Politics
Is Israel's treatment of Palestinians a form of apartheid?
The era of apartheid in South Africa is one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.
The word itself has become shorthand for systems of oppressive rule around the world — and even before the current war in Gaza unleashed a massive wave of demonstrations, it was an increasingly popular refrain of pro-Palestinian activists.
But does the term apartheid accurately describe how Israel has treated Palestinians?
Here’s a look at the issue, a long-running debate among human rights experts.
What is the origin of the word apartheid?
In 1948, the newly empowered National Party in South Africa instituted a racial hierarchy to ensure dominance of the white descendants of Dutch colonizers. The party named the system apartheid, which in the Afrikaans language means “the state of being separate.”
A litany of laws and regulations enforced rigid divisions among whites, Blacks, Indians and mixed-race “coloreds,” dictating where people could live, work, go to school and even whether they could interact.
At the bottom of the hierarchy was the Black majority, which was relegated to geographically small “townships” away from city centers. Black South Africans were banned from owning property, voting and attending certain schools.
The government did not hesitate to use force to brutally and sometimes lethally repress opposition to the system, which became entrenched as much of the rest of the world was moving away from formal segregation laws and colonialism.
How did the term come to be used outside South Africa?
In 1973, the United Nations established the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
In doing so, the U.N. broadened the definition of apartheid. No longer just an oppressive system in a single country, it now referred to “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”
Separately, another U.N. convention, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, was used to broaden the word “race,” as contained in the original definition of apartheid, to include ethnicity, descent and national origin.
In 1993, the International Criminal Court reaffirmed apartheid as a crime against humanity and established the possibility of individuals being held responsible.
The United States was among a handful of countries that did not ratify the 1973 convention or other efforts to crack down on apartheid. U.S. officials argued the definitions were weak, and the U.S. has been generally reluctant to join international justice missions for fear its own people would be prosecuted.
How did apartheid come to be associated with Israel?
Israel sided with the United States in not ratifying the convention, in part because it began facing accusations that it was becoming an apartheid state.
Most of the criticism came from Palestinians and others in the Arab world, but some originated from Israel’s own leaders. In 1976, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said the then-nascent right-wing movement that pushed Jewish settlers into what was supposed to be Palestinian land was a “cancer” and an “acute danger” to Israel’s democracy.
He warned that it would lead to apartheid, a specter raised in later years by his successors Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.
In the last several years, as the Israeli government has moved further to the right, the apartheid label has gained currency among activists, including progressive Jews.
“There can be no democracy with occupation,” Sharon Brous, a prominent Los Angeles rabbi, said in her Yom Kippur sermon last September, addressing the question of whether Israel could fairly be called “an apartheid state.”
If the right-wing Israeli government succeeds in its attempts to strip the judiciary of its power, she said, “it will become increasingly difficult if not impossible to defend Israel from that characterization.”
So is Israel an apartheid state?
After more than two years of research and arduous debate on the question, experts at Human Rights Watch released a 200-plus-page report with an answer to that question.
Citing Israeli officials who stated that they were determined to maintain Jewish Israeli control “over demographics, political power and land,” the organization found that “authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity.”
It concluded that in Gaza and the West Bank — which together are home to 5 million Palestinians — “these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
It did not include Israel proper, where 2 million or so Palestinians are Israeli citizens and make up about a quarter of the country’s population.
Why do rights groups make a distinction for Palestinian citizens of Israel?
In Israel proper, Palestinians are a vast underclass, with higher rates of unemployment and a lower overall standard of living than Jewish Israelis. But they have served in the Israeli parliament and on the Supreme Court and officially have the same legal rights as any citizen.
That is a crucial difference from apartheid, which refers to a codified system of subjugation that goes far beyond other forms of discrimination.
How does that compare to the West Bank?
The situation is much different in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Troops are deployed throughout the territory, where Palestinian officials have only nominal authority.
The hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers who have constructed and occupied villages — in violation of international law — receive protection from the army, move about freely and are subject to an Israeli civilian legal system.
