Barry Sheppard (US writer and activist) (2020): “Trump has put in place the finishing touches on what Western imperialism has constructed over the past century (and for the past half century mainly the US) to back Zionism’s project. The reality that is present-day Israel consists of the borders the Israeli armed forces control and defend and the entire land between those borders. Within those borders, there is a single army, air force and navy. There is one foreign policy: that of the Israeli government. There is one currency: the Israeli shekel. There is one official language: Hebrew. In every aspect, there is one state in this territory, and its name is Israel. Within this single state, there are about 4.7 million stateless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They have no say in the policies of their rulers. That makes Israel an apartheid state. There are Palestinians within the green line, who are citizens of Israel, but second-class citizens. Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law adopted by the Israeli parliament (Knesset) in 2018, made it crystal clear that no Palestinian state would ever be allowed. It refers to the state as “Eratz Yisrael”, and says it is the state of all the Jews, and refers to Jews living outside as exiles who are urged to be “gathered” into Israel. What its final borders will be is somewhat vague, but the present land Israel rules will be included within them. Biblical Israel includes Sinai (the desert region in Egypt between the Red and the Mediterranean Seas), so more land may be included” (Barry Sheppard, “Trump plan ratifies Israel as an apartheid state”, Green Left Weekly, 5 February 2020: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/trump-plan-ratifies-israel-apartheid-state ).