Within the already heavily polarised debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, parallels between Israel and apartheid South Africa remain highly contentious. A number of prominent academic and political commentators, including former US president Jimmy Carter and UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard, have argued that Israel's treatment of its Arab-Israeli citizens and the people of the occupied territories amounts to a system of oppression no less brutal or inhumane than that of South Africa's white supremacists. Similarly, boycott and disinvestment campaigns comparable to those employed by anti-apartheid activists have attracted growing support. Yet while the 'apartheid question' has become increasingly visible in this debate, there has been little in the way of genuine scholarly analysis of the similarities (or otherwise) between the Zionist and apartheid regimes.

In Israel and South Africa, Ilan Pappé, one of Israel's preeminent academics and a noted critic of the current government, brings together lawyers, journalists, policy makers and historians of both countries to assess the implications of the apartheid analogy for international law, activism and policy making. With contributors including the distinguished anti-apartheid activist Ronnie Kasrils, Israel and South Africa offers a bold and incisive perspective on one of the defining moral questions of our age.

Ilan Pappé is professor of history at the University of ExeterA veteran of the Yom Kippur War and two time Knesset candidate, Pappé left Israel in 2007 after his endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel led to calls for him to resign from his post at the University of Haifa. He remains one of Israel's most prominent and outspoken anti-Zionist academics. His previous books include The Modern Middle East (2005), Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War against the Palestinians (with Noam Chomsky, 2010) and The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (2011).