This is the finest article I have read here on Substack in sometime and one of the finest articles I've read on Substack period. It is both thoughtful and incredibly nuanced. Dr. Maarten Boudry did a wonderful job on it. His observations in this article capture the Jewish state in all its complexity, the good and the bad. But it can't be accused of being a one-sided anti-Israel screed like what Ilan Pappe, Gabor Mate or Rashid Khalidi would write but nor is it a glorified account of Israel as one might get from someone like Alan Dershowitz or Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Dr. Boudry is fair and balanced. Something we could really use more of nowadays. He shows through his own observations that Israel warts and all, is NO apartheid state and is in fact an imperfect liberal democracy. Many Israeli Arabs are in fact patriotic. That percentage of the Arab minority in Israel has increased since October 7th. Israeli Arabs have all the same rights as Jews. They have citizenship, the right to vote, representation in the Knesset, can go anywhere they want, live anywhere they want, use the same drinking fountains, swim on the same beaches, ride the same buses, go to the same schools, and eat in the same restaurants as Jews. Non-Jews are perfectly welcome in Israel and are treated exactly the same as Jews. Israel has opened its doors to the Black Hebrew Israelites, African-American Christians, African and Ukrainian refugees, and Syrian refugee children. Israel is in fact, the safest place for Christians in the Middle East. hundreds of thousands of Muslims of all different sects live in Israel too along with the Druze, people of other faiths, atheists, and agnostics. The idea a multicultural democracy with equal rights for everyone is an apartheid state like South Africa from 1948-1994 is ludicrous.
The biggest bank in Israel is owned by an Arab. Israeli Arabs are 30% of doctors and 50% of the pharmacists in Israel. Increasingly more and more are joining the middle class and the number of Israeli Arabs joining the IDF every year continues to go up. Israel rescued most of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Operations Moses, Joshua and Solomon in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s. The Jewish state has also done much good work to help the people of Africa. They also have let in and treated Palestinian children and children from Arab countries. Would an apartheid state ever do anything like that? I don't think so. A bookshop owned by Muslims in East Jerusalem being allowed to sell any book they want including those critical of Israel or Zionism? I can't imagine in an apartheid state they'd allow such a thing. Not to mention, Jews themselves are quite a heterogenous bunch. There are white-passing, black, brown, red, and yellow Jews living in Israel. The majority of Israel's population are Mizrahim as a matter of fact. The story of Jinnovate is most inspiring. Shame on the European Union for not working with them! By the way, East Jerusalem isn't "illegally occupied" it was conquered fair and square by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Furthermore, Jews lived there for thousands of years before Jordan (actually) illegally occupied the area and expelled its Jewish population. They ethnically cleansed the Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem, destroyed ancient synagogues, desecrated Jewish cemeteries, built a town over much of the sacred Mount of Olives, and banned all Jews Israeli or not, from visiting any Jewish holy sites. With Israel's lightning victory in the Six-Day War, Jews regained access to the Old City, the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and Rachel's Tomb.
Is there a real apartheid system against the Palestinians? Yes. But it doesn't exist in Israel or the West Bank. It exists in every single Arab country. Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians are treated equally by the nation state of the Jewish people. But in countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. Palestinians literally and legitimately, are treated as second-class citizens. They can't own property or land, integrate into their respective countries' societies, attend university, or become citizens (with the exception of Jordan but even then, they are treated like dog****). They also are barred from most professions in the Arab world. In general, there is no better place to live for minorities, women, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people than the Jewish state. Israel is without question one of the least racist and most inclusive nations on Earth and certainly the least racist and most inclusive in the Middle East by far. Just ask Berbers in Algeria, Nubians and Sub-Saharan African workers in Egypt, the Bidoon people in Kuwait, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Sudan, or the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Turkey how "tolerant" the rest of the Middle East is. You will never ever see a pride parade in Dubai, Damascus, Khartoum, or Cairo. Two men who are in love can't openly hold hands or kiss in Baghdad. A young woman who is a lesbian must stay in the closet in the West Bank or Gaza. All of this would be perfectly okay and allowed in Israel. Women are chattel or at the very least, second-class citizens in the rest of the Middle East. Though some Arab countries can rightly be credited with making progress on women's rights, women in the Arab and Islamic world are generally still not equal to their male counterparts. In Israel, women have full equal rights and always have. Women in Israel can vote, earn equal pay with men, get a divorce, wear whatever they want, drive, go out without male permission, and serve in combat in the IDF.
Of course, Israel is not the brutal and boorish country South Africa once was.
And naturally, no liberal democracy is perfect. But equal opportunities for all?
No, Israeli Palestinians do not have the same rights as Jewish Israelis, despite legal guarantees of equality. While Arab citizens of Israel have the right to vote and stand for election, they face systemic discrimination in areas like land access, housing, education, and political representation.
But that's an emancipatory struggle within Israel-proper, while the ever lasting Israeli military presence in the Wild, wild Westbank leaves the population there in enduring legal limbo.
After all these years, Israel should finally decide what it wants to do with the Westbank: accept some form of home rule or expand Israeli law and order over the entire territory.
