French European and Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaks during a press conference in Paris, France March 11, 2021. Ludovic Marin/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned on Sunday of the risk of “long-lasting apartheid” in Israel in the event the Palestinians fail to obtain their own state.

The official’s rhetoric echoes recent reports by the Israeli B’Tselem rights group, as well as by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization, both of which accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to a multi-tiered regime of discrimination, not unlike the racist system of governance that held sway in South Africa between 1948 and 1991.

Israel has staunchly rejected the accusation of racist discrimination, saying that leveling the accusation of “apartheid” at the world’s only Jewish nation-state, where Arab citizens enjoy equal rights to Jews, distorted the truth and promoted antisemitic hatred.

The politician made the remarks in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper in reference to the clashes between Jews and Arabs that erupted in several Israeli cities during the latest flareup, which saw the Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fire more than 4,000 missiles at the Jewish state.

“It’s the first time and it clearly shows that if in the future we had a solution other than the two-state solution, we would have the ingredients of long-lasting apartheid,” Le Drian said, using the Afrikaner word for the white supremacist oppression of Zulus.