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Apartheid in Action: How Israel Systematically Strips Palestinian Voting Rights While Claiming Democratic Legitimacy

By healthranger // 2025-09-28

Israel’s Apartheid System and the Open-Air Prison of Gaza: A Regime of Control, Dispossession, and Denied Self-Determination For over seven decades, Israel has enforced a system of institutionalized discrimination, segregation, and military domination over Palestinians, amounting to what leading human rights organizations—including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem—have conclusively labeled as apartheid. This regime operates through a graded hierarchy of rights, where Jewish Israelis enjoy full citizenship, political representation, and freedom of movement, while Palestinians are subjected to military rule, disenfranchisement, and severe restrictions on their basic freedoms. The most extreme manifestation of this system is the Gaza Strip, described by international observers, humanitarian groups, and Palestinians themselves as the world’s largest "open-air prison," where 2.1 million people have been trapped under a brutal blockade, denied access to clean water, electricity, medical supplies, and the right to leave or return. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank live under indefinite military occupation, where Israeli settlements—deemed illegal under international law—expand relentlessly, fragmenting their land and eroding any prospect of sovereignty. Even Palestinian citizens of Israel, who hold the right to vote, face systemic discrimination, surveillance, and laws designed to suppress their political representation. Together, these mechanisms form a single, cohesive system of control that denies Palestinians self-determination while entrenching Jewish Israeli dominance over all historic Palestine.

Israel's system of suppression and destruction

The foundation of Israel’s apartheid regime lies in its deliberate fragmentation of the Palestinian people into distinct legal and geographic categories, each with diminishing rights. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who survived the 1948 Nakba and remained within the newly declared state’s borders, were granted citizenship in 1952—but only after years of military rule during which their movements were restricted, their properties confiscated under the Absentee Property Law, and their political activities heavily surveilled. While they can vote in Israeli elections, their representation in the Knesset is systematically undermined through discriminatory laws, such as the 2018 "Nation-State Law," which constitutionally enshrines Jewish supremacy and demotes Arabic from an official language to one with "special status." Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967, are denied citizenship and instead hold precarious residency permits that can be revoked at any time, leaving them in a state of permanent insecurity. In the West Bank, Palestinians live under military occupation, governed by Israeli military courts that convict over 99% of defendants, while Jewish settlers in the same territory are subject to Israeli civil law, a far more lenient legal system.

The structure of dominance over Gaza

Gaza, meanwhile, has been under blockade since 2007, with Israel controlling its airspace, territorial waters, and borders, reducing its population to a state of humanitarian crisis. This tiered system ensures that no Palestinian community—whether inside Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, or Gaza—can exercise meaningful political power or challenge Israeli dominance. The concept of Gaza as an "open-air prison" is not rhetorical hyperbole but a precise description of its reality. Since 2007, Israel has enforced a land, sea, and air blockade on the Strip, severely restricting the movement of people and goods in or out. The blockade, justified by Israel as a security measure against Hamas, has instead collectively punished Gaza’s civilian population, leading to chronic shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and clean water. Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Refugee Council have documented how the blockade has devastated Gaza’s economy, with unemployment rates exceeding 46% and over half the population living in poverty. Hospitals operate on the brink of collapse due to frequent power outages and shortages of medical supplies, while the education system suffers from overcrowded classrooms and a lack of basic resources. During military escalations, such as the 2014 and 2023-2025 wars (ongoing), Gaza’s civilians are trapped with no escape, subjected to indiscriminate airstrikes that have killed thousands, including tens of thousands of children. The blockade has turned Gaza into a pressure cooker of despair, where even the most basic human needs—such as the ability to travel for medical treatment or education—are denied. As Médecins Sans Frontières noted in 2014, working in Gaza is akin to "patching up prisoners in between their torture sessions," with Israel acting as both jailer and executioner. The denial of Palestinian self-determination is central to Israel’s apartheid system.

Israel operates in blatant violation of international law

International law recognizes self-determination as an inalienable right, one that can be realized through various political arrangements, including independent statehood, federation, or equal participation in a shared state. Yet Israel has systematically blocked all paths to Palestinian self-determination. The two-state solution, long the dominant paradigm in international diplomacy, has been rendered impossible by Israel’s relentless expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which now house over 700,000 Jewish Israelis on land intended for a future Palestinian state. These settlements are not only illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention but are also subsidized and protected by the Israeli state, which expropriates Palestinian land and resources to sustain them. Meanwhile, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and its de facto annexation of the West Bank through infrastructure and legal integration have further eroded the territorial basis for Palestinian statehood. The alternative—a single democratic state with equal rights for all—is rejected by Israel, which insists on maintaining a Jewish demographic majority at all costs, even if it means permanent disenfranchisement of Palestinians. As legal scholars Itamar Mann and Yael Berda argue, Israel’s "indefinite occupation" of Palestinian territories creates a legal obligation to grant political rights to those under its control, yet it refuses to do so, instead imposing a regime of separation and domination.

