2021 is proving to be the year for Palestine. Rep. Betty McCollum just introduced historic legislation that would prohibit US funding of Israeli human rights abuses. Last month, Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Mark Pocan called on the Biden Administration to oppose all forms of Israeli annexation and colonization, including the impending home demolitions in Jerusalem.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and his colleagues also sent a letter to the Secretary of State asking him to urge the Israeli government to ensure that Palestinians in the occupied territories received the COVID-19 vaccine. Earlier in January, CNN shared the B’TSelem report that identified the system in Israel as a system of apartheid.
And today, Human Rights Watch released a 213-page groundbreaking report that found Israel to be committing “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” against Palestinians. The leading human organization encouraged policymakers to shift focus away from a ‘political solution’ to a rights-based approach.
The Israeli foreign ministry has responded to the report, labeling it as “propaganda” and “preposterous and false.”
What is “apartheid”?
The legal definition and elements for apartheid has been well-established in international law, independent of any investigations or reference to Israel. The word apartheid is a translation of the word “apartness” in Afrikaans. Apartheid is instituted by organizing society and the ruling regime in a way that ensures “apartness” in all aspects of life, and the dominance of the ruling race.
The United Nations General Assembly first recognized the foundation to apartheid in 1950, stating that “a policy of racial segregation (apartheid) is necessarily based on doctrines of racial discrimination.” Article 1 of the International Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) defines the term “racial discrimination” to go beyond discrimination on “race” alone. It cites that “any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, or any other field of public life.” This is accurate in the description of Israel’s political, social, economic system as outlined in the stories shared by Palestinians who are subjugated on a daily basis due to their ethnic, national, and religious background.
The Rome Statute of 2002 also lists apartheid as one of the eleven crimes against humanity, and defines it as, “Acts of a character… committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
There are three main elements to the crime of apartheid; 1) the intent to maintain domination by one racial group over another, 2) a context of systematic oppression by one racial group over another, and 3) inhumane acts committed by the dominating race. The HRW report, as well as numerous others including The Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid legal opinion by Yesh Din and the Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? report by the Human Sciences Research Council prove that Israel’s acts meet the elements outlined by international law.
What does “ApartheidIsrael” look like?
For decades, millions of Palestinians have suffered, and continue to suffer, under military occupation, colonization, and apartheid. The HRW report echoes and joins the voices of millions of Palestinians who have labeled the system in Israel as a system of apartheid.
Esteemed Palestinian human rights attorney, professor, and author Noura Erakat coined the term “ApartheidIsrael”, “one word reflective of its singular system of domination over all Palestinian lives without regard to false partitions and various judicial regimes.”
ApartheidIsrael is characterized by the discriminatory targeting of Palestinian freedom – freedom of movement, the freedom to build and maintain a healthy family, the freedom to learn and educate, the freedom in cultural preservation, the freedom in employment and economic independence. The physical apartheid is most starkly represented in segregated infrastructure, premised by the Jewish state bill, passed in 2018, which exclusively reserves the right to self-determination to Jews. It allows for the establishment of segregated towns for Jews only, and also grants legal precedent to Jewish-only schools, Jewish-only roads, Jewish-only neighborhoods and settlements in ApartheidIsrael. Even the commodity of water is restricted and prioritized to Jewish nationals – Israeli settlements in the West Bank (who comprise 15% of population in the West Bank) are given access to over 80% of its freshwater resources.
The Israeli Citizenship Law of 2003 is renewed annually, and grants the ‘Jewish State’ the ‘import’ the right kinds of citizens and exile the wrong kinds. While Jewish people, globally, are given birthright citizenship, Palestinians continue to be exiled and uprooted from century-old family homes. The impending home demolitions in Jerusalem exemplify this most graphically.
Palestinians are also subject to a ‘dual legal system.’ Palestinians as early as 16 years old, compared to Jewish counterparts at 18, are tried in military courts. The trial consists of a judge and prosecuting attorney who are all Israeli army officials. Palestinians face a more than 99 percent conviction rate in Israel’s military courts.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination independently reported that Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the occupied territories are subject to different criminal laws, leading to longer detention and harsher punishments for Palestinians than for Israelis for the same offenses.
