Cover the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) report calling Israel an "apartheid regime."
But there is another explosion in the report.
Israel and its patrons have desperately sought to shelve a discussion about Zionism as a racist ideology. The Apartheid report brings it back to the front.
The report renders invalid all those apologetic 'warnings' of Apartheid that have been part of mainstream Israeli and American leadership rhetoric for years now (for instance, John Kerry, 2014). The report's implication is that Apartheid is not something that is soon to arrive or has just arrived; it is something that has been there all along, from the very birth of the state — in the "State's essentially racist character."
The report is bound to open up a debate about the foundation of the State of Israel, as well as the ideology that has informed it all along - Zionism. The discussion is bound to roll back to another shelved document - the UN Resolution 3379 (1975), which equates Zionism with racism.
The report states that Apartheid exists not only in the West Bank right now, but implies that it exists elsewhere, and has from the start. In fact, the Israeli Left's notions of 'separation from the Palestinians' - whether titled 'Peace plan' (as in Isaac Herzog's 10-point and 10-year plan) or conveyed by slightly more overtly racist scare campaigns for 'separation' by 'liberal' Generals - arguably falls squarely into the exact language of Apartheid. For Apartheid is Afrikaans for 'separateness', as racial segregation and institutionalized racial discrimination.
Comment: This situation can quickly escalate if Israel continues with this belligerence.