Israel’s expanding security regime across the West Bank is reshaping Palestinian life. In part three of a four-part series, Jeremy Webb considers whether these measures amount to institutionalised apartheid.

That Israel is openly flooding the West Bank with acts that can be judged as inhumane indicates the impunity with which they are being carried out. Witness the recent destruction of a UNHCR training facility and the televised settler attacks on Palestinians and their houses near Qusra. Such impunity is all the more brazen given members of the Israeli parliament are openly supporting the annexation of the West Bank and thus lend support to actions which are designed to separate and subjugate West Bank Palestinians. But when publicly pressed on whether these acts are not part of a regime of apartheid or genocide, the issue of security is used as a form of universal justification.

How security is in fact applied tells a different story. The threat of criticism looms large. That’s immediately clear even before entering Israel. While it’s surprisingly easy to get an Israeli tourist visa online (24 hours), there is a major catch in the small print: it does not guarantee entry and can be refused on arrival for any of a catch-all of security reasons with no financial recompense. As a public critic of Israel, that risk created a strong disincentive to visit.

While my entry at Ben Gurion airport involved only a perfunctory visa check, a sense of unease is transmitted by the barely civil, brusque manner in........

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