Chris McGreal has been Jerusalem correspondent for the Guardian since 2002. He joined the Guardian in 1992 and covered Africa for 10 years. He was based in Mexico and Central America for the BBC and later the Independent from 1985. Prior to that he worked as a producer for the BBC World Service and as a reporter for BBC local radio.

In a controversial Guardian special report published in 2006, McGreal, who has covered both apartheid South Africa and Israel in his career, compared the two and alleged numerous similarities. Among other claims, McGreal alleged that Israel’s Population Registration Act is similar to an apartheid era South African Act of the same name. The latter categorized South Africans according to racial definitions in order to determine who could live in what land. McGreal alleges that the Israeli act “serves a similar purpose by distinguishing between nationality and citizenship. Arabs and Jews alike can be citizens, but each is assigned a separate ‘nationality’ marked on identity cards (either spelled out or, more recently, in a numeric code), in effect determining where they are permitted to live, access to some government welfare programmes, and how they are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen.”

To support his contention that Israel practices apartheid, McGreal cites the the United States Department of State’s annual human rights report for 1999 which discusses “institutionalised legal and societal discrimination against Israel’s Christian, Muslim and Druze citizens.” The report says, in the paragraph headed “National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities”, that the Israeli government “does not provide Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20% of the population, with the same quality of education, housing, employment and social services as Jews.”

Extensive responses to McGreal’s allegations were offered by several pro-Israel organizations, including the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre; Engage and Honest Reporting. The Guardian’s letters editor reported that “more than 100 letters on the subject had been directed at the page, with roughly three endorsing the decision to deal with the subject, to every two against, most of the latter rejecting any apartheid analogy.”

Recent Articles by Chris McGreal

• Chris McGreal - July 30th, 2006
• The rabbi who pricks Israel's conscience - March 25th, 2005

Categories: Human Rights Commentators
Tags: Bo, code, human rights, order, palestinians, settlers