Is Israel’s treatment of Palestinians a form of apartheid?

Kenneth Roth, who was executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022 and oversaw production of the report on apartheid, said that Israeli authorities have long insisted that ending discriminatory policies depended on peace negotiations.

But three decades on, with no real peace process in motion, that explanation “lacked credibility,” Roth said.

Israel has continued to support Jewish settlements in the West Bank, constructing “bypass roads” accessible only to the settlers and expanding military checkpoints — moves that Roth and others say all but eliminated the possibility that the West Bank could someday become an independent, contiguous Palestinian state.

“What’s left is Swiss cheese,” he said.