UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Michael Lynk is the latest human rights expert to declare Israel an Apartheid state.
In a 19-page report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday, Lynk said that the situation in the occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt) has moved beyond occupation and annexation, and now amounts to the crime of apartheid.
“The political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule…..satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid,” the report said.
In his report, Lynk details how the situation in the oPt amounts to the crime of apartheid under international law, which by definition, must meet three major criteria:
- Institutionalized regime of systematic racial oppression
- (i.e. Israeli Jews and Palestinians living in the oPt live under one single regime (Israel), but face a very different distribution of rights and benefits on the basis of national and ethnic identity “which ensures the supremacy of one group over, and to the detriment of, the other.”)
- The intent to maintain the domination of one racial-national-ethnic group over another
- (i.e. The freedoms and privileges of Jewish Israelis is tied to the oppression of Palestinians, for example, through Jewish settlement expansion which requires the expropriation of Palestinian land and resources.)
- The regular practice of inhuman(e) acts
- (i.e. “Arbitrary and extra-judicial killings. Torture. The violent deaths of children. The denial of fundamental human rights. A fundamentally flawed military court system and the lack of criminal due process. Arbitrary detention. Collective punishment”, which Lynk says are not random isolated acts, but rather “integral to Israel’s system of rule.”)
While Israeli apartheid differs from South African Apartheid, Lynk firmly stated that “This is apartheid.”
“There are pitiless features of Israel’s ‘apartness’ rule in the occupied Palestinian territory that were not practiced in southern Africa, such as segregated highways, high walls and extensive checkpoints, a barricaded population, missile strikes and tank shelling of a civilian population, and the abandonment of the Palestinians’ social welfare to the international community,” the report said.
“With the eyes of the international community wide open, Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world.”
Lynk’s report is the latest in a series of reports by international and Israeli human rights groups accusing Israel of the crime of apartheid — something Palestinian experts and human rights groups have been doing for decades.
Notably, unlike the latest reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, Lynk’s report pays particular attention to the role that fragmentation has played in establishing and maintaining Israel’s apartheid regime, and acknowledges the settler-colonial nature of Israel’s regime.
In his report, Lynk recommended that Israel “completely and unconditionally” ends the occupation, “all discriminatory and apartheid laws, practices and policies which privilege Jewish Israelis,” and “fully respect the national rights and human rights of the Palestinians.”
Israel “must enable them [Palestinians] to exercise their freedom of movement, assembly, expression and association, and it must remove all arbitrary and inequitable restrictions on family life, property, employment, access and enjoyment of resources, education and daily life,” Lynk said.
He also called on the international community to enforce accountability measures to “bring the Israeli occupation and its practice of apartheid in the Palestinian territory to a complete end.”
Another difference from South African apartheid: South African whites wanted to control, exploit, and dispossess the non-whites. They didn’t want to get rid of all of them. Israeli Jews want all the land with none of the people. That’s why South Africans say Israeli apartheid is worse.
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“Today, the American organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP); the British organization, Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP); and Jews for a Just Peace (JJP), a federation of groups in ten European countries, all keep up this tradition of admonition and critical analysis while promoting the ‘human, civil, and political rights’ of the Palestinians.”
Now over to the US, UK, and the EU nations who have been complicit in Israel’s occupation, land theft, illegal settlements, and the killing of unarmed civilians (which they are horrified is going on right now in Ukraine). What are these democracies going to do about their favorite charity case has now been called out for its “pitiless apartheid” policies? The paragons for equal rights, justice, and freedom. I am sure they will insist that Israel be held accountable for this outrage…..not.
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For the record: “Six Human Rights Groups Shuttered and Still the Bell Tolls for Israel—An Analysis” (9 November 2021) by Professor Lawrence Davidson” Blog: http://www.tothepointanalyses.com
Excerpts:
“In a 1945 essay, Hannah Arendt, one of the most insightful Jewish political philosophers of the 20th century, described the Zionist movement as a ‘German-inspired nationalism’ (thus my use of ‘über alles’ above). That is, as an ideology that holds ‘the nation to be an eternal organic body, the product of inevitable natural growth of inherent qualities; and it explains peoples, not in terms of political organizations, but in terms of biological superhuman personalities.’
“In 1948, Arendt and 27 other prominent Jews living in the United States—including Albert Einstein—wrote a letter to the New York Times condemning the growth of rightwing political influences in the newly founded Israeli state. Citing the appearance of the ‘Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut) led by Menachem Begin, they warned that it was a ‘political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, & social appeal to the Nazi & Fascist parties.’ Begin would go on to become one of Israel’s prime ministers. The contemporary Israeli party Likud is a successor of the ‘Freedom Party.’
“Albert Einstein was also a person of moral sensitivity. As such, he turned down an offer to become Israel’s president & distanced himself from both Zionism & the Israeli state. The Zionist treatment of the Arabs had alienated him. In 1938, he observed, ‘I would much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain–especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our ranks.’
“In August 2002, as a consequence of aggressive Israeli behavior in the occupied West Bank, England’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, warned that Zionist state policies, as they manifest themselves in the colonization process & the associated persecution of the Palestinians, are perverting ‘the deepest ideals’ of Judaism.” (cont’d)
“Israel “must enable them [Palestinians] to exercise their freedom of movement, assembly, expression and association, and it must remove all arbitrary and inequitable restrictions on family life, property, employment, access and enjoyment of resources, education and daily life,” Lynk said.”
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This will become more likely when acts of force and violence fall out of favor. Eventually necessary in order to live together with equal rights.