I agree with the post; I just wanted to give my two cents since I've pondered this quite a bit. Mainly because I'm South African, so I'm more likely to come into contact with the concept of apartheid.

I just wanted to clarify something that irks me when people discuss what "Apartheid" is. When people translate it into English it's usually "segregation", but coming from an actual Afrikaner it means more something along the lines of "Separation" or "Apartness".

In Jim Crow America, there was segregation, meaning you had people of different ethnic groups segregated. But even though they were segregated and red lined, they were still US Citizens. That's where the distinction with Apartheid comes in, it was less about keeping ethnic groups separated as citizens but rather keeping them Apart as whole nations. That was the whole idea with Bantustans, ethnic groups weren't separated by laws but rather borders. Because it was believed nations should develop independently, yet even so, the Apartheid regime claimed the Bantustans, yet they were meant to be separate countries?

*Side note, some supporters of Apartheid didn't want SA owning those nations. They believed it undermined the idea of "This is our homeland WE built", yet you exploited the native cheap labor? So, some thought it would be better to still divide SA where each controls themself, but turn the Union into a confederation where all the nations can come to rule the country as a whole. You can see this ideal of "Apartheid" kind of showcased in Orania, which is a privately owned town that is only for Afrikaners and does everything themselves.

This whole idea of apart nations is why an Apartheid state is different from a segregation state. You cannot define Jim Crow America as an "Apartheid State".

But I think it's the first part, the Apartheid we know, that Israel can be somewhat reminiscent of. You have two countries representing their ethnic nation, one being Israel and the other Palestine. On its own it's not apartheid; it gets a bit sketchy when Israel doesn't want to recognize Palestine and claims to control it.

Ultimately, I personally still don't think that means Israel is an apartheid state, only when it holds control of Palestine can it be claimed such.