Palestinians, on the other hand, face restrictions on where they can go, lose their land to settlers and routinely fight what they describe as onerous bureaucracy to secure the building permits granted easily to settlers. There are even separate roads for Israelis traveling through the West Bank.
Moreover, a Jewish settler who breaks the law goes to a civilian court and often receives minimal punishment while a Palestinian is sent to a military court often without due process, international and Israeli human rights groups say.
Supporters of Israel resist the apartheid label, arguing that the system is necessary for security reasons.
“The South African system of apartheid was driven by unambiguous racism where people were separated in every aspect of their daily lives on the basis of their skin color,” said Jonathan Harounoff, communications director for the Jewish Institute for National Security in America, a Washington advocacy group.
“In the West Bank, on the other hand, any restrictive policies there in place toward Palestinians are not race- or religion-based. They are purely driven by security concerns as a result of past acts of terrorism that led to loss of Israeli life.”
What about Gaza?
Defenders of Israel say the case against using the apartheid label is even easier to make in the Gaza Strip, because Israel pulled out of the coastal enclave in 2005.
There were too few Jewish settlers in Gaza to justify Israeli occupation, officials said at the time. The withdrawal, which soon left Gaza under the control of the militant group Hamas, freed up more Israel forces to patrol the West Bank.
Rather than occupy Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade on it. With help from Egypt — which usually blocks its sole border crossing with the enclave — Israel uses its military to control land, air and sea access.
But Human Rights Watch and others argue that the blockade itself is a form of apartheid, because it maintains the domination of one ethnic group over another.
What does all of this have to do with the war?
For some pro-Palestinian activists, the word provides context — if not justification — for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that started the war and killed about 1,200 Israelis. After all, Black South Africans and their supporters used violence on occasion to fight for their freedom.
Israel, however, maintains that the Hamas violence was so extreme, including the rape or sexual abuse of a number of women, along with its taking of more than 200 hostages, that it does nothing to further the cause of Palestinian statehood.
With no clear end in sight, the war is one of the deadliest chapters in a conflict that began eight decades ago. Israel has vowed to continue its retaliatory invasion of Gaza until it destroys Hamas — a campaign that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians.
When the fighting eventually subsides, the United States wants Palestinians to take the lead in postwar Gaza administration, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will continue its renewed occupation of the impoverished territory for the foreseeable future.
That would be likely to strengthen the argument of those who accuse Israel of being an apartheid state.
What are the long-term prospects for an end to the debate over 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.
Experts said Israel will be left with only two ways to shed the apartheid label: allowing the creation of a Palestinian state or granting equal rights to all Palestinians under its control.
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Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration, accusing federal health officials of illegally withholding $243 million in Medicaid payments from the state.
Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Department of Human Services sued the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), arguing the funding freeze violates federal law.
The state is seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately block the action.
The dispute stems from a January notice in which the Trump administration said it would withhold more than $2 billion annually from Minnesota’s Medicaid program over what it described as “noncompliance” with federal regulations, specifically, alleged failures to “adequately identify, prevent, and address fraud in its Medicaid program.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison speaks during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Tom Brenner/AP)
State officials say they have not been told specifically how Minnesota is out of compliance or what changes the administration wants to see.
The lawsuit follows a Feb. 25 announcement from CMS that it was deferring roughly $260 million in quarterly federal Medicaid funding to Minnesota, including about $243 million tied to “unsupported or potentially fraudulent” claims.
CMS said the deferral is part of a broader fraud crackdown and cited unusually high spending and rapid growth in personal care services, home- and community-based services, and other practitioner services.
HEAVILY-REDACTED AUDIT FINDS MINNESOTA MEDICAID HAD WIDESPREAD VULNERABILITIES
Vice President JD Vance looks on as Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz speaks about combating fraud at the White House complex in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2026. (Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images)
“For decades, Medicare fraud has drained billions from American taxpayers — that ends now,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “We are replacing the old ‘pay and chase’ model with a real-time ‘detect and deploy’ strategy, using advanced AI tools to identify fraud instantly and stop improper payments before they go out the door.”
Minnesota officials contend the move improperly uses a funding “deferral” mechanism and amounts to denying the state due process before any formal finding of noncompliance.