Thank you for your insight, honesty, and openness. No society is perfect (nor should it aim to be), and much can be learned when everyone stops shouting.
Israel within the Green Line is not an apartheid state.
I notice you do not appear to have visited Hebron, where Muslim residents have to leave their homes by the fire escapes because the street is reserved for Jews and tourists. It was closed to Arabs after a terrorist incident by a right-wing Jewish settler.
Nor do you discuss the implications that Arab East Jerusalemites are not allowed to vote in national elections, only local ones. Arabs in the West Bank don't get to vote in any Israeli elections, although their neighbors in the Jewish settlements do. (Unsurprisingly, the resulting government neglects Palestinian infrastructure and ignores near-daily assaults on their property.)
Israel outside the Green Line is a very good imitation of an apartheid state, even to segregated highways.
So do you write about the 2.5 million blacks killed by Muslims in Africa
Or about the hundred of thousands Christians killed by Muslims ..or about the constant killing of Christians everyday or the Pakistan gang raped...or as you avoided saying..the UK Spain Belgium Norway Sweden Finland Portugal France Netherlands And half of Canada are now Muslim controlled countries
Maarten, your article has a strongly pro-Israel view, emphasizing integration and loyalty among Arab Israelis and minorities while portraying Israel as a liberal enclave in an otherwise oppressive region. There are several incorrect statements and logical fallacies.
- The Arab Israeli population (around 20% of Israel’s citizens) is diverse, with varying political views and identities. Many do not identify strongly with the state or support its policies, especially regarding the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Surveys show fluctuating levels of trust and belonging, deeply affected by broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict dynamics.
- The Druze and Bedouin communities are emphasized positively regarding loyalty and integration. While this is partly true, it ignores the ongoing discrimination and social inequalities these groups face within Israel. The complex socio-political dynamics of these minorities should be acknowledged rather than portrayed as a monolithic positive picture.
- "Israel Is the Only Country in the Middle East with Liberal Rights":
This statement is problematic. Israel, while democratic in its 1948 borders, denies political and civil rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories and maintains various discriminatory policies against Arab citizens in several spheres (housing, employment, land rights). Other Middle Eastern countries have diverse political systems with varying degrees of civil liberties (e.g., Tunisia, Lebanon). The comparison oversimplifies a complex regional reality.
- The increased feelings of belonging cited may relate to specific events (e.g., the October 7th attacks) and do not necessarily represent long-term trends or genuine integration. The framing neglects historical grievances and continuing occupation, which fundamentally shape Palestinian and Arab Israeli attitudes.
- Abbas’s statements reflect a pragmatic stance rather than wholesale acceptance or normalization of Israeli policies. His position is often controversial within Palestinian and Arab communities, with many rejecting collaboration with Israeli political structures perceived as oppressive.
- While collaboration projects exist, the funding and political recognition of East Jerusalem remain contentious internationally. EU and others consider East Jerusalem occupied territory, so the article’s assertion that collaboration might legitimize occupation reflects a widespread international view, not mere bureaucratic stubbornness.
- The Educational Bookshop reopening after police actions is cited as evidence of Israel’s liberal democracy. However, arrests and raids targeting Palestinian-related activism or dissent are well-documented occurrences and often criticized as attempts to suppress opposition voices.
- While the article portrays Israelis as humane, some voices in Israeli society have openly supported or justified harsh military actions in Gaza, bordering on collective punishment; and now a genocide. Ignoring these opinions or downplaying the discourse of dehumanization presents a skewed image.
- On the quotes from Kazim Khlilih and Khaled Abu Toameh: these expressions of hardened attitudes reflect trauma but also reveal deep societal fractures and the consequences of ongoing conflict. Presenting them sympathetically without contextualizing the broader human rights impact risks normalizing apathy toward civilians suffering.
- The suggestion regarding Toameh’s Proposal for IDF Governance of Gaza, overlooks the extreme challenges and humanitarian crises inherent in military governance of Gaza, which already suffers from blockade, economic hardship, and repeated conflict. It also ignores international law prohibitions against prolonged military occupation without due process or self-governance.
- While certain freedoms exist in Israel, Muslim minorities in Europe and Israel have very different contexts. Europe’s restrictions on Islamic practices and anti-Muslim sentiment vary widely, and Israeli Arabs also face systemic discrimination. The article’s simple comparison lacks nuance.
- The article caricatures Said’s critique as “simple-minded dichotomy” and Foucault-inspired “myopia,” presenting liberal Israel as the sole beacon of freedom. Said’s work centers on power imbalances, representation, and colonial legacies, which remain deeply relevant and supported by complex evidence.
- You appeal to authority: personal stories, like that of IDF Major Ella Waweya or Kazim Khlilih, are used to emotionally persuade readers without addressing broader systemic issues affecting wider populations.
- The article somewhat misrepresents critical perspectives by portraying Western criticism as uninformed caricature and equating all criticism with “anti-Zionism” or anti-Semitism, which is often not the case.
