Ex-Mossad chief says 'apartheid' forced on Palestinian population

A former head of the Mossad intelligence agency has said Israel is imposing a form of apartheid on the Palestinians, joining a growing number of prominent Israelis to compare the occupation of the West Bank to South Africa's defunct system of racial oppression.

- Chris McGreal

But Tamir Pardo's views will have added impact because of the high regard for Mossad in Israel and because they come at a time when farright members of Israel's government are moving to kill off any prospect of an independent Palestinian state.

Pardo told the Associated Press that Israel's mechanisms for controlling the Palestinians, from restrictions on movement to placing them under military law while Jewish settlers in the occupied territories are governed by civilian courts, matched the old South Africa.

"There is an apartheid state here," he said. "In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state."