Israel's New Defense Chief Has Decided: It's Officially Apartheid

The decision by new Defense Minister Israel Katz to halt the use of detention without trial against Jewish settlers living in the West Bank is apartheid by all accounts: One law for Jews and another for Palestinians.

Administrative detention is a draconian tool that has no place in a democratic country. It harms a basic right by violating the detainee's access to an essential part of due process, based on secret evidence and sometimes even without the detainee's knowledge of what he or she is accused of.

In democratic countries, people should be detained and tried only on the basis of sufficient evidence, while administrative detention should be reserved for defined emergency situations.