- The article tries to set up a stark contrast: "the only democratic and liberal country in the Middle East" versus "terroristic, totalitarian Arabs," ignoring shades of grey, diverse voices, and ongoing contradictions.
- Positive stories are extrapolated to claim Israel's democracy as exemplary overall, dismissing serious concerns about occupation, discrimination, and human rights from credible international organizations.
Israel is a complex society with democratic structures within its internationally recognized borders, but it enforces an ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories involving significant human rights concerns. Arab Israelis, Druze, and Bedouin minorities have varying loyalties and experiences; oversimplification ignores instances of discrimination and political dissent. Claims about Israel’s unique liberalism in the Middle East overlook nuanced realities about rights, freedoms, and regional geopolitical challenges. Presenting selected anecdotes and polling data without a broader context risks misleading readers about the political and humanitarian situation. Discussions on freedom of expression should consider documented state actions suppressing Palestinian dissent alongside any instances of tolerance. Critiques of Israel and its policies can be informed and legitimate without invoking racist or extremist views.
You are doing your best to show how good Israel is... but it commited a genocide in Gaza.
Nothing in your comment invalidates the assertion of the article that Israel is not an Apartheid state. That no sub-population in Israel, Jewish or non Jewish, is monolithic is a banal truism, valid everywhere, that the author specifically acknowledges in the article. That doesn't change the fundamentals: Israeli Arabs are on average better educated, richer (the GCC countries perhaps excepted) and have more freedoms than Arabs anywhere in the Middle East.
And there is as much genocide in Gaza as there is apartheid in Israel.
Israel does have characteristics of an apartheid state, though.
In the West Bank, Palestinians live under military law with frequent administrative restrictions, while Israeli settlers operate under civilian Israeli law in the same geographical area. Critics argue that this creates a two-tier system of rights and freedoms, particularly in movement, land allocation, and civil rights, which aligns with the “domination” and “different rights” elements of some apartheid definitions. Proponents of this view point to documented disparities in freedom of movement, voting mechanisms limited to certain populations, and differentiated access to resources.
Checkpoints, permits, and road networks that prioritize Israeli settlers over Palestinian residents are cited as mechanisms that restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement and access to work, education, and healthcare, while enabling freer movement for settlers. This fragmentation is presented as a structural barrier that sustains a hierarchy of rights.
The expansion of settlements, differential zoning, expropriation of land for Israeli use, and planning regimes that constrain Palestinian development are interpreted by many observers as creating a spatial and legal architecture that separates populations along ethnic lines and entrenches domination.
Within Israel’s own borders, Palestinian citizens of Israel experience formal civil rights but face structural discrimination in access to land, housing, budgeting, political influence, and social services. Advocates of the apartheid framing argue that these enduring inequalities amount to systemic discrimination embedded in law and policy.
The blockade of Gaza and the extensive restrictions on movement, goods, and people are cited as practices that collectively produce a regime of control over a large civilian population, contributing to claims of systemic oppression and rights violations on a broad scale.
Major human rights organizations and UN bodies have raised concerns about patterns in occupation policy, collective punishment, and discrimination that some observers categorize as apartheid or as crimes related to apartheid and persecution. This framing reflects ongoing international debates about state responsibility and remedies.
There are several reports by experts that clearly confirming Israel did commit genocide.
Conflating the situation in Israel, in the West Bank and in Gaza is not serious. They have to be considered individually.
In Israel, you admit that Arab-speaking (what you call Palestinian) citizens of Israel "experience formal civil rights". So there is no Apartheid. I won't address your "structural discrimination ..." argument - although it is largely bogus - because it is beside the point.
In Gaza, there is a war, and before that there was a blockade by Egypt and Israel of an enemy territory (i.e. one that lobs rockets into Israel). Nothing to do with Apartheid.
In the West Bank, the vast majority of Palestinians are under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Their freedom of movement is restricted when they leave areas A and B. So is that of Israeli citizens, who cannot enter these areas. Since these Palestinians are citizens of the PA and not of Israel, they cannot be under an Israeli Apartheid regime.
Regarding the "fact" of the genocide, the accusation would be laughable if it weren't such a serious matter. Maarten actually addresses it in depth here:
Look, the core elements of 'Apartheid' are the inhumane acts committed with the purpose of establishing and maintaining a system of racial domination or oppression over a protected population, through a combination of legal regimes, segregation, dispossession, and denial of political rights. You can't deny that Israel does uphold an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by Israelis over Palestinians with the intention of maintaining that regime.
Between 1948-49, Zionist militias and then the Israeli army ethnically cleansed between 750,000 and one million indigenous Palestinians in order to establish Israel as a Jewish majority state, including dozens of massacres of Palestinian civilians. More than 400 Palestinian cities, towns, and villages were systemically destroyed by Israel or repopulated with Jewish Israelis.