WALZ SLAMS TRUMP ADMIN FOR TEMPORARILY HALTING MEDICAID FUNDING TO MINNESOTA: ‘CAMPAIGN OF RETRIBUTION’
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The threatened cuts represent about 7% of Minnesota’s quarterly Medicaid funding and could force reductions in health care services for low-income residents, according to Ellison’s office.
“Trump’s M.O. is to cut first, no matter what the law says or who gets hurt, and ask questions later, if at all,” the attorney general said. “These cuts are the latest in a long series of efforts to go around the law to punish Minnesotans — but just as we fought back and won when they illegally tried to cut funding for childcare, hungry families, and our schools, we are suing them again today to make them follow the law.”
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Politics
Fearing GOP win, California’s Democratic leader urges unviable party candidates for governor to drop out
Fearing the prospect of a Republican winning California’s gubernatorial race, state Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks on Tuesday urged his party’s candidates who lack a viable path to victory to drop out.
“It is imperative that every candidate honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign,” Hicks wrote in an open letter to the politicians vying to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I recognize my suggestions are hard for many to contemplate and may be even viewed as overly harsh by some.”
Hicks did not name the Democrats he wants out of the race, but such a public admonishment by a party leader is a rarity in California politics.
Even though the odds are relatively low, California cannot risk having a Republican elected as the next governor at a time when President Trump is in the White House, Hicks said.
“[S]o much is at stake in our Nation and so many are counting on the leadership of California Democrats to stand up and speak out at this historic moment,” Hicks wrote. “California’s leadership on the world stage is significantly harder if a Democrat is not elected as our next Governor.”
Hicks urged Democrats languishing at the bottom of the field of candidates to drop out before the Friday deadline to officially file to run for governor — to ensure their names do not appear on the June primary ballot.
Under California’s top-two primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.
With nine top Democrats running, the fear is that the candidates will splinter their party’s vote and allow the top two Republicans in the race to finish in first and second place. This is despite Democratic registered voters outnumbering Republicans in the state by almost 2 to 1, and no GOP candidate winning a statewide election since 2006.
Having two Republicans competing in the November election would be devastating to Democratic voter turnout and could hurt party candidates in pivotal down-ballot races.
“The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats’ chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump’s term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025,” Hicks said in his letter. “We simply can’t let that happen.”
A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that five candidates lead the contest — former Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Eric Swalwell and hedge fund founder Tom Steyer among Democrats and conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, both Republicans. Hilton and Bianco have led all candidates in other polls over the last few months. No other candidate received the support of more than 5% of likely voters.
After Hicks issued his directive, two influential leaders in California Democratic politics said they shared his concerns.
Lorena Gonzalez, the head of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said she worries that Democratic candidates who are drawing low single-digit support in the polls and remain in the race could tilt the election.
“You’re in a situation where a candidate who pulls 2 or 3% could make all the difference whether there’s two Republicans and anti-union folks in the runoff or if there’s not,” she said.
Gonzalez said that while she believes the legislature, where Democrats hold super majorities in both chambers, would be a check if a Republican was elected the state’s leader, that might not be enough protect Californians from Trump’s destructive policies.
“We are seeing with Trump how much damage an executive who wants to ignore normal rules of engagement or the Constitution can do,” she said. “We can’t afford that.”
The federation began its endorsement process last week, and there were difficult conversations with gubernatorial candidates not only about their political beliefs, but also about their viability. The umbrella group of unions is expected to make an announcement about any potential endorsement on March 16.
Jodi Hicks, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said it was imperative to block the “real possibility” of two Republicans advancing to the general election because of the deep cuts that the Trump administration has made to health care, including access to abortion.
“Given the severity of this moment, we urge candidates to consider how continuing their candidacy may put California’s values and reproductive freedom at risk,” Jodi Hicks said. “The stakes are too high for all of us, but especially for immigrant communities, transgender individuals, the over 15 million patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, and the over 25,000 patients a week who access essential health care at Planned Parenthood health centers.”
Discussions about the need for some Democrats to exit the race took place at last weekend’s California Democratic Party convention.