Israel’s apartheid system is sustained through a combination of legal, bureaucratic, and violent mechanisms

The Absentee Property Law of 1950, for instance, allowed Israel to seize the land and homes of Palestinians who were displaced during the Nakba, effectively preventing their return. In the West Bank, Israel’s military administration uses a permit regime to control Palestinian movement, fragmenting the territory into isolated areas connected by checkpoints and roads reserved for Israeli settlers. The separation wall, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, further entrenches this fragmentation by annexing Palestinian land and cutting off communities from their farms, schools, and hospitals. In Gaza, the blockade is enforced through a "calorie count" policy, where Israel calculates the minimum food needed to keep the population from starving but does not allow enough for a dignified life. During military operations, Israel employs disproportionate force, targeting civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, and water treatment plants, in violation of international humanitarian law. The 2023 war on Gaza, triggered by the Oct. 7 events that many observers believe Israel allowed to happen with a "stand down" order, saw Israel impose a "complete siege" on the Strip, cutting off water, food, fuel, and electricity—a form of collective punishment explicitly prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. These policies are not aberrations but part of a deliberate strategy to maintain control over Palestinians while denying them the ability to resist or govern themselves.

The international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable has enabled its apartheid regime

While the United Nations, human rights organizations, and even some Western governments have condemned Israel’s occupation and blockade, these critiques rarely translate into meaningful action. The United States, Israel’s primary ally, continues to provide military and diplomatic support, shielding it from accountability at the UN Security Council. The International Criminal Court’s investigation into war crimes in Palestine has faced intense political pressure, while Israeli officials accused of crimes—such as the bombing of civilian areas in Gaza—enjoy impunity. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, established under the Oslo Accords as an interim government, has been reduced to a subcontractor of the occupation, coordinating security with Israel while having no real authority over its own people. And Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, is labeled a terrorist organization by Israel and the West, providing a pretext for the blockade on Gaza and the suppression of Palestinian democracy. The result is a political vacuum where Palestinians have no legitimate leadership, no path to statehood, and no means to challenge Israel’s domination.

The crimes of apartheid

As Human Rights Watch concluded in its 2021 report, Israel’s policies amount to the crimes of apartheid and persecution, defined under international law as inhumane acts committed with the intent to maintain a system of racial domination. The situation in Gaza exemplifies the brutality of Israel’s apartheid system. Described by the UN and humanitarian organizations as the world’s largest open-air prison, Gaza’s 2.1 million inhabitants are subjected to a blockade that restricts their access to food, medicine, and basic services. The 2023 war has exacerbated this crisis, with Israeli airstrikes destroying entire neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools, while the blockade prevents the entry of aid. The World Health Organization has warned that Gaza’s health system is at a "breaking point," with hospitals overwhelmed by casualties and running out of supplies. The Israeli military’s order for over one million Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza—without safe passage or guarantee of return—echoes the Nakba of 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. Today, Gazans face a similar fate: displacement, starvation, and death under a siege that the UN has condemned as a violation of international law. The blockade is not a temporary security measure but a permanent feature of Israel’s control, designed to weaken Palestinian resistance and force submission. As journalist Jonathan Cook noted, international reconstruction efforts in Gaza only serve to "transform a Third World prison into a modern US super-max incarceration facility," where the conditions of confinement are slightly improved but the underlying system of oppression remains intact.

Jewish Israeli dominance

The legal and political frameworks that sustain Israel’s apartheid regime are rooted in a separatist ideology that views Palestinian self-determination as incompatible with Jewish Israeli dominance. This ideology, inherited from British colonial partition plans and the 1947 UN partition resolution, assumes that peace can only be achieved through the physical separation of Jews and Palestinians. Yet as scholars Ariel Zemach and Sari Bashi argue, this "separatist nomos" is not only outdated but also illegal under international law, which prohibits indefinite occupation and racial discrimination. The alternative—a system of equal rights and political participation for all people under Israeli control—is dismissed by Israel as an existential threat, revealing the true nature of its apartheid regime: a system that privileges Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinian freedom. The demand for Palestinian voting rights in Israeli elections, as proposed by some legal scholars, is not an endorsement of Israeli sovereignty but a pragmatic step toward dismantling the apartheid system. If Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were granted the right to vote, they could use their political power to challenge Israel’s occupation and demand equal rights. This would not preclude the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state but would instead create a transitional mechanism for ending apartheid. However, Israel rejects even this minimal demand, fearing that Palestinian political participation would undermine its Jewish majority and the privileged status of its settler-colonial project.

