Palestinians are on the receiving end of a racist Western onslaught, but we cannot compromise on the right to self-determination and liberation.
A new UN Human Rights Council report is the latest in a series by international and Israeli groups accusing Israel of the crime of 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,” Michael Lynk’s report said. “With the eyes of the international community wide open, Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world.”
Amnesty International’s failure to recognize apartheid within the context of settler colonialism is not only an inaccurate description of the situation on the ground, but also disregards the root cause of the denial of Palestinian rights for over a century.
It is not enough to be “technically” truthful, when the full truth of the matter is often right in front of us. Choosing to say that people like Hamad, al-Hathalin, and Asaad were not is an injustice to their memory, and to all the other Palestinian victims who have “died” as a result of Israel’s occupation.
Amnesty International is the latest human rights organization to declare Israel an apartheid state, calling for an end to the “system of oppression and domination” it imposes on the millions of Palestinians living under its rule.
Addameer is one of six Palestinian NGOs designated by Israel as a terror organization. The prisoners rights group says the accusations against them are unfounded, and could have potentially devastating consequences for the Palestinian human rights movement.
Rep. Jim McGovern says he has seen “no evidence” to support Israel’s designation of 6 Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist,” but he muted his criticism of the measure, noting that pro-Israel forces came down on him last month for his “urgent” letter on the subject. McGovern also says that leftwing criticism of J Street trip to Israel, bringing Reps to meet Prime Minister Bennett, was “jarring” and polarizing.
I work for one of the leading Palestinian human rights organizations, Al-Haq, which was recently declared a “terrorist organization” by the Israeli regime along with five prominent civil society organizations in Palestine. Friends and acquaintances keep asking me how it feels to be a member of a “terrorist organization”. I always respond by saying: it seems like we’re doing something right.
As the word “apartheid” grows in popularity to describe Israeli oppression of Palestinians it is helpful to revisit another concept defined in the mid 20th century: genocide.
Six Palestinian human rights activists were targeted by spyware from the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, a new report revealed on Monday, in the first reported instance of Palestinian activists being targeted by the surveillance company. The six activists are all members of the six Palestinian civil society organizations recently branded “terrorist organizations” by Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz.