For Palestinians, every week is Israeli Apartheid Week
Welcome to Israeli Apartheid Week!
What is this, you ask?!
Israeli Apartheid Week is a tool to mobilize support for Palestinian liberation against Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid. It is a grassroots solidarity mechanism to raise awareness about Israeli apartheid and to mobilize support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns — to ultimately put an end to international complicity and dismantle this system of oppression at last.
Israeli Apartheid Week first started in 2005 in Canada by the Arab Students’ Collective at the University of Toronto. It begins on 21 March — the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and includes Palestinian Land Day (Yom al-Ard) on 30 March. Land Day commemorates the murder of six unarmed Palestinians by Israeli forces protesting Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian land in 1976. Palestinians mark this day by holding vigils and planting olive trees as an act of resistance.
First let’s do a quickie review of apartheid so we’re all on the same page.
Imagine a system where one group of people, simply because of their race, holds all the power and systematically crushes the rights of another. That’s apartheid. It is an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination by one racial group over another. It is a crime against humanity prohibited by international law. This is made clear in the Apartheid Convention (1973) and the Rome Statute (2002).
Apartheid functions like a machine designed to keep people down. While the word “apartheid” started in South Africa, the world now uses it to call out any place where this kind of racial oppression happens, making it clear that it’s wrong no matter where it shows up.
And it is showing up against Palestinians… a LOT.
Let’s start with this fact: Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against all Palestinians. Massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law. This system is maintained by violations which constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic majority, and maximizing control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis. While Palestinians have a limited degree of self-rule in parts of the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel retains primary control over borders, airspace, the movement of people and goods, security, and the registry of the entire population, which in turn dictates matters such as legal status and eligibility to receive identity cards. Nonetheless, research shows that all Palestinians are subject to the same overarching system.
The aggressive expansion of illegal Israeli settlements has been government policy since 1967. Settler organizations target Palestinian neighborhoods, violently displacing families and imposing settler occupation. Israel recently approved plans to legalize even more new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Thousands of incidents of settler violence have been documented in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, killing and injuring Palestinians — including children. On average, there are four of these incidents every single day. More recently, Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal was arrested on Monday by Israeli forces after he was beaten and injured by Israeli settlers. The response from the Academy? A weak and belated apology after failing to mention Ballal in their first statement.
Yeah, ok. This sucks. But what does gender have to do with it?
Apartheid compounds the challenges faced by women, drastically undermining their rights and hindering gender equality. Women experience an intersectionality of oppression, meaning they are discriminated against based on both their race/ethnicity and their gender. Apartheid creates a double layer of oppression, where women are marginalized within their own communities and by the dominant group. This intersectionality means that women’s experiences are often overlooked, as they fall between the cracks of racial and gender-based discrimination.
Apartheid systems often create environments of instability and violence, which disproportionately affect women. Sexual violence, particularly rape, is often used as a tool of oppression and control. The breakdown of social structures and legal systems under apartheid leaves women with little to no protection.
Women’s access to essential resources, such as healthcare, education, and employment, is severely limited under apartheid. Discriminatory laws and policies restrict women’s ability to own property, participate in political life, and exercise their reproductive rights. This economic and social marginalization perpetuates cycles of poverty and inequality.
Apartheid policies, such as forced displacement and detention, disrupt family structures and community networks, which are crucial for women’s support systems. Women are often left to bear the burden of caring for families and communities in the face of extreme hardship. The stress, and trauma that results from living under such conditions has a heavy toll on women’s mental health.
Apartheid systems seek to control and suppress women’s autonomy and agency, denying them the right to make decisions about their own lives. This includes restrictions on their freedom of movement, their ability to express themselves, and their participation in public life. Women are often used as symbols of national or ethnic identity, which further restricts their freedoms and their lives.
So, yes, apartheid makes a bad situation that much worse. Women are already vulnerable without apartheid, but this system creates an even more oppressive environment, amplifying inequalities and impacting women’s lives on nearly every front.
For Palestinian women, this means that they suffer in specific and gendered ways.
Palestinian women play a central role as the social safety net for family and community, caring for children, the elderly, the sick in addition to carrying the responsibility of food, water, and household maintenance. The risk of home demolitions, evictions, and displacement means that women are forced to live in a constant state of fear and instability. The Israeli Occupying Forces carry out such demolitions without prior warning — and with deliberate cruelty — resulting in severe psychological trauma.