But a politically thorny issue is that nearly all of the Democrats lagging in the polls are people of color, as former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted at a candidate forum Monday evening.
“There are people who are calling for candidates to get out of the race,” he said at the gathering hosted by Equality California and the Los Angeles LGBT Center at the Renberg Theatre in Hollywood. “Isn’t it interesting that the candidates they are asking get out of the race are the candidates of color?”
Rusty Hicks, asked about the effect on minority candidates who have spent years or decades of their lives in public service, did not directly answer the question but lauded the field’s accomplishments.
“We have a number of strong candidates. They have incredible stories, and they are reflective of the diversity of our party. That being said, there are some political realities of where we are at at this particular moment,” he said in an interview. “I’m not calling on any specific candidates to move in one direction or the other. I’m just calling on them to assess their campaign and determine if they have a viable [path] and if they don’t, to not file.”
During Monday evening’s gubernatorial forum, Porter said she is concerned about the prospect of two Republicans making the top two.
“I hear people say to me, it could never happen, but everybody said that about Trump too,” she said at the forum. “And I look at how much harm we’re suffering, and I think about all the political risks that people are facing every day, the risk of an immigrant to leave their home and walk on our streets, the risk of a kid who’s trans to try to play sports even in this state. And I just don’t think we can take any more political risks.”
Times staff writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.
Since moving back in, President Trump has significantly altered the “People’s House.” East Wing: gone. Oval Office: maximalized. Rose Garden: Mar-a-lago-ified. And the art? Lots of Trump.
Over the last year, The New York Times has captured at least nine paintings, posters, memes, and even a mugshot outside the Oval Office, that Mr. Trump added throughout the historic space.
Many of the selections are gifts from his supporters that highlight his political stature and reinforce the idea that Mr. Trump is invincible.
All presidents or first ladies add to and shuffle the art in the White House.
Barack Obama brought in abstract paintings.
George W. Bush decorated with images from his Texas roots.
In Mr. Trump’s first term, Melania Trump added a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi to the Rose Garden.
But never before has a sitting president displayed so much of his own image on the White House walls.
There is an “assertion of symbolic power that he wants to be on view essentially everywhere in that space,” said Cara Finnegan, a communication professor at the University of Illinois and author of “Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital.”
Even outside his current residence, Mr. Trump’s visage has proliferated in unexpected places — on banners hanging from government buildings, on National Parks passes and on social media, where he has been likened to a king. There has also been talk of a U.S. Treasury-minted coin with Mr. Trump on both sides.
Break with tradition
In recent decades, each president’s official White House portrait has been unveiled in a ceremony hosted by his successor.
The Carters hosted the Fords:
The Clintons hosted the Bushes:
And the Bushes hosted the Clintons:
The mood has often been lighthearted, with political party tensions melting away.
“I am pleased that my portrait brings an interesting symmetry to the White House collection,” George W. Bush joked in a ceremony hosted by the Obamas. “It now starts and ends with a George W.”
In a break with tradition, Mr. Trump did not schedule a ceremony for the unveiling of the Obamas’ portraits during his first term. Joe Biden later did, in a ceremony with a “Welcome Home!” vibe.
Typically, the latest available presidential portrait — often a realistic oil painting — hangs in the main entrance hall, where heads of state are welcomed.
The Obama portrait was in the spot until April …
… when Mr. Trump replaced it with this painting by Marc Lipp, a Florida pop artist, last April.
It depicts a striking moment in 2024 when a bloodied Mr. Trump pumped his fist in defiance, soon after being shot at by a would-be assassin during a campaign event.
Presidential historians have criticized the departure from convention.
Though Mr. Trump had a portrait commissioned for the Smithsonian’s American Presidents collection after his first term, none was confirmed for the permanent White House collection, and the White House said that this is where that portrait would have hung.
It is not totally unprecedented for a president to hang a painting of himself in the White House during his term. Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland all did, according to the White House Historical Association. But more often than not, paintings of presidents and first ladies are hung after they have left office, historians said.
Flags, fists and faith from fans
In what has become something of a muse for many of the president’s artistic supporters, there are at least three other depictions of the fist-pumping scene in the White House.