Since 1948, Israel has continued to systematically dispossess and discriminate against Palestinians inside Israel and in the territories Israel militarily occupied in the 1967 War, including by making it nearly impossible for most Palestinians to get permits to build new homes or apartments and destroying those that are built without permission. In places like the Negev desert in southern Israel, the government has been destroying entire villages as part of a plan to Judaize the region, evicting whole communities of Palestinians who are Israeli citizens and replacing them with Jewish Israelis
The structured legal fragmentation, territorial fragmentation, movement restrictions, differential access to resources, and the governance of Palestinians under separate legal regimes is clear evidence of such systematic oppression.
Checkpoints, permit regimes, and road networks that separate populations and restrict Palestinian movement more tightly than Israeli movement, often cited as evidence of controlled separation.
Settlement expansion, land expropriation, and planning regimes that preferentially facilitate Israeli settlements in the OPT are evidence of dispossession and spatial fragmentation. Palestinian towns and villages face planning constraints, limited development approvals, and barriers to expansion while Israelis execute a rapid settlement development. Israel’s parliament has just voted to give preliminary approval to a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty on the occupied West Bank, in a move tantamount to annexation of the Palestinian territory, which would be a blatant violation of international law.
There are dozens of laws that privilege Jewish citizens and/or discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20% of Israel’s population. These laws affect everything from housing and land ownership, to health care, education, and family reunification rights. In 2018, the Israeli government passed the so-called “Jewish nation-state" bill that codifies in Israel’s quasi-constitutional basic laws the privileged position that Jewish citizens enjoy over indigenous Palestinians. Among other things, it declares Jews have a unique right to self-determination in the land of Israel (which for most Israelis includes the occupied Palestinian territories) and directs the state to regard “Jewish settlement as a national value” and to “act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation,” thereby making racially segregated housing official state policy.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land is illegal and that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based on “systematic discrimination, segregation and apartheid"
In February 2022, Amnesty International issued a report entitled, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity.
It's clear that you're bias as an Israeli and appear to be blind for the apartheid.
Again, your or Maartens layman opinion on the genocide, doesn't change the fact that ad hoc experts officially confirmed it is genocide. Denying that is just blatant negationism, which will be a punishable crime in Belgium soon.
I do deny that "Israel does uphold an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by Israelis over Palestinians with the intention of maintaining that regime".
Nothing you write - the long litany of "facts" that are meant to demonize Israel as the epitome of evil - has any relation to reality on the ground. To give just one example - the “Jewish nation-state" bill (which in my view was completely superfluous) does not in any way restrict the civil rights of non-Jewish citizens of Israel.
And yes, I am Israeli, and I am not blind to non-existing Apartheid. I see with my own eyes Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis working and studying together and living in the same neighborhoods.
Finally, your framing of denial that there is anything approaching genocide in Gaza as "negationism", on par with Holocaust negationism - soon to be punishable by law in Belgium!-, gives the game away. Nothing of what made the Holocaust singularly horrible can be observed in Gaza. But since the whole point of the Gaza genocide libel is so obviously to justify retroactively the horror of the Holocaust - to demonize the Jews enough to assuage your guilt - , it has become an article of faith. You will cling to any "ad-hoc experts" that will comfort you in your idea that the Israeli Jews are demons - that when given the chance, they can be as bad as you and then some -, facts be damned. Perhaps you should try some introspection before accusing others of being willfully blind.
Yeah, I understand you would like those facts to disappear. But I just listed a few historical facts. You denying it, doesn't make go away.
You as an Israeli haven't experienced the Apartheid. You haven't had your house bulldozed, your family chased out their towns like animals, your harvest destroyed.
You haven't even read the reports of the genocide, which details toddlers being shot in the chest and head.
Your hasbara is disgusting. Typical, all criticisms on Israel is framed as antisemitic, you even go further.
You're indeed blind to the horror that Israel has committed what was committed on the Jews in the Holocaust. It's not a game, it's reality, you wish to ignore.
You made yourself completely unreliable and unnuanced.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel. Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this live-streamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation.
I think, you don't just stand aside and ignore what's happening. No, you actually know what's happening and are convinced the NaZionists of Israel has the right to do it.
"East Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli control since the 1967 Six-Day War"
furthermore,
"[the European Union] views East Jerusalem as an illegally occupied territory."
The assumptions underlying these statements raises several questions:
Is whom I am or what I am dependent on another person's definition of me?
What rightful place does law, history, or facts (or factual history, for that matter) have in shaping identity or conferring legitimacy on an individual or collectivity?
What we have here is one country seizing by military force the original centre of an ancient national capital of another country. Years later, this quarter is recaptured and reintegrated into the capital, only to be told by world powers that restoring this area to its original status was illegal because the peoples of this country were enemy, alien occupiers — ironically, of their own ancestral capital.
The question, then, is what other country would be expected to accept the boundaries of its national capital being defined by foreign powers, contrary to UN stipulation about the right of sovereign nations to establish their capitals?
