A recently published academic paper challenges three major accusations against Israel, concluding that the evidence does not establish apartheid or genocide and that describing Israel and Zionism as settler colonialism does not adequately fit the historical record.
Gunther Jikeli and Philippe Karpe examined the claims in “Three Accusations against Israel: Apartheid, Settler Colonialism, and Genocide under Legal and Historical Scrutiny,” published this month, assessing apartheid and genocide against their requirements under international law while examining settler colonialism as a historical framework.
The authors found that the apartheid accusation is not supported within Israel, where Arab citizens can vote, form political parties, serve in the Knesset, and seek relief through the courts, despite continuing discrimination and disparities.
They identified the West Bank as presenting the strongest case for the allegation, citing the prolonged occupation, settlements, different legal arrangements, and restrictions on Palestinians. However, they found that Palestinian self-government, security considerations, judicial oversight, and repeated negotiations over withdrawal and Palestinian statehood leave the required purpose or intent to maintain systematic racial domination unproven.
Jikeli and Karpe also concluded that settler colonialism does not adequately characterize Zionism or Israel. While the framework can explain elements of pre-state settlement, Palestinian displacement and the post-1967 West Bank settlement enterprise, they said it fails to account sufficiently for Zionism’s national and refugee character, Jewish historical ties to the land and the absence of a conventional colonial metropole.
Turning to Gaza, the paper acknowledges extensive Palestinian deaths, injuries, deprivation and civilian suffering but concludes that those consequences do not establish genocide.
Under the Genocide Convention, the authors said, the central question is whether Israel acted with the specific intent to physically or biologically destroy Palestinians, in whole or in substantial part, as a group. They found that the evidence reviewed does not establish that intent.
The paper also warns against combining the three accusations into a single characterization of Israel, arguing that doing so can blur the separate legal and historical standards required to substantiate each claim.