Israel moves to rein in rights group over ‘apartheid’ reference

Israel’s education minister has said that he is banning groups that call Israel an “apartheid state” from lecturing at schools - a move that targets one of the country’s leading human rights groups after it began describing both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid system.

The explosive term, long seen as taboo and mostly used by the country’s harshest critics, is vehemently rejected by Israel’s leaders and ordinary Israelis.

Education minister Yoav Galant tweeted late on Sunday that he has instructed the ministry’s director general to “prevent the entry of organisations calling Israel ‘ an apartheid state’ or demeaning Israeli soldiers from lecturing at schools”.

“The education ministry under my leadership raised the banner of advancing Jewish, democratic and Zionist values and it is acting accordingly,” he said. It was not clear whether he had the authority to ban speakers from schools.

In a report released last week, the rights group B’Tselem said that while Palestinians live under different forms of Israeli control in the occupied West Bank, blockaded Gaza, annexed east Jerusalem and within Israel itself, they have fewer rights than Jews in the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river.

B’Tselem said it would not be deterred by the minister’s announcement and that despite it, the group gave a lecture on the subject via video call to a school in the northern city of Haifa on Monday.

“B’Tselem is determined to keep with its mission of documenting reality, analysing it, and making our findings publicly known to the Israeli public, and worldwide,” it said in a statement.

Israel passed a law in 2018 preventing lectures or activities in schools by groups that support legal action being taken against Israeli soldiers abroad. The law was apparently drafted in response to the work of Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group for former Israeli soldiers who oppose policies in the occupied West Bank. It was not clear if Galant’s decree was rooted in the 2018 law.

Israel rejects the term apartheid, saying the restrictions it imposes in Gaza and the West Bank are temporary measures needed for security. Most Palestinians in the West Bank live in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority.