The ECB has also called on the ICC to act, as chief executive Richard Gould wrote to the global governing body to take action after what he called "gender apartheid".

In a 2007 interview with the nonprofit group Democracy Now!, he called the word apartheid — which means “apartness” in Afrikaans — “exactly accurate.”

In its campaign, the group accused Israel of committing apartheid against Palestinians and called for its athletes to be banned under the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement - originally signed to exclude South Africa.

Carter later told an audience in Cairo that apartheid “is the exact description of what’s happening in Palestine now.”

"He was not afraid to warn everyone that Israel was taking a wrong turn on the road to apartheid," Bird wrote.