Press Releases

(31 March 2026, Bethlehem)

On 30 March 2026, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights held a webinar titled “Enclaves and Bantustans: Lessons from South Africa and Palestine,” to mark the launch of its new working paper, The Israeli Apartheid Spatial Regime: Fragmentation and Enclavement of Palestine and Palestinian Land Day. Organized in partnership with the South African BDS Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign South Africa, and Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement, the webinar brought together researchers, activists, and grassroots movements for a critical discussion grounded in resistance, accountability, and action.

The webinar unpacked and critically examined spatial apartheid, tracing its legacies in South Africa and its ongoing imposition in Palestine by the Israeli regime. BADIL presented an overview of its new working paper, highlighting how Israeli fragmentation and enclavement are systematically produced and maintained, shaping Palestinian political, social, and economic life with the aim of undermining the right to self-determination. Professor Noor Nieftagodien of the University of the Witwatersrand highlighted the intersection of dispossession, land, and labor, from a historic and contemporary perspective in the South African case. He further stressed that the historic production of apartheid spatial regimes was not linear, that dispossession and the decimation of indigenous populations were used to entrench control. In the post-World War II era, multilateral frameworks are often part of the problem rather than the solution.

A member of the Palestinian Youth Forum (PYF) articulated the role of youth organizing and resistance in Palestine, underscoring the role of grassroots movements in confronting ongoing fragmentation and oppression. Drawing connections to South Africa, Thapelo Mohapi, the current elected General Secretary of the Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) Movement of South Africa, addressed “post-apartheid” realities, including continued land dispossession and structural discrimination, underscoring the persistence of colonial patterns beyond formal political transitions. A movement with 150,000 members, AbM fights for land, housing, and the dignity of the poor in South Africa.

Participants from across Palestine, South Africa, and a wide range of countries, including Italy, Norway, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Brazil, Spain, Germany, Kenya, Poland, Chile, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Lebanon, attended the webinar. The discussion explored what meaningful solidarity requires when these connections are understood as structural rather than symbolic, underscoring the need for coordinated mobilization across legal, political, and grassroots spheres to dismantle apartheid regimes. Speakers emphasized that sustained collective action is essential to pressure governments to impose sanctions, end complicity, and advance accountability, all as a pathway toward decolonization.