Thanks for that. I agree with much of what you say regarding the apartheid comparison. It's very easy to use that word because it sounds bad and evil - which many people feel about Israel, especially at moments like this - but it does no service to understanding the complexity of the situation to use bad terminology to virtue-signal about Israel/Palestine. I've always felt we do a massive disservice to the unique historical experiences of both black South Africans and Palestinians when using this word.
That's not to overlook or downplay the very real problems that exist in Israeli society and Israeli laws within Israel itself but using the word 'apartheid' is ultimately counterproductive because it allows those who don't want change to list the differences you've highlighted, and to accuse often well-meaning people as being ill-informed or even biased, which sadly some critics are, while avoiding facing up to the problems.
The situation beyond the Green Line is a different matter and the word has more validity there with daily violations of human rights, denial of Palestinian sovereignty, restrictions on movement, and the reality of living side-by-side, with no citizenship rights, with Jewish-Israeli settlers who have all the privileges of Israel citizenship - I could go on. Even taking into account the security issues they face I believe Israeli policy there has been disastrously short-sighted, both for the Palestinian people and for the Israeli people.
The situation in Gaza is different again with the people forced to live under a terrorist regime that prioritises weapons and tunnels of the welfare of its citizens, who are isolated from their fellow-Palestinians and hemmed in by the joint Israeli/Egyptian blockade.
I've read several of the human rights reports that come out periodically and it's very easy to sit down and pick holes in them: a factual error here, an exaggeration there, but the injustices they list are predominantly true, it's just that the word 'apartheid' feels almost bolted on in an attempt to gather headlines for reports that would otherwise go under the radar, certainly in this country. That might be a good motive but overall it is, for me at least, counterproductive.
