Editor’s Note: Over 600 scholars, artists and intellectuals from more than 45 countries have signed the following declaration calling for the dismantling of the apartheid regime set up on the territory of historic Palestine and the establishment of a democratic constitutional arrangement that grants all its inhabitants equal rights and duties. The signatories include many distinguished figures, including the Nobel Peace Prize laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Mairead Maguire, academics with legal expertise Monique Chemillier-Gendreau and Richard Falk, scholars Étienne Balibar, Hagit Borer, Ivar Ekeland, Suad Joseph, Jacques Rancière, Roshdi Rashed and Gayatri Spivak, health researcher Sir Iain Chalmers, composer Brian Eno, musician Roger Waters, author Ahdaf Soueif, economist and former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN Sir Richard Jolly, South African politician and veteran anti-apartheid leader Ronnie Kasrils and Canadian peace activist and former national leader of the Green Party of Canada Joan Russow.
Declaration on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid in Historic Palestine
1- Israel has subjected the Palestinian people for 73 years to an ongoing catastrophe, known as the Nakba, a process that included massive displacement, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity;
2- Israel has established an apartheid regime on the entire territory of historic Palestine and directed toward the whole of the deliberately fragmented Palestinian people; Israel itself no longer seeks to hide its apartheid character, claiming Jewish supremacy and exclusive Jewish rights of self-determination in all of historic Palestine through the adoption in 2018 by the Knesset of a new Basic Law;
3- The apartheid character of Israel has been confirmed and exhaustively documented by widely respected human rights organizations, Adalah, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and in the UN ESCWA academic study that stresses the importance of defining Israeli apartheid as extending to people rather than limited to space, [“Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” UN ESCWA, 2017];
4- Israel periodically unleashes massive violence with devastating impacts on Palestinian civilian society, particularly against the population of Gaza, which endures widespread devastation, collective trauma, and many deaths and casualties, aggravated by being kept under an inhuman and unlawful blockade for over 14 years, and throughout the humanitarian emergency brought about by the COVID pandemic;
5- Western powers have facilitated and even subsidized for more than seven decades this Israeli system of colonization, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid, and continue to do so diplomatically, economically, and even militarily.
Considering:
i- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stipulates in its first article that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” And taking account that the inalienable right of self-determination is common Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Political Rights, and as such, a legal and ethical entitlement of all peoples.
ii- The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid which stipulates in Article I that “apartheid is a crime against humanity and that inhuman acts resulting from the policies and practices of apartheid and similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination, as defined in article II of the Convention, are crimes violating the principles of international law, in particular the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and constituting a serious threat to international peace and security.” The States Parties to this Convention undertake in accordance with Article IV:
“(a) To adopt any legislative or other measures necessary to suppress as well as to prevent any encouragement of the crime of apartheid and similar segregationist policies or their manifestations and to punish persons guilty of that crime;
“(b) To adopt legislative, judicial and administrative measures to prosecute, bring to trial and punish in accordance with their jurisdiction persons responsible for, or accused of, the acts defined in article II of the present Convention, whether or not such persons reside in the territory of the State in which the acts are committed or are nationals of that State or of some other State or are stateless persons.”
The endorsers of this document:
A- Declare their categorical rejection of the apartheid regime set up on the territory of historic Palestine and imposed on the Palestinian people as a whole, including refugees and exiles wherever they might be in the world.
B- Call for the immediate dismantling of this apartheid regime and the establishment of a democratic constitutional arrangement that grants and implements on all the inhabitants of this land equal rights and duties, without any discrimination relative to race, ethnicity, religion or gender, and which respects and enforces international law and human rights conventions, and in particular gives priority to the long deferred right of return of Palestinian refugees expelled from their towns and villages during the creation of the State of Israel, and subsequently.
C- Urge their governments to cease immediately their complicity with Israel’s apartheid regime, to join in the effort to call for the dismantling of apartheid structures and their replacement by an egalitarian democratic governance that treats everyone subject to its authority in accordance with their rights and with full respect for their humanity, and to make this transition in a manner sensitive to the right of self-determination enjoyed by both peoples presently inhabiting historic Palestine.
D- Call for the establishment of a National Commission of Peace, Reconciliation, and Accountability to accompany the transition from apartheid Israel to a governing process sensitive to human rights and democratic principles and practices. In the interim, until such a process is underway, issue a call for the International Criminal Court to launch a formal investigation of Israeli political leaders and security personnel guilty of perpetuating the crime of apartheid.
Endorsed by 615 academics, artists and intellectuals on July 5, 2021, including
| Ahmed Abbes, mathematician, Director of research in Paris, France |
| Sinan Antoon, New York University, United States |
| John Avery, Writer, Denmark |
| Bertrand Badie, Sciences Po Paris, France |
| Étienne Balibar, Anniversary Chair of Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London, United Kingdom |
| Anthony Barnett, Writer, United Kingdom |
| Edmond Baudoin, Auteur de bandes dessinées, France |
| George Bisharat, UC Hastings College of the Law/Professor, musician, United States |
| Nicolas Boeglin, Professor of Public International Law, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica |
| Hagit Borer, Professor, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom |
| Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, Council of Elders of the ICCA Consortium, Switzerland |
| Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, UC Berkeley, United States |
| Anouar Brahem, Musician, Composer, Tunisia |
| Rony Brauman, Physician, writer, former president of Médecins Sans Frontières, France |
| Iain Chalmers, Editor, James Lind Library, United Kingdom |
| Hafidha Chekir, Emeritus Professor of Public Law, Al Manar University, Tunis; Vice President of the International Federation for Human Rights, Tunisia |
| Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, Professeure émérite de droit public et de sciences politiques, Université Paris-Diderot, France |
| David Comedi, National University of Tucumán and National Research Council, Argentina |
| Laurent Cugny, Professeur, Sorbonne Université, France |
| Eric David, Emeritus Professor of International Law at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium |
| Chandler Davis, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, University of Toronto, Canada |
| Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Professeure émérite à l’Université de Paris, France |
| Herman De Ley, Emeritus Professor, Ghent University, Belgium |
| Ivar Ekeland, Professor emeritus of mathematics and former President, University of Paris-Dauphine, France |
| Brian Eno, Artist/Composer, United Kingdom |
| Adolfo Esquivel, Premio Nobel de la Paz 1980 (Nobel Peace Prize 1980), Argentina |
| Richard Falk, Professor of International Law, Emeritus, Princeton University, United States |
| Emmanuel Farjoun, Emeritus Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel |
| Jan Fermon, Avocat. Secrétaire général Association Internationale des Juristes Démocrates, Belgium |
| Domenico Gallo, Chamber President in Supreme Court of Cassazione, Italy |
| Irene Gendzier, Prof Emeritus in the Dept Political Science, Boston University, United States |
| Catherine Goldstein, Director of Research, Paris, France |
| Neve Gordon, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom |
| Penny Green, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom |
| Sondra Hale, Professor Emerita, University of California, Los Angeles, United States |
| Michael Harris, Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University, United States |
| Judith Herrin, King’s College London, United Kingdom |
| Christiane Hessel-Chabry, Présidente d’honneur de l’association EJE (Gaza), France |
| Shir Hever, Political Economist, Germany |
| Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics, United Kingdom |
| Abdeen Jabara, Attorney, past president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, United States |
| Richard Jolly, Emeritus Fellow, IDS, University of Sussex, United Kingdom |
| Suad Joseph, Distinguished Research Professor, University of California, Davis, United States |
| Mary Kaldor, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom |
| Ronnie Kasrils, Former government minister, South Africa |
| Assaf Kfoury, Computer Science Department, Boston University, United States |
| Rima Khalaf, Former Executive Secretary of UN ESCWA, Jordan |
| Daniel Kupferstein, Film director, France |
| Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, Emeritus professor, University of Nice, France |
| David Lloyd, University of California Riverside, United States |
| Brinton Lykes, Professor & Co-Director, Boston College Center for Human Rights & International Justice, United States |
| Moshé Machover, Mathematician, KCL, United Kingdom |
| Kate Macintosh, Architect, United Kingdom |
| Mairead Maguire, Nobel peace laureate, Ireland |
| Dick Marty, Dr. Jur. Dr. H.c., former Chair of the Committee of Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Switzerland |
| Georg Meggle, Philosopher, Prof. em. at University of Leipzig, Germany |
| Jan Oberg, DrHc, peace and future researcher, Transnational Foundation, Sweden |
| Joseph Oesterlé, Emeritus professor, Sorbonne University, France |
| Adi Ophir, Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University; Visiting Professor, The Cogut Institute for the Humanities and the center for Middle East Studies, Brown Universities, United States |
| Karine Parrot, Professeure de droit à l’Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France |
| Ghislain Poissonnier, Magistrate, France |
| Susan Power, Head of Legal Research and Advocacy, Al-Haq, Palestine |
| Prabir Purkayastha, Editor, Newsclick.in, India |
| Jacques Rancière, Professeur émérite, Université Paris 8, France |
| Roshdi Rashed, CNRS/Université de Paris, France |
| Steven Rose, Emeritus Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and Gresham College, London, United Kingdom |
| Hilary Rose, Professor Emerita Sociology University of Bradfor, United Kingdom |
| Jonathan Rosenhead, Emeritus Professor of Operational Research at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom |
| Andrew Ross, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, United States |
| Alice Rothchild, MD, retired, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Medical School, United States |
| Joan Russow, Researcher, Global Compliance Research Project, Canada |
| Richard Seaford, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter, United Kingdom |
| Leila Shahid, Former Ambassador of Palestine, Palestine |
| Eyal Sivan, Filmmaker – Essayist, France |
| John Smith, Filmmaker, Emeritus Professor of Fine Art, University of East London, United Kingdom |
| Nirit Sommerfeld, Singer, actress, writer, Germany |
| Ahdaf Soueif, Writer, Egypt |
| Gayatri Spivak, Columbia University, United States |
| Jonathan Steele, Author and journalist, United Kingdom |
| Annick Suzor-Weiner, Professor emeritus, Université Paris-Saclay, France |
| Salim Tamari, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Birzeit University, Palestine |
| Virginia Tilley, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, United States |
| Salim Vally, Professor, University of Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Roger Waters, Musician, United Kingdom |
| Robert Wintemute, Professor of Human Rights Law, King’s College London, United Kingdom |
| John Womack jr, Harvard University, United States |
* Institutional affiliations are given only for identification purposes.
