, in principle, vote in municipal elections[26]. But this right is also only granted in name, effectively blocking their political participation. Even though Palestinians comprise about 39% of the population[27] of Jerusalem, they do not have a single representative in the municipal council[28]. Palestinians are prohibited from running for major[29], and their candidates are known to have been harassed by Israel to drop out of elections.
![Palestinians walking near the Israeli separation wall that surrounds the Shuafat Refugee Camp in Jerusalem on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. [Image credit: Debbie Hill/ UPI[35]]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e28a6b_52a3d1ff13624e5ab1d1c56c2ec3f841~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_61,h_42,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_avif,quality_auto/e28a6b_52a3d1ff13624e5ab1d1c56c2ec3f841~mv2.png)
Moreover, their residence permits are easily revoked, as in the case of about 15,000 East Jerusalem Palestinians since 1967[30]. They are not allowed to live outside the city boundary for more than several months. As a result, Palestinians who have found jobs elsewhere or gone for a vacation can find their residence permits revoked. They also face brutal and continuous land appropriations by settlers. House demolitions are part of the routine in Palestinian neighborhoods, as the Israeli state uses racially motivated laws to strip people of their homes[31]. For example, Jews who had properties in East Jerusalem before the 1948 War that were later inhabited by Palestinian refugees are allowed to reclaim the property despite the families having lived there for decades. However, the same law does not apply to Palestinians who owned properties in West Jerusalem[32] before the same war. Consequently, whole traditionally Palestinian neighborhoods in West Jerusalem, such as Ein Karem[33] or Baka, are now inhabited by Israeli settlers.
In addition, Jerusalem Palestinians suffer from draconian restrictions on their movement. Some walls halve their neighborhoods, cutting off 150,000 of the city's Palestinian residents[34] from the rest of the city. People are forced to wait for hours at checkpoints to go to other parts of the city instead of a 15-minute commute.
West Bank Palestinians
Palestinians from the West Bank also suffer from extremely limited movement. Under the current arrangements dating back to the 90s, Palestinians are confined into ghetto-like urban centers in 18% of the area[36]. The Israeli state prohibits them from building and developing in the rest of the territory[37], as the Israeli army routinely demolishes homes, schools, aquatic or agricultural infrastructures, or any other kind of buildings[38]. Meanwhile, opulent settlements for Israeli settlers are built with massive government investment in strategic places to cut through the Palestinian population centers[39]. Special roads are built for the exclusive use of the settlers, while Palestinians are forbidden to move freely between West Bank towns and cities and the rest of Palestine[40]. They cannot go to Gaza or 1948 Palestine without getting permits that are almost impossible to attain.
Within the urban centers in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority (PA) holds limited jurisdiction in some civil matters but does not control the borders, movement of the population, or whether the Israeli army invades or bombs them[41]. Meanwhile, the PA has been accused of corruption and inefficiency as well as collaboration with the Apartheid authorities. The situation in the West Bank—for that matter, all of Palestine—has been likened to the Bantustan system of Apartheid South Africa, which divided the country into racially segregated federated territories (Bantustans)[42]. The Bantustans had a certain degree of self-governance, but they would be subjected to overall control by the central South African government.
Furthermore, the Israeli regime behaves towards the West Bank Palestinians more ferociously than with the 1948 Palestinians. Since October 7, 2023, the daily army raids in Palestinian towns and cities have left 693 dead[43]. Meanwhile, Jewish settler militias constantly attack Palestinian farmers. The racial segregation in this territory is even more conspicuous, with walls and checkpoints separating Palestinian towns from each other and Jewish-only settlements. Here, geographical borders are randomly created by Israel. As a result, Palestinian towns located 5 minutes away, where people share families and businesses, are separated, and their people have different ID cards. Settlers born on the top of the hill enjoy full civil rights, while Palestinians born in the valley lack the right to vote and live under military administration; in other words, they are tried in different courts[44].