Israeli restrictions in refugee settlements, including the prohibition of school construction and lack of public transportation, force Palestinian children to live apart from their families during the week to attend school. This separation, particularly affecting girls, leads to increased school dropout rates due to family concerns for safety and social customs. Girls are likely to withdraw from school before they reach puberty, and many are forced to leave school because of the daily harassment to which they are subjected at Israeli checkpoints. Home demolitions further disrupt children’s education, causing both physical and psychological trauma, and undermining their ability to learn.
As a result of Israel’s discriminatory planning and zoning regime, which systematically denies Palestinian communities building permits, Palestinian women and their families are forced to live with little to no privacy, in overcrowded, unsanitary, and uninhabitable environments that fail to meet the minimum conditions for adequate housing. As a result, the lack of access to water, hygiene, and sanitary resources undermines women’s health and results in detrimental menstrual hygiene management practices.
Women usually live in a constant state of psychological distress, fearing settler or IOF attacks on their communities. These attacks often include intimidation, sexual harassment of women and girls, and flagrant abuses of power. And we’ve all seen the Israeli Forces’ obsession with Palestinian women’s lingerie.
Does all this constitute gender apartheid?
The term “gender apartheid” refers to the systematic segregation and discrimination against individuals based on their gender, enforced through legal and social practices. The term was first used by Afghan women human rights defenders in response to the extreme subjugation of women and girls by the Taliban in the 1990s — and again today.
Gender apartheid is used to describe situations where gender-based oppression is institutionalized, meaning embedded in laws, policies, and social norms. It applies to women who are subjected to systematic exclusion from public life, education, employment, and basic freedoms. Concretely, this means things like:
- Denying access to healthcare, freedom of expression, and other fundamental rights
- Removing legal protections for women
- Excluding women from political and social life
- Banning women and girls from schools, universities, and workplaces
- Restricting women’s movements, or requiring male guardianship
And more. Gender apartheid is a real threat and lived reality for millions of women and girls around the world — a reality that is currently not explicitly codified in international law.
Gender apartheid is the institutionalized erasure of women.
Recent research exposing the extent of sexual violence perpetrated against Palestinian women — and men — have been called a “method of war” and “more than a human can bear.” Despite global silence, I’d say this sounds like gender apartheid to me.
How are we ever going to end this?!
Apartheid is maintained by a system of discrimination, segregation, and oppression. Dismantling this is going to take a great deal of work. And global political will.
For starters, we have to all agree that what’s happening to Palestinians is indeed apartheid. I can’t believe we’re still debating this issue, but here we are.
Let’s learn from our friends in South Africa who have been as supportive of the Palestinian cause as a country can be. Their dismantling of apartheid was a complex, multifaceted process — both internal and external. Internal resistance took the form of civil disobedience led by Nelson Mandela and others, creating widespread disruption and putting pressure on the government to reform. The global anti-apartheid movement exerted significant pressure through boycotts, sanctions, and divestment campaigns. The United Nations condemned apartheid and imposed arms embargoes and other sanctions. International sports and cultural boycotts isolated South Africa and highlighted the injustices of the system. Public opinion in many countries turned against apartheid, putting pressure on their governments to act.
The release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 symbolized the beginning of the end of apartheid. And in 1994 he was elected president, marking the official end of apartheid. What followed was a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the legacy of apartheid by offering space for victims to share their stories and for perpetrators to seek amnesty. Constitutional and legal reforms enshrined equality and human rights for all South Africans. Discriminatory laws were repealed, and new legislation was enacted to promote racial equality.
South Africa’s transition was not without its challenges, and the legacy of apartheid continues to affect South African society today. But this demonstrated that it is possible to dismantle this deeply entrenched system of racial oppression through collective action and a shared belief in justice.
So… it’s Israel’s turn now. In addition to the above, what might that look like?
The UN needs to wake up. Strong condemnations and non-binding rulings were cute at first — now they’re useless. Time for some real international human rights and humanitarian law. Time for EQUAL RIGHTS for all Palestinians and full reparations for victims of the long list of violations perpetrated by Israel. Time to end discriminatory policies and practices — particularly in terms of citizenship, civil rights, freedom of movement, allocation of land and resources, access to water, electricity, and other services. And basic freedom. Time to end the building of new settlements — and time to dismantle the existing ones. Time to fulfil Israel’s obligations to Palestinian women and girls under CEDAW. And much much more. Let’s start there.
All of this stuff is documented. But none of it is possible without the total withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian land — homes, communities, olive trees, and all. And funding and full support to rebuild what has been stolen or destroyed. And accountability — holding the Israeli government fully responsible for their crimes against humanity.
As long as the occupation remains, we will continue to commemorate Israeli Apartheid Week day after week after decade. Enough.
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