This is the finest article I have read here on Substack in sometime and one of the finest articles I've read on Substack period. It is both thoughtful and incredibly nuanced. Dr. Maarten Boudry did a wonderful job on it. His observations in this article capture the Jewish state in all its complexity, the good and the bad. But it can't be accused of being a one-sided anti-Israel screed like what Ilan Pappe, Gabor Mate or Rashid Khalidi would write but nor is it a glorified account of Israel as one might get from someone like Alan Dershowitz or Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Dr. Boudry is fair and balanced. Something we could really use more of nowadays. He shows through his own observations that Israel warts and all, is NO apartheid state and is in fact an imperfect liberal democracy. Many Israeli Arabs are in fact patriotic. That percentage of the Arab minority in Israel has increased since October 7th. Israeli Arabs have all the same rights as Jews. They have citizenship, the right to vote, representation in the Knesset, can go anywhere they want, live anywhere they want, use the same drinking fountains, swim on the same beaches, ride the same buses, go to the same schools, and eat in the same restaurants as Jews. Non-Jews are perfectly welcome in Israel and are treated exactly the same as Jews. Israel has opened its doors to the Black Hebrew Israelites, African-American Christians, African and Ukrainian refugees, and Syrian refugee children. Israel is in fact, the safest place for Christians in the Middle East. hundreds of thousands of Muslims of all different sects live in Israel too along with the Druze, people of other faiths, atheists, and agnostics. The idea a multicultural democracy with equal rights for everyone is an apartheid state like South Africa from 1948-1994 is ludicrous.
The biggest bank in Israel is owned by an Arab. Israeli Arabs are 30% of doctors and 50% of the pharmacists in Israel. Increasingly more and more are joining the middle class and the number of Israeli Arabs joining the IDF every year continues to go up. Israel rescued most of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Operations Moses, Joshua and Solomon in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s. The Jewish state has also done much good work to help the people of Africa. They also have let in and treated Palestinian children and children from Arab countries. Would an apartheid state ever do anything like that? I don't think so. A bookshop owned by Muslims in East Jerusalem being allowed to sell any book they want including those critical of Israel or Zionism? I can't imagine in an apartheid state they'd allow such a thing. Not to mention, Jews themselves are quite a heterogenous bunch. There are white-passing, black, brown, red, and yellow Jews living in Israel. The majority of Israel's population are Mizrahim as a matter of fact. The story of Jinnovate is most inspiring. Shame on the European Union for not working with them! By the way, East Jerusalem isn't "illegally occupied" it was conquered fair and square by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Furthermore, Jews lived there for thousands of years before Jordan (actually) illegally occupied the area and expelled its Jewish population. They ethnically cleansed the Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem, destroyed ancient synagogues, desecrated Jewish cemeteries, built a town over much of the sacred Mount of Olives, and banned all Jews Israeli or not, from visiting any Jewish holy sites. With Israel's lightning victory in the Six-Day War, Jews regained access to the Old City, the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and Rachel's Tomb.
Is there a real apartheid system against the Palestinians? Yes. But it doesn't exist in Israel or the West Bank. It exists in every single Arab country. Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians are treated equally by the nation state of the Jewish people. But in countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. Palestinians literally and legitimately, are treated as second-class citizens. They can't own property or land, integrate into their respective countries' societies, attend university, or become citizens (with the exception of Jordan but even then, they are treated like dog****). They also are barred from most professions in the Arab world. In general, there is no better place to live for minorities, women, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people than the Jewish state. Israel is without question one of the least racist and most inclusive nations on Earth and certainly the least racist and most inclusive in the Middle East by far. Just ask Berbers in Algeria, Nubians and Sub-Saharan African workers in Egypt, the Bidoon people in Kuwait, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Sudan, or the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Turkey how "tolerant" the rest of the Middle East is. You will never ever see a pride parade in Dubai, Damascus, Khartoum, or Cairo. Two men who are in love can't openly hold hands or kiss in Baghdad. A young woman who is a lesbian must stay in the closet in the West Bank or Gaza. All of this would be perfectly okay and allowed in Israel. Women are chattel or at the very least, second-class citizens in the rest of the Middle East. Though some Arab countries can rightly be credited with making progress on women's rights, women in the Arab and Islamic world are generally still not equal to their male counterparts. In Israel, women have full equal rights and always have. Women in Israel can vote, earn equal pay with men, get a divorce, wear whatever they want, drive, go out without male permission, and serve in combat in the IDF.
Noah has excellent insight and writes well. If you don't already have your own substack, you should.
Great job!
Of course, Israel is not the brutal and boorish country South Africa once was.
And naturally, no liberal democracy is perfect. But equal opportunities for all?
No, Israeli Palestinians do not have the same rights as Jewish Israelis, despite legal guarantees of equality. While Arab citizens of Israel have the right to vote and stand for election, they face systemic discrimination in areas like land access, housing, education, and political representation.
But that's an emancipatory struggle within Israel-proper, while the ever lasting Israeli military presence in the Wild, wild Westbank leaves the population there in enduring legal limbo.
After all these years, Israel should finally decide what it wants to do with the Westbank: accept some form of home rule or expand Israeli law and order over the entire territory.
Otherwise, the wound will fester even further.
Thank you for your insight, honesty, and openness. No society is perfect (nor should it aim to be), and much can be learned when everyone stops shouting.
This was truly a fine read! Thank you.
Thank you for this enlightening article. It changes some of my thoughts that have been negative toward the Israelis.