Gaza Palestinians
Gaza has one of the highest population densities in the world[45]; about 81% of its population are refugees from other parts of Palestine[46]. The Gaza Strip epitomizes what has also been happening in the West Bank and 1948 Palestine, where the Israeli state is displacing Palestinians from rural communities or smaller towns and pushing them into crowded ghettos in order to seize the land to accommodate settlers. Bordering the Gaza Strip, there are dozens of lavish, small towns and Kibbutzim, populated only by Jews, where the Gazan Palestinian refugees and their families used to live before being forcefully displaced.
Gazan Palestinians also do not have a right to vote. Even though before the current war, the authorities in Gaza could control several spheres of civilian life inside the Strip, they did not control the borders, freedom of movement of the population, taxes, exports or imports, or even how far into the sea people could fish[47]. In addition, they are prevented from exploiting the rich gas reserves on the coast[48].
Before the Israeli occupation in 1948, there was no such thing as the Gaza Strip. The city of Gaza was a cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean coast of Palestine[49]. Its inhabitants could move freely throughout the country and the Middle East. The city was on the train route to Cairo, Egypt[50]. Now, it is a walled-off ghetto, with a majority refugee population forcefully cramped into it; even before the current genocide, people did not have access to clean water due to Israel's strangulation of Gaza's economy and its civilian infrastructure.
Palestinian Refugees
Of the 13 million Palestinians worldwide, only 34% have never been forcibly displaced[51]. The 8.7 million displaced Palestinians are either internally displaced people (IDP) or refugees living predominantly in neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. From the total displaced population, about 5.6 million Palestinians are living in Arab countries[52]. Most of the refugees were forcibly displaced by Israel or were born into families of refugees, and millions of them are still holding refugee status in accordance with international law because their status remains unresolved.
Palestinian refugees live in degrading conditions in host countries. They are second-class citizens in Lebanon and Syria, largely banned from certain professions or living outside of the crowded refugee camps. They also suffer from the wars engulfing these countries and periodic Israeli military aggressions[53]. Binding United Nations (UN) resolutions, such as 194 (1949)[54] and 3236 (1974)[55], as well as international agreements of which Israel is a signatory, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)[56] and 1951 Refugee Convention[57], demand the return of Palestinian refugees, prohibit forced displacement, and guarantee reparations for victims of gross human rights abuses by state actors. However, Palestinian refugees are prevented by the Israeli state from returning to their homeland in contravention of international law.
In addition, Israel passed the Absentees Property Law of 1950 to officially seize the land, houses, furniture and other assets of the Palestinians who were violently expelled by Zionist armed forces in 1948[58]. Also, the 1952 Nationality Law[59] ensured that these Palestinians would not receive citizenship and be able to reunify with their families that managed to stay in Palestine. In its latest attempt to deal a blow to the rights of Palestinian refugees, Israel has used the fog of the current war to attack the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA[60]), an organization that provides essential services to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, by having its Parliament pass legislation to ban the UN agency.
Resistance to Fragmentation
It could be argued that the Israeli colonial scheme of dividing the Palestinian population has been successful. After all, the Israeli state has effectively enforced a legal system that ensures Jewish supremacy and creates the illusion of a Jewish demographic majority. It has also succeeded in breaking the territorial integrity of Palestinians, preventing them from having physical contact with the different groups while maintaining complete freedom of movement for the Israeli settler population and projecting a semblance of normal life.
Further, these legal and geographic divisions have permeated Palestinian society. Some cultural and socio-economic differences have been created and deepened. Also, Palestinians lack a unified political front. Some 1948 Palestinian political parties pragmatically and cautiously work within the Israeli Parliament to protect their rights as much as they can. Meanwhile, two other main Palestinian factions, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) still fail to agree on creating a unity government.
The PA, controlled by Fatah, has failed to advance Palestinian interests and has been accused of corruption and collaboration with the Apartheid authorities. Fatah has advocated for non-violent resistance since the 1980s but has not delivered on self-determination or a halt to Israeli colonization of Palestinian Land.