* The full list of signatories is available here.
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“In fact, inherent in the term ‘separation’ is the fact that different groups of people live within one framework – under the control of one main center of power. The “separation” the Labor Party and its offspring (Kahol Lavan and its ilk) so love to brandish – with their characteristic lack of awareness of its incriminating meaning in Afrikaans (apartheid) – does not constitute recognition of the right of self-determination for Palestinians, but rather the acceleration of the creation of Palestinian enclaves and limited self-government within the space that Israel controls.
“Institutionalized apartheid solidifies the discrimination between the victorious settlers and the defeated colonized people – by means of legislation, clear geographical divisions and the delineation of final borders – while maintaining a certain stability in relations between the superior and the inferior. Nevertheless, the dispossession of indigenous residents from their lands never ceased completely, either in South Africa or in other white supremacy regimes established in lands and continents that the Europeans conquered and settled in recent centuries, among them Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, the United States, etc.
“In apartheid, the made-inferior natives and victorious superior settlers live together under one roof. For the sake of sustainability, the regime needs the surviving natives to remain alive. They are exploited as much as possible, their lives are cheap, the finger on the trigger that kills them is light. But they are essential. They are counted. However, in the earlier stage, that of settler colonization – which aims to take over all the land – the original inhabitants, who are forced into a state of inferiority, become redundant. It is possible and worthwhile, and even desirable, to live without them (and to compensate for their absence by bringing in slaves and other cheap labor from other countries).
“This ideology of the superfluousness of an entire people – or of large groups of inferior people – consumes and shatters and supersedes any value of human equality that may exist in the culture of the conquering people. The stronger the dimension of land-devouring colonialism becomes, the more the inferiors are considered superfluous in the eyes of the superiors. The fresher and more vibrant the colonialist component is, the more the superior people – in our case the Jewish people…”
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https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-the-problem-with-talking-about-the-israeli-apartheid-1.9969960
“The Problem With Talking About the Israeli Apartheid”
Amira Hass, Haaretz. Jul. 5, 2021
EXCERPT:
“We should be grateful that the title ‘apartheid,’ to denote the Israeli regime between the river and the sea, is becoming more and more common and legitimate, even fashionable. But like every fashion, there is a problem here too. It is not with the definition itself, but with what is omitted from it.
“The problem is that in all the heat of the talk about apartheid, a dynamic, active and dangerous dimension of it – the Jewish settler colonialism – has become dulled and blunted. According to the ideology and policies of Jewish settler colonialism, the Palestinians are superfluous. In short, it is possible, worthwhile and desirable to live without the Palestinians in this country between the river and the sea. Their existence here is conditional, dependent on our wishes and our goodwill – a matter of time.
“The ideology of ‘superfluousness’ is a poison that spreads especially when the process of settler colonialism is at its height. And that is currently the situation in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem.) The illusion that Israel will stop the settlement enterprise was shattered even before the ink dried on the Oslo Accords.
“The view of the superfluousness of the Other is at the basis of military orders and of the activities of the Civil Administration and the Jerusalem Municipality – such as preventing construction, demolishing homes and expelling Palestinian residents to overcrowded neighborhoods and enclaves. It explains the violence of settlers and the ease with which our soldiers and police officers kill Palestinians, as well as the context in which Religious Zionism MK Bezalel Smotrich relates to Palestinian Knesset members as ‘citizens, for now.’
“Settler colonialism is a continuous process of grabbing land, distorting historical borders, reshaping them and then expelling indigenous peoples. The apartheid as we knew it in South Africa was the later, advanced stage of the settler colonialism spearheaded by Holland, Britain and Portugal, and after that of citizens of other European nations.” (cont’d)
So the Usual Suspects demand that Israel be dismantled and replaced by a Palestinian Arab state. What else is new?