On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked statements by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in which he warned of the possibility that Israel would turn into an apartheid state.
Netanyahu said he was directing the strongest expressions of protest to the French government over these unfounded remarks.
"In Israel, all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of their origin," Netanyahu added.
Netanyahu added that Israel is the only beacon of democracy in the Middle East, and will not tolerate any sermons from anyone, as he described it.
And last Sunday, Le Drian spoke of bloody clashes that occurred, during the past two weeks, in mixed cities within the Green Line between their Palestinian and Jewish residents, against the backdrop of Israel's aggression against the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
"This is the first time that this happens, which shows that if a solution other than the two-state solution is adopted, components of apartheid will be available that will last for a long time," he said in a televised interview.
Since April 13, the situation in all the Palestinian territories has exploded as a result of brutal attacks committed by the police and Israeli settlers in the occupied city of Jerusalem, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings, and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (center), where Israel wants to evacuate 12 of its owners.
The Israeli aggression extended to the Gaza Strip, and included aerial, land and sea shelling that resulted in 254 martyrs, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly, in addition to 1948 wounded, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
And at dawn last Friday, a ceasefire began between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza, mediated by Egypt, after an 11-day Israeli military aggression on the Strip, which has been inhabited by more than two million Palestinians and has been besieged by Tel Aviv since the summer of 2006.