Born into apartheid: Inside Israel's permanent ID caste system for Palestinians

ISLAMABAD: At the Qalandia checkpoint crossing between Ramallah and Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers barely glance at blue passports. Green ID cards mean hours of waiting. The difference is ethnicity, encoded in color.

Sixty-five Israeli laws divide 14 million Palestinians into five legal categories based solely on birthplace, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The resulting system determines whom Palestinians can marry, where they can live, and whether they can return home. This aligns with the international legal definition of apartheid, which both human rights organizations concluded in landmark 2021 and 2022 reports.

Israel rejects the characterization, citing ‘security’ concerns.

Five tiers, five realities

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Even at the top—1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel—discrimination persists. More than 50 laws explicitly distinguish between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, according to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights. The 2018 Nation-State Basic Law enshrines it: "The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people."

East Jerusalem's 370,000 Palestinians hold "permanent residency"—revoked for more than 14,500 Palestinians between 1967 and 2016, according to Israeli Interior Ministry records documented by Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem.

Under Israel's Entry into Israel Law (1952) and Entry into Israel Regulations (1974), residency automatically expires if Palestinians remain abroad for seven years or fail to prove Jerusalem remains their "Center of Life"—a test established in the 1988 Israeli Supreme Court ruling Mubarak Awad v. Minister of Interior. Many learned they were stateless only at checkpoints.

West Bank Palestinians (3.43 million per Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics) live under Israeli military law. The 737,332 Israeli settlers occupying the same territory live under Israeli civil law, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights data.

Same hilltop, opposite realities: one population votes in Israeli elections and crosses borders freely, the other requires military permits to travel between Palestinian cities.

Gaza's 2.3 million residents have endured near-total restrictions for 18 years of blockade. Six million Palestinian refugees worldwide are barred from returning to ancestral homes. Meanwhile, Israel's Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to any Jewish person, anywhere, regardless of ancestral ties to the land.

A system built to last

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The legal architecture preventing Palestinians from escaping their assigned category begins with the 1950 Absentees' Property Law, which transferred land from Palestinians displaced in 1948 to the Israeli state. The 2022 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law bars family reunification: West Bank or Gaza Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens cannot obtain residency or citizenship.

During 2022 Knesset debates on making the law permanent, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked explicitly stated its purpose: "There's no other way but to ensure a decisive Jewish majority."

Status is hereditary and irreversible. Children receive their parents' ID classification at birth under Israeli Population Registry regulations. A Jerusalem resident's child inherits blue-card residency, which is revocable if the child lives abroad. A West Bank resident's child inherits the green card restrictions, which mean permanent military rule. A refugee's child in Lebanon inherits exile, barred from return under Israeli law, while Jewish immigrants from anywhere receive automatic citizenship.

There is no naturalization process. No path to citizenship through marriage. No mechanism for Palestinians to change categories.

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The apartheid determination
Human Rights Watch in 2021 and Amnesty International in 2022 both concluded Israeli policies satisfy the Rome Statute's definition of apartheid: "inhumane acts...committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group."

B'Tselem, Israel's most prominent human rights organization, adopted identical language in 2021: "A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid."

At Qalandia, the afternoon shift brings longer lines. Blue passport holders passed through hours ago. Green ID holders wait, documents in hand, while soldiers decide who crosses today.

The only people who can change their ID color are those who never needed one in the first place.