The USA is complicit in Israel's apartheid crimes against humanity

The international community’s complicity in Israel’s apartheid regime is evident in its failure to enforce its own resolutions and laws. The UN Security Council has repeatedly condemned Israeli settlements as illegal, yet no sanctions or meaningful consequences have followed. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank violates international law and must be dismantled, but the wall remains standing. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes apartheid as a crime against humanity, yet no Israeli official has been prosecuted. Instead, Western governments continue to arm and fund Israel, while Palestinian resistance—whether nonviolent or armed—is labeled terrorism and suppressed. The result is a regime of impunity where Israel faces no consequences for its crimes, and Palestinians are left with no recourse but to endure. The situation in Gaza is a microcosm of this broader system: a population caged, bombed, and starved, while the world watches and does little. The term "open-air prison" captures the reality of Gaza, but it also obscures the broader apartheid system that extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Until this system is dismantled, Palestinians will remain trapped in a cycle of oppression, resistance, and punishment, with no hope for freedom or self-determination. The path forward requires a fundamental shift in how the international community approaches the question of Palestine. The two-state solution, long the cornerstone of diplomatic efforts, is no longer viable due to Israel’s settlement expansion and annexation policies. The alternative—a single democratic state with equal rights for all—is the only just resolution, but it requires dismantling Israel’s apartheid structures and ending its system of Jewish supremacy. This would involve granting full political rights to all Palestinians under Israeli control, dismantling the separation wall, ending the Gaza blockade, and allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return. It would also require holding Israeli officials accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including apartheid. Without such measures, Israel’s apartheid regime will continue to thrive, and Palestinians will remain a dispossessed and disenfranchised people. The question is not whether Israel is an apartheid state—leading human rights organizations have already answered that—but whether the world will act to end it. For Palestinians, the choice is clear: either continued resistance in the face of overwhelming odds or submission to a system designed to erase their identity and rights. For the international community, the choice is between complicity in apartheid or solidarity with those fighting for freedom and justice. Sources: A Threshold Crossed https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution Israel Discriminatory measures undermine Palestinian representation in Knesset - Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/09/israel-discriminatory-measures-undermine-palestinian-representation-in-knesset/ Palestinian Citizens of Israel | ECFR https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/palestinian_citizens_of_israel/ Voting as a Vehicle for Self-Determination in Palestine and Israel | Texas Law Review https://texaslawreview.org/voting-as-a-vehicle-for-self-determination-in-palestine-and-israel/ Gaza: Israel’s ‘Open-Air Prison’ at 15 https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15 Gaza: An 'Open-Air Prison' https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/video/2022/06/13/gaza-open-air-prison Gaza as an Open-Air Prison - MERIP https://merip.org/2015/06/gaza-as-an-open-air-prison/ Gaza: The world’s largest open-air prison https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison An Open-Air Prison: Gaza's Worsening Health and Humanitarian Crises | Think Global Health https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/open-air-prison-gazas-worsening-health-and-humanitarian-crises Clickable Sources: https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/09/israel-discriminatory-measures-undermine-palestinian-representation-in-knesset/ https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/palestinian_citizens_of_israel/ https://texaslawreview.org/voting-as-a-vehicle-for-self-determination-in-palestine-and-israel/ https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15 https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/video/2022/06/13/gaza-open-air-prison https://merip.org/2015/06/gaza-as-an-open-air-prison/ https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/open-air-prison-gazas-worsening-health-and-humanitarian-crises ### ### Follow my podcasts, interviews, articles and social media posts on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/HealthRanger Brighteon.social: Brighteon.social/@HealthRanger Brighteon.io: Brighteon.io/healthranger Telegram: t.me/RealHealthRanger Brighteon.com: Brighteon.com/channels/HRreport Rumble: Rumble.com/c/HealthRangerReport Substack: HealthRanger.substack.com Banned.video: Banned.video/channel/mike-adams Bastyon: https://bastyon.com/healthranger Gettr: GETTR.com/user/healthranger BitChute: Bitchute.com/channel/9EB8glubb0Ns/ Clouthub: app.clouthub.com/#/users/u/naturalnews/posts My music with MP3 downloads and music videos: music.Brighteon.com Watch my 100+ interviews on decentralization and freedom at Decentralize.TV Join the free NaturalNews.com email newsletter to stay alerted about breaking news each day. 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Israel evil human rights democracy Palestine Palestinians international law Gaza West Bank Netanyahu nakba