Ta-Nehisi Coates describes what he saw in Palestine as ‘apartheid’, resembling America’s segregated Jim Crow South

Ta-Nehisi Coates (right) Dennis Altman, La Trobe University In May 2023, renowned Black American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates spent ten days in the West Bank and Israel, where he spent half his time with Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who now oppose the occupation. Going to Palestine was “a huge shock to me”, he told the New York Times. Coming back, he felt, as he told US journalist Peter Beinart, “a responsibility to yell” about what he’d seen – which he describes as apartheid and compares to the segregated Jim Crow South in the United States. As he was writing his new book, The Message, the October 7 Hamas attacks happened, followed by the ongoing war in Gaza. He doesn’t cover these events in the book, though he has talked about them in interviews, including one in which he described the decision not to allow a Palestinian state legislator to speak at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Kamala Harris as “deeply inhumane”. Review: The Message – Ta-Nehisi Coates (Hamish Hamilton) Coates is among the most celebrated and accomplished writers in the US. He is also, importantly, a Black writer in a world still dominated by White...