Hamas, on the other hand, has systematically committed war crimes by attacking Israeli civilians during some of its armed resistance operations. Nevertheless, it enjoys significant popular support in Palestine and the Arab world as it refuses to cede to the mandates of the American-backed Israeli regime. It is perceived as the only resistance movement that is actually taking action and has not given up on the aspiration of establishing one undivided, democratic country between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea[61].
Despite the divisions in Palestinian society, Israeli fragmentation policies have not succeeded. After more than 100 years of colonization, Palestinians from all denominations have not lost their identity, still considering themselves Palestinians despite their legal status and because they dream of returning to a free Palestine. Palestinians in Jordan have massively rallied in support of the Gazans during the ongoing genocide. The 1948 Palestinians, especially those of the younger generations, refuse to be defined by their Israeli identity cards, waving the Palestinian flag every year during the Land Day demonstrations.
Even more telling than any political statement is the fact that Palestinians still remain there despite the continuous Israeli efforts to expel them. In 1948 Zionist militias expelled 50% of the Palestinian population and grabbed 78% of the country to establish the Israeli state. This massive event of dispossession is called the Nakba, or catastrophe in Arabic. Since then, the Israeli state has seized the rest of the country and tried to “finish the job”, with Israeli ministers publicly threatening to perform a second Nakba[62]. But Palestinians, from 48, to Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the diaspora have engraved in their collective memory the experience of the Nakba, and are willing to pay any price to remain in Palestine. Shockingly, Palestinians in Gaza are returning to their destroyed homes in the north of the strip and telling to the cameras of journalists that they prefer to live in a tent over the rubble of their houses than to yield to Donald Trump’s demands that they leave their land according to his ethnic cleansing plan[63]. After more than 100 years of Zionist colonization, ethnic cleansing and genocide, Palestinians constitute more than 50% of the Population of the country, with millions more standing in the border, signaling the failure of the Zionist project to establish a state with a clear Jewish demographic majority.
The current political division among Palestinians is not unique in their history. There was division after the British colonial authorities crushed the 1936-39 rebellion and during the 1950s after the Nakba. However, on the other hand, unity is not unprecedented in Palestinian history either; it was present during the 1936 rebellion[64], the emergence of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) during the 60s[65], and the first Intifada in the 80s. As long as a common Palestinian identity survives in the hearts and minds of the people, it is only a matter of time until the geopolitical constellation aligns and allows for a fresh political proposal to rise from the Palestinian society and confront the Zionist settler colonial enterprise.
Glossary
1948 Palestine: 78% of the territory of Palestine (excluding the West Bank and Gaza) which was seized by the Zionist movement in 1948 for the establishment of a Jewish state through armed conflict and is regarded by part of the international community as the legitimate boundaries of the State of Israel.
Apartheid: a crime against humanity defined as racial domination enforced by a system of segregation and oppression.
Appropriation of lands: in the context of settler colonialism, appropriation of lands is the systematic and often violent process by which colonizing powers seize land from Indigenous peoples. This involves the removal and displacement of Indigenous populations to establish and expand settler colonies.
Armed resistance: the use of physical force typically involving weapons to oppose or challenge an authority, government, or occupying force. It is a form of resistance that employs military tactics and strategies to achieve political or social goals.
Bantustan: a territory set aside for Black inhabitants of South Africa and Southwest Africa (now Namibia) under the apartheid regime. These areas had limited self-government and were intended to exclude Black Africans from the South African political system.
Colonialism: the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
Emigration: the act of leaving one's own country, whether voluntarily or involuntarily (forced migration), often due to economic, political, or social reasons.
Fatah: a secular nationalist political party that is the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was founded in 1959 to resist Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Fragmentation: the division of a population into smaller, isolated groups based on race. This can be geographical (separate living areas) or social (limited interaction between groups), reducing the potential for resistance of oppressed groups.