The image “is in people’s garages when I walk around my neighborhood,” said Leslie Hahner, a Texas resident and communication professor at Baylor University, who studies visual political culture. “People love that image.”
Behind the Oval Office, one is in a small room that houses Trump merchandise:
Another was seen in the West Wing next to a “Still Life with Fruit” painting from 1850:
A statue form was spotted in the Oval Office:
The sculptor, Stan Watts, told a Utah TV station last year that he believes the president was saved by God that day. Many of Mr. Trump’s Christian supporters have echoed that sentiment.
At least two works by a self-described “Christian worship artist,” Vanessa Horabuena, are among Mr. Trump’s White House collection. He has called Ms. Horabuena, who often paints live in front of an audience, “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world.”
In 2022, she painted a portrait of Mr. Trump at a booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference. When he saw it, he asked to meet her, Ms. Horabuena’s representative said. She most recently painted Mr. Trump live at a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-A-Lago.
One of her portraits was spotted in the Cabinet room in January.
It shows Mr. Trump, his eyes closed, in front of a mountain with a small cross on the top:
Ms. Horabuena hand-delivered it to the White House, according to her website.
Her other painting shows the president walking through a phalanx of flags. It was seen hanging prominently in a hallway leading to the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office:
“He’s positioned as this embattled warrior in a lot of these images,” Dr. Hahner said.
Historical figures Mr. Trump adulates are co-stars in some of the art he has chosen.
In an image created by the team of White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump is pictured with William McKinley and Henry Clay, who, like the president, championed the use of tariffs:
Here, Mr. Trump is with two other Republican presidents, Abraham Lincoln (to whom he has compared himself) and Ronald Reagan (whom he is a fan of):
Titled “Great American Patriots,” the piece was painted by Dick Bobnick, an illustrator and Trump supporter from Minnesota. He said he mailed several prints to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but he had no idea his work was on the White House walls until a USA Today reporter called him about it.
“I could hardly believe it,” said Mr. Bobnick. (He said the print is now his best-seller.)
If not in portraits, Mr. Trump’s image is reflected on mirrors that he has added to the White House complex.
Two are in the Oval Office …
… making his image visible from the Resolute Desk.
The mirrors, the portraits and the gilding mimic the look of his properties, like Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.
“Trump is obsessed with his image,” Dr. Hahner said. “And he is so controlling of his image.”
Trump everywhere, all the time
One portrait seen in the White House has become a communication tool between Mr. Trump and his supporters in the real world.
This is his social media profile picture.
It was seen last October hanging between former first ladies Laura Bush and Barbara Bush in the now-demolished East Wing:
The portrait was painted by Lena Ruseva, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, who goes by the name MAGALANGELO. Mr. Trump invited her to his Bedminster golf club in 2022, and she gave it to him as a birthday gift.
“Every time social media or the news quotes the president and I see my artwork alongside it, I feel proud and grateful,” she said.
For a time, the same portrait hung next to Hillary Clinton, his political rival and a former first lady.
Supporters at that time lauded the placement on social media:
This example of a positive feedback loop demonstrates how Mr. Trump has used social media to redefine the presidency and presidential communication. Ms. Ruseva’s portrait was used on social media, hung up in the real world, then photographed and put back on social media by supporters who praised the president.
When Mr. Trump was elected to his first term in 2016, Dr. Hahner said that scholars referred to him as the first “meme president.”
Mr. Trump and his internet fans are used to a meme culture based on irony, and rehashing, repurposing and remixing existing images. The collection of White House artwork — much of it originating from his supporters — sits in an uncanny valley between realism and meme-ism, Dr. Hahner said.
Like memes that multiply, Mr. Trump’s image has been reproduced in other ways, outside the White House.
Last month, a huge banner with Mr. Trump’s face was draped outside the Justice Department headquarters …
Last year, similar signage was strung over the Labor Department building …
… and the Agriculture Department building (this one, alongside Lincoln).
At his request, Mr. Trump’s portrait was recently updated at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery:
Still, Mr. Trump wants more. The White House has suggested that the National Portrait Gallery add a separate section for Trump-related art.
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