Bravo
I’ll be happy when this important article is on the front page of The NY Times. But I’m not holding my breath…….
Israel within the Green Line is not an apartheid state.
I notice you do not appear to have visited Hebron, where Muslim residents have to leave their homes by the fire escapes because the street is reserved for Jews and tourists. It was closed to Arabs after a terrorist incident by a right-wing Jewish settler.
Nor do you discuss the implications that Arab East Jerusalemites are not allowed to vote in national elections, only local ones. Arabs in the West Bank don't get to vote in any Israeli elections, although their neighbors in the Jewish settlements do. (Unsurprisingly, the resulting government neglects Palestinian infrastructure and ignores near-daily assaults on their property.)
Israel outside the Green Line is a very good imitation of an apartheid state, even to segregated highways.
So do you write about the 2.5 million blacks killed by Muslims in Africa
Or about the hundred of thousands Christians killed by Muslims ..or about the constant killing of Christians everyday or the Pakistan gang raped...or as you avoided saying..the UK Spain Belgium Norway Sweden Finland Portugal France Netherlands And half of Canada are now Muslim controlled countries
......
Maarten, your article has a strongly pro-Israel view, emphasizing integration and loyalty among Arab Israelis and minorities while portraying Israel as a liberal enclave in an otherwise oppressive region. There are several incorrect statements and logical fallacies.
- The Arab Israeli population (around 20% of Israel’s citizens) is diverse, with varying political views and identities. Many do not identify strongly with the state or support its policies, especially regarding the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Surveys show fluctuating levels of trust and belonging, deeply affected by broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict dynamics.
- The Druze and Bedouin communities are emphasized positively regarding loyalty and integration. While this is partly true, it ignores the ongoing discrimination and social inequalities these groups face within Israel. The complex socio-political dynamics of these minorities should be acknowledged rather than portrayed as a monolithic positive picture.
- "Israel Is the Only Country in the Middle East with Liberal Rights":
This statement is problematic. Israel, while democratic in its 1948 borders, denies political and civil rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories and maintains various discriminatory policies against Arab citizens in several spheres (housing, employment, land rights). Other Middle Eastern countries have diverse political systems with varying degrees of civil liberties (e.g., Tunisia, Lebanon). The comparison oversimplifies a complex regional reality.
- The increased feelings of belonging cited may relate to specific events (e.g., the October 7th attacks) and do not necessarily represent long-term trends or genuine integration. The framing neglects historical grievances and continuing occupation, which fundamentally shape Palestinian and Arab Israeli attitudes.
- Abbas’s statements reflect a pragmatic stance rather than wholesale acceptance or normalization of Israeli policies. His position is often controversial within Palestinian and Arab communities, with many rejecting collaboration with Israeli political structures perceived as oppressive.
- While collaboration projects exist, the funding and political recognition of East Jerusalem remain contentious internationally. EU and others consider East Jerusalem occupied territory, so the article’s assertion that collaboration might legitimize occupation reflects a widespread international view, not mere bureaucratic stubbornness.
- The Educational Bookshop reopening after police actions is cited as evidence of Israel’s liberal democracy. However, arrests and raids targeting Palestinian-related activism or dissent are well-documented occurrences and often criticized as attempts to suppress opposition voices.
- While the article portrays Israelis as humane, some voices in Israeli society have openly supported or justified harsh military actions in Gaza, bordering on collective punishment; and now a genocide. Ignoring these opinions or downplaying the discourse of dehumanization presents a skewed image.
- On the quotes from Kazim Khlilih and Khaled Abu Toameh: these expressions of hardened attitudes reflect trauma but also reveal deep societal fractures and the consequences of ongoing conflict. Presenting them sympathetically without contextualizing the broader human rights impact risks normalizing apathy toward civilians suffering.
- The suggestion regarding Toameh’s Proposal for IDF Governance of Gaza, overlooks the extreme challenges and humanitarian crises inherent in military governance of Gaza, which already suffers from blockade, economic hardship, and repeated conflict. It also ignores international law prohibitions against prolonged military occupation without due process or self-governance.
- While certain freedoms exist in Israel, Muslim minorities in Europe and Israel have very different contexts. Europe’s restrictions on Islamic practices and anti-Muslim sentiment vary widely, and Israeli Arabs also face systemic discrimination. The article’s simple comparison lacks nuance.
- The article caricatures Said’s critique as “simple-minded dichotomy” and Foucault-inspired “myopia,” presenting liberal Israel as the sole beacon of freedom. Said’s work centers on power imbalances, representation, and colonial legacies, which remain deeply relevant and supported by complex evidence.
- You appeal to authority: personal stories, like that of IDF Major Ella Waweya or Kazim Khlilih, are used to emotionally persuade readers without addressing broader systemic issues affecting wider populations.
- The article somewhat misrepresents critical perspectives by portraying Western criticism as uninformed caricature and equating all criticism with “anti-Zionism” or anti-Semitism, which is often not the case.