Genocide: the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, committed through specific acts like killings or preventing births.
Ghetto: a part of a city, especially a densely populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of 1 social pressures or economic hardships. Historically, the term "ghetto" is most commonly associated with the segregated areas where Jews were forced to live in medieval and early modern Europe.
Hamas: a Palestinian Islamist organization that defines itself as a national liberation, anti-colonialist movement. It was founded in 1987 as a social and charitable organization, but it has evolved into a militant group and political party.
Jerusalem Municipality: the governing body responsible for administering the city of Jerusalem. It is a local government entity with authority over municipal services, urban planning, infrastructure, and public welfare within the city's boundaries.
Nakba: the Arabic word for "catastrophe" refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This displacement involved the expulsion, flight, and dispossession of Palestinians from their homes and land.
Segregation: the separation of racial groups in housing, public spaces, education, and other aspects of life, reinforcing power imbalance and hindering communication between racial groups.
Settler colonialism: a form of colonialism where colonizers and settlers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers.
Sovereignty: the supreme authority within a territory, granting a state or nation the power to govern itself without external interference. It encompasses the full range of governmental functions, including legislative, executive, and judicial powers.
Zionism: a nationalist movement that advocates for the development and continued existence of Israel as a state with a Jewish demographic majority and preferential rights for people of the Jewish ethnic group.
Footnotes/Sources
[6] Before the British and Israeli occupation of Palestine which enabled Jewish immigration and colonization, a small native Jewish Palestinian population resided in the country.
[9] Israel claims it is no longer occupying the Gaza Strip. What does international law say? - Atlantic Council
[12] Mass forced displacement in Gaza highlights urgent need for Israel to uphold Palestinians’ right to return - Amnesty International
[14] The reference here is to the territory of 1948 Palestine, which is recognized as the frontiers of the Israeli state by part of the international community.
[15] Pappe, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine (258-259)
[19] Cutting Budgets, Netanyahu and Smotrich to Arab-Israelis: Drop Dead - Haaretz Editorial - Haaretz.com
[20] 244 נרצחים בחברה הערבית ב-2023, רק 10% מהמקרים פוענחו | הנתונים והזעקה and 201 נרצחים ערבים ב-2024, רק 27 מקרים פוענחו: "השר מפקיר והמפכ"ל כושל"
[21] Marginalizing Palestinians in Historic Palestine (Israel) Through Education | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education
[24] Term derived from the bible used by Zionists to refer to the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea, and beyond in neighboring countries.
[25] Coalition Bill Seeks to Bar Arab Israeli Knesset Candidates, Curb Top Court's Election Oversight - Israel News - Haaretz.com and Israel's Knesset Advances Bill to Limit Arab Participation in Local Elections - Israel News - Haaretz.com
[31] Israeli Demolitions of Palestinian East Jerusalem Homes Spike Amid War; Negev Bulldozing Renewed - Israel News - Haaretz.com
[37] Israel Rejects Over 98 Percent of Palestinian Building Permit Requests in West Bank's Area C - Israel News - Haaretz.com
[38] Data on demolition and displacement in the West Bank | United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - occupied Palestinian territory
[39] Israel OK's plans for thousands of new settlement homes, defying White House calls for restraint | AP News
[41] www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-the-palestinian-authority-and-how-is-it-viewed-by-palestinians
[44] Israel: UN experts condemn decades of unfair trials for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank | OHCHR
[55] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ARES3236XXIX.pdf
[58] Explained: How Israel's Absentees' Property Law keeps Palestinians from their homes | Middle East Eye
[59] interactive encyclopedia of the Palestine question – palquest | Palestinian citizenship in Israel
[62] 'We're Rolling Out Nakba 2023,' Israeli Minister Says on Northern Gaza Strip Evacuation - Israel News - Haaretz.com and Israeli lawmaker warns Palestinians of another ‘Nakba’ if they fly Palestinian flag – Mondoweiss