ApartheidIsrael is exposed for all to see. Credible human rights organizations have investigated and reported on the crimes against humanity that Israel has committed to devastate Palestine and Palestinians for decades. The United States’ role in legitimizing, funding, and perpetuating these crimes must be cut. To the United States, to Americans, to the world: call it what it is – ApartheidIsrael.
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I write to remember the brutality of Jewish violence I saw in Jerusalem – +972 Magazine
972 Magazine, April 24/21, by Orly Noy, with photos..
“I write to remember the brutality of Jewish violence I saw in Jerusalem”
“There was the Palestinian father who tried to save his daughter from the police, the young Kahanists chanting ‘death to Arabs’ in the streets, the fear I felt when asked if I am a leftist. I write to remember it all.”
EXCERPT:
“Since the beginning of Ramadan this month, Jerusalem Police have banned Palestinians from sitting on the wide steps at the entrance to Damascus Gate, the main plaza in the Old City, and holding evening gatherings in honor of the holy month. This arbitrary decision, for which no plausible explanation was given, have ignited widespread Palestinian protest. The police, as if just waiting for the perfect opportunity, has turned the place into a nightly battlefield.
“Against the backdrop of this violence, activists from Jewish supremacist group Lehava called on their supporters to arrive in droves on Thursday ‘to restore Jewish dignity,’ after several TikTok videos surfaced showing Palestinians harassing ultra-Orthodox Jews in the city. Backed by their representatives now sitting in the Knesset, hundreds of supporters of the Kahanist organization responded to the call, arriving in the area with the stated goal of attacking Arabs (or alternatively, leftists).
“They marched toward the Damascus Gate while chanting ‘death to Arabs,’ turning Thursday into most violent night Jerusalem has known in years. We, the left-wing activists of Jerusalem, also showed up to try and counter-balancer the fascists as they marched through the city streets.
“I am writing now not because I have any faith that describing the war zone I witnessed on the streets of Jerusalem this week, or going into detail about the Jewish youth who chanted ‘death to Arabs’ in the heart of the city, will change anything. I know it will not.
“I write because of the need to break down this madness into its most basic elements — so that perhaps I can understand it better. I write to give my testimony, because there is nothing else I can do. I write to remember.”.(cont’d)
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“To remember that among the clouds of tear gas and the deafening sound of stun grenades shot at Palestinians, I saw a father holding the hand of his daughter, trying to flee together.
“To remember the terrified eyes of the teenager who was dragged by police officers after they charged into a group of young Palestinians.
“To remember the empty steps across from Damascus Gate, from which Palestinians have been banned since the beginning of Ramadan.
“To remember that when the stench of the ‘Skunk’ — a vehicle that shoots foul-smelling liquid at high speeds during Palestinian protests — nearly caused me to vomit and the feces of the police horses was left on the ground, I wondered whether the municipality would clean up the filth the following day, and how unbearable it must be to break the fast on Ramadan nights after being soaked by the Skunk’s putrid sewage. These are supposed to be the most festive nights of the year.
“To remember the sound of the grenades reverberating long after I had left the area.
“To remember how I was not afraid when I saw a bloodthirsty pack of Kahanists approaching. Instead, I was shocked by how many and how young they all were.
“To remember how I was afraid later that night when a few young Jewish boys asked us, ‘Are you leftists?’
“To remember the ultra-Orthodox Jews who stood on the other side of the Jerusalem Light Rail, near the Jewish side of the Musrara neighborhood, and looked at the explosions from the stun grenades being fired in Damascus Gate with excitement in their eyes.
“To remember the young man with the yarmulke arguing with a Palestinian on the other side of a police barricade before telling him: ‘We will slaughter you all, you know we will kill you one by one.'”
I can understand the zionists freaking out when such reports (hitherto quashed( make the headlines and threathen the existence of their dream of a home for Jews only.Having to share that home with anyone else is too much to ask.
They are freaked out because all the blood sweat and money they poured into this ( vile project ) will have been wasted and the opportunity will never arise again , nor should it.
No more Jewish home , but then why should a group of people have a nation that is based on a religion and especially when that group forced another people from their homes at gun point.
Zionists never miss an opporrtunity to miss an opportunity.
You don’t like “apartheid”? How about “Jewish Supremacy.” And racist of the common or garden variety as well – viz. the story of the Black converts who are being thrown out.