One question that no one is asking: what is different today than in, say, 2000 - or even 1975?
The name of the HRW report is "A Threshold Crossed," meaning that Israel has reached the point of apartheid, implying that up until now it hadn't.
What threshold are they talking about?
The "occupation" isn't new. The Oslo Accords that say where Israel has security control isn't new. Settlements aren't new. The actual physical area taken up by Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria is nearly identical to what it was 25 years ago. The number of physical settlements is pretty much the same as they were in 1993 at the onset of Oslo. (Actually less, because there are no Gaza settlements.)
As recently as 2017, the Arab dominated UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia issued a report that accused Israel of apartheid - and the UN distanced themselves from it and removed it from the ESCWA webpage, as well as forced the resignation of the ESCWA head who spearheaded the report.
If anything, from a legal perspective, things are far better for Palestinians now then they were before Oslo - after all, they now have large areas that they govern themselves where Israeli security do not enter. They have a government (or two) that some 95% of Palestinians live under.
Some will say that what's new is the Israeli policy of separation from Palestinian areas, which they claim is analogous to apartheid. Yet Israel's policy was a direct result of the terrorism from the second intifada - the spree of attacks targeting Jews and Jews only. It is perverted to say that Israel's successful attempts to save Jewish lives is apartheid.
So what has changed? Why didn't the "legal experts" at B'Tselem and HRW say Israel was guilty of the crime of apartheid before 2021?
Because Israel never was guilty of the crime of apartheid.
These NGOs know nothing has changed, and the apartheid slander is just as much a lie now as it was in decades past. They instead choose to change the definition of "apartheid," or cherry pick arguments that seem to support that definition and ignore all counter-arguments.
They twist international law to absurd lengths, making up definitions that - if applied to other nations - would indicate that every nation on Earth is guilty of persecution and apartheid and racism.
They won't write those reports, of course.
Their goal isn't the truth, and it never was. Their goal is to demonize Israel and only Israel by making up international laws that only apply to the Jewish state and no one else.
This is what modern antisemitism looks like.
