‘Apartheid’ label pinned on Israel
UNITED NATIONS: If being an apartheid state means committing inhumane acts, systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, then Israel is guilty, a United Nations panel has determined in a new report.
The findings from an Arab-led group were not cleared or fully backed by the UN leadership and does not set new policies toward Israel. Yet it reflects another attempt to use a UN forum to denounce Israel and seek to put its Western allies on the defensive at a time when some have questioned Israel’s hard-line approach, including the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Apartheid is a term once associated with South Africa’s whiterule system but now represents a broad term for crimes against humanity under international law and the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court, said the report in its executive summary made public this week.
Israelis immediately slammed the report. Published by the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the report also drew sharp criticism from the United States ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who called it ‘‘anti-Israel propaganda’’.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres distanced himself from the findings, with a spokesman saying the report was published without any prior consultation with the UN secretariat.
Headquartered in Beirut, the commission’s membership comprises 18 Arab states, two of which – Jordan and Egypt – have peace treaties with Israel.
Entitled ‘‘Israeli Practices toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid’’, the report was authored by Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur to the Palestinian territories, and Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University.
Falk and Tilley concluded that Israel had indeed established an apartheid regime. Dividing the Palestinian people into four distinct groups, the authors write that although they are treated differently by Israel they all face ‘‘the racial oppression that results from the apartheid regime’’.
The first group identified is the roughly 1.7 million Palestinians who are full citizens of Israel but who, the report found, live under ‘‘martial law’’ and are subjected to oppression because they are not Jewish.
The second group is the estimated 300,000 Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem, a mostly Arab area. The report said these Palestinians ‘‘experience discrimination in access to education, healthcare, employment, residency and building rights’’.
Third are the 4.6 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza. In the West Bank, the Jewish residents known as settlers are governed by Israeli civil law, while Palestinians live under military rule. ‘‘This dual legal system, problematic in itself, is indicative of an apartheid regime,’’ said the authors.
The final group are the millions of Palestinian refugees who live outside Israeli territory and who are prohibited from returning to their homes in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory.
The report also attempts to refute Israeli explanations as to why this situation exists, namely its claims that Israel has the right to remain a Jewish state or that Israel does not owe Palestinian non-citizens equal treatment precisely because they are not citizens. Some Israelis also claim the country’s treatment of Palestinians reflects no intention to dominate, because it is a temporary situation derived from the realities of ongoing conflict and security requirements.
Israel’s minister of public security and strategic affairs, Gilad Erdan, said: ‘‘The UN’s top donors, including the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada, must stop funding UN bodies obsessed with demonising Israel.’’
In recent weeks, the US administration has indicated it would consider halting participation in various UN programmes due to its perceived anti-Israel stance.
- Washington Post