Israel's policy in West Bank resembles apartheid

Sections of the Israeli-occupied West Bank resemble the system of apartheid seen in South Africa and bring shame on the Benjamin Netanyahu government, former British minister Sir Alan Duncan has admitted.

His attack, one of the fiercest launched by a senior British politician on the Israeli government, comes after MPs in Westminster overwhelmingly voted on Monday night to pass a non-binding motion recognising Palestine as a state.

Sir Alan, who served as the coalition's international development minister until July, condemn Israel as reprehensible for pursuing the "relentless illegal expansion" of its borders through its "illegal colonies".

In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute on Tuesday, Sir Alan said: "Occupation, annexation, illegality, negligence, complicity: this is a wicked cocktail which brings shame to the government of Israel. It would appear that on the West Bank of the Jordan the rule of international law has been shelved."

Sir Alan argued: “This illegal construction and habitation is theft, it is annexation, it is a land grab – it is any expression that accurately describes the encroachment which takes from someone else something that is not rightfully owned by the taker. As such it should be called what it is, and not by some euphemistic soft alternative.

“Settlements are illegal colonies built in someone else’s country. They are an act of theft, and what is more something which is both initiated and supported by the state of Israel.”

Sir Alan pointed out that "Palestinian citizens are reduced to having nothing while illegal Israeli colonisers get everything. Water, electricity, access, protection: illegal settlers get the lot, the Palestinians next to nothing".

“Settlement activity is not carried out by some minority group outside the orbit of the Israeli state. Settlement activity is systematically initiated, implemented and supported by the Israeli government, who authorise, implement and protect the relentless illegal expansion of the borders of Israel. This is reprehensible.

The former minister said that anyone who backs Israel's settlements should be seen as an extremist, warning: “Settlement endorsement, meaning the denial that they are illegal and the support for their consequences, is a form of extremism which we should not tolerate. Be it tacit, or be it explicit, such an attitude is simply not acceptable.”