Reuters is reporting today that South African John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the West Bank and Gaza, has directly compared Israel's military occupation of the territories to South African apartheid in his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council.
Money quote and a bit more below the fold.
Dugard, special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said restrictions on movement and separate residential areas gave a sense of "deja vu" to anyone with experience of apartheid.
"Of course there are similarities between the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory) and apartheid South Africa," he told the council.
He specifically pointed to Hebron as the scene of some of the worst violations, and settlers there as the worst offenders:
Dugard said Gaza was an imprisoned society, with the situation in the West Bank little better.
"Settlers, largely unrestrained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), subject many Palestinians to a reign of terror — particularly in Hebron," he said.
Obviously, the opinion of a human rights specialist from South Africa is of a little value in the ongoing debate whether "apartheid" is an appropriate term to describe Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories. I mean, what does he know?