- The article tries to set up a stark contrast: "the only democratic and liberal country in the Middle East" versus "terroristic, totalitarian Arabs," ignoring shades of grey, diverse voices, and ongoing contradictions.
- Positive stories are extrapolated to claim Israel's democracy as exemplary overall, dismissing serious concerns about occupation, discrimination, and human rights from credible international organizations.
Israel is a complex society with democratic structures within its internationally recognized borders, but it enforces an ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories involving significant human rights concerns. Arab Israelis, Druze, and Bedouin minorities have varying loyalties and experiences; oversimplification ignores instances of discrimination and political dissent. Claims about Israel’s unique liberalism in the Middle East overlook nuanced realities about rights, freedoms, and regional geopolitical challenges. Presenting selected anecdotes and polling data without a broader context risks misleading readers about the political and humanitarian situation. Discussions on freedom of expression should consider documented state actions suppressing Palestinian dissent alongside any instances of tolerance. Critiques of Israel and its policies can be informed and legitimate without invoking racist or extremist views.
You are doing your best to show how good Israel is... but it commited a genocide in Gaza.
Nothing in your comment invalidates the assertion of the article that Israel is not an Apartheid state. That no sub-population in Israel, Jewish or non Jewish, is monolithic is a banal truism, valid everywhere, that the author specifically acknowledges in the article. That doesn't change the fundamentals: Israeli Arabs are on average better educated, richer (the GCC countries perhaps excepted) and have more freedoms than Arabs anywhere in the Middle East.
And there is as much genocide in Gaza as there is apartheid in Israel.
Israel does have characteristics of an apartheid state, though.
In the West Bank, Palestinians live under military law with frequent administrative restrictions, while Israeli settlers operate under civilian Israeli law in the same geographical area. Critics argue that this creates a two-tier system of rights and freedoms, particularly in movement, land allocation, and civil rights, which aligns with the “domination” and “different rights” elements of some apartheid definitions. Proponents of this view point to documented disparities in freedom of movement, voting mechanisms limited to certain populations, and differentiated access to resources.
Checkpoints, permits, and road networks that prioritize Israeli settlers over Palestinian residents are cited as mechanisms that restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement and access to work, education, and healthcare, while enabling freer movement for settlers. This fragmentation is presented as a structural barrier that sustains a hierarchy of rights.
The expansion of settlements, differential zoning, expropriation of land for Israeli use, and planning regimes that constrain Palestinian development are interpreted by many observers as creating a spatial and legal architecture that separates populations along ethnic lines and entrenches domination.
Within Israel’s own borders, Palestinian citizens of Israel experience formal civil rights but face structural discrimination in access to land, housing, budgeting, political influence, and social services. Advocates of the apartheid framing argue that these enduring inequalities amount to systemic discrimination embedded in law and policy.
The blockade of Gaza and the extensive restrictions on movement, goods, and people are cited as practices that collectively produce a regime of control over a large civilian population, contributing to claims of systemic oppression and rights violations on a broad scale.
Major human rights organizations and UN bodies have raised concerns about patterns in occupation policy, collective punishment, and discrimination that some observers categorize as apartheid or as crimes related to apartheid and persecution. This framing reflects ongoing international debates about state responsibility and remedies.
There are several reports by experts that clearly confirming Israel did commit genocide.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/a80492-gaza-genocide-collective-crime-report-special-rapporteur-situation
Your layman opinion is not going to change that fact.
Conflating the situation in Israel, in the West Bank and in Gaza is not serious. They have to be considered individually.
In Israel, you admit that Arab-speaking (what you call Palestinian) citizens of Israel "experience formal civil rights". So there is no Apartheid. I won't address your "structural discrimination ..." argument - although it is largely bogus - because it is beside the point.
In Gaza, there is a war, and before that there was a blockade by Egypt and Israel of an enemy territory (i.e. one that lobs rockets into Israel). Nothing to do with Apartheid.
In the West Bank, the vast majority of Palestinians are under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Their freedom of movement is restricted when they leave areas A and B. So is that of Israeli citizens, who cannot enter these areas. Since these Palestinians are citizens of the PA and not of Israel, they cannot be under an Israeli Apartheid regime.
Regarding the "fact" of the genocide, the accusation would be laughable if it weren't such a serious matter. Maarten actually addresses it in depth here:
https://maartenboudry.substack.com/p/they-dont-believe-it-either
Look, the core elements of 'Apartheid' are the inhumane acts committed with the purpose of establishing and maintaining a system of racial domination or oppression over a protected population, through a combination of legal regimes, segregation, dispossession, and denial of political rights. You can't deny that Israel does uphold an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by Israelis over Palestinians with the intention of maintaining that regime.
Between 1948-49, Zionist militias and then the Israeli army ethnically cleansed between 750,000 and one million indigenous Palestinians in order to establish Israel as a Jewish majority state, including dozens of massacres of Palestinian civilians. More than 400 Palestinian cities, towns, and villages were systemically destroyed by Israel or repopulated with Jewish Israelis.
Since 1948, Israel has continued to systematically dispossess and discriminate against Palestinians inside Israel and in the territories Israel militarily occupied in the 1967 War, including by making it nearly impossible for most Palestinians to get permits to build new homes or apartments and destroying those that are built without permission. In places like the Negev desert in southern Israel, the government has been destroying entire villages as part of a plan to Judaize the region, evicting whole communities of Palestinians who are Israeli citizens and replacing them with Jewish Israelis
The structured legal fragmentation, territorial fragmentation, movement restrictions, differential access to resources, and the governance of Palestinians under separate legal regimes is clear evidence of such systematic oppression.
Checkpoints, permit regimes, and road networks that separate populations and restrict Palestinian movement more tightly than Israeli movement, often cited as evidence of controlled separation.
Settlement expansion, land expropriation, and planning regimes that preferentially facilitate Israeli settlements in the OPT are evidence of dispossession and spatial fragmentation. Palestinian towns and villages face planning constraints, limited development approvals, and barriers to expansion while Israelis execute a rapid settlement development. Israel’s parliament has just voted to give preliminary approval to a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty on the occupied West Bank, in a move tantamount to annexation of the Palestinian territory, which would be a blatant violation of international law.
There are dozens of laws that privilege Jewish citizens and/or discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20% of Israel’s population. These laws affect everything from housing and land ownership, to health care, education, and family reunification rights. In 2018, the Israeli government passed the so-called “Jewish nation-state" bill that codifies in Israel’s quasi-constitutional basic laws the privileged position that Jewish citizens enjoy over indigenous Palestinians. Among other things, it declares Jews have a unique right to self-determination in the land of Israel (which for most Israelis includes the occupied Palestinian territories) and directs the state to regard “Jewish settlement as a national value” and to “act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation,” thereby making racially segregated housing official state policy.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land is illegal and that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based on “systematic discrimination, segregation and apartheid"
In February 2022, Amnesty International issued a report entitled, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity.
It's clear that you're bias as an Israeli and appear to be blind for the apartheid.
Again, your or Maartens layman opinion on the genocide, doesn't change the fact that ad hoc experts officially confirmed it is genocide. Denying that is just blatant negationism, which will be a punishable crime in Belgium soon.
I do deny that "Israel does uphold an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by Israelis over Palestinians with the intention of maintaining that regime".
Nothing you write - the long litany of "facts" that are meant to demonize Israel as the epitome of evil - has any relation to reality on the ground. To give just one example - the “Jewish nation-state" bill (which in my view was completely superfluous) does not in any way restrict the civil rights of non-Jewish citizens of Israel.
And yes, I am Israeli, and I am not blind to non-existing Apartheid. I see with my own eyes Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis working and studying together and living in the same neighborhoods.
Finally, your framing of denial that there is anything approaching genocide in Gaza as "negationism", on par with Holocaust negationism - soon to be punishable by law in Belgium!-, gives the game away. Nothing of what made the Holocaust singularly horrible can be observed in Gaza. But since the whole point of the Gaza genocide libel is so obviously to justify retroactively the horror of the Holocaust - to demonize the Jews enough to assuage your guilt - , it has become an article of faith. You will cling to any "ad-hoc experts" that will comfort you in your idea that the Israeli Jews are demons - that when given the chance, they can be as bad as you and then some -, facts be damned. Perhaps you should try some introspection before accusing others of being willfully blind.
Yeah, I understand you would like those facts to disappear. But I just listed a few historical facts. You denying it, doesn't make go away.
You as an Israeli haven't experienced the Apartheid. You haven't had your house bulldozed, your family chased out their towns like animals, your harvest destroyed.
You haven't even read the reports of the genocide, which details toddlers being shot in the chest and head.
Your hasbara is disgusting. Typical, all criticisms on Israel is framed as antisemitic, you even go further.
You're indeed blind to the horror that Israel has committed what was committed on the Jews in the Holocaust. It's not a game, it's reality, you wish to ignore.
You made yourself completely unreliable and unnuanced.
More than 500 genocidal statements:
https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-database-with-500-instances-of-israeli-incitement-to-genocide-continuously-updated/
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel. Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this live-streamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/a80492-gaza-genocide-collective-crime-report-special-rapporteur-situation
I think, you don't just stand aside and ignore what's happening. No, you actually know what's happening and are convinced the NaZionists of Israel has the right to do it.
"East Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli control since the 1967 Six-Day War"
furthermore,
"[the European Union] views East Jerusalem as an illegally occupied territory."
The assumptions underlying these statements raises several questions:
Is whom I am or what I am dependent on another person's definition of me?
What rightful place does law, history, or facts (or factual history, for that matter) have in shaping identity or conferring legitimacy on an individual or collectivity?
What we have here is one country seizing by military force the original centre of an ancient national capital of another country. Years later, this quarter is recaptured and reintegrated into the capital, only to be told by world powers that restoring this area to its original status was illegal because the peoples of this country were enemy, alien occupiers — ironically, of their own ancestral capital.
The question, then, is what other country would be expected to accept the boundaries of its national capital being defined by foreign powers, contrary to UN stipulation about the right of sovereign nations to establish their capitals?
Excellent!