Israeli occupation ‘more extreme than apartheid,’ South Africa tells Hague court

Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is worse than the apartheid regime that existed in South Africa until 1994, Pretoria’s ambassador to the Netherlands told the International Court of Justice yesterday.

“We as South Africans sense, see, hear and feel to our core the inhumane discriminatory policies and practices of the Israeli regime as an even more extreme form of the apartheid that was institutionalised against black people in my country,” Vusimuzi Madonsela said.

He was speaking on the second day of the Hague court’s hearings into the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

“The Palestinian cause is one which resonates strongly with the people of South Africa. That is because the Palestinian struggle evokes mournful memories of our own struggle against apartheid, segregation and oppression.

“Israel’s illegal occupation is also being administered in breach of the crime of apartheid ... it is indistinguishable from settler colonialism. Israel’s apartheid must end.”

His words were echoed by Ziad Al Atiyah, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, who also addressed the court yesterday. Mr Al Atiyah said the heavy civilian death toll of the Israel-Gaza war is a consequence of “twisted logic” and decades of illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

The hearings, requested last year by the UN Security Council, are unrelated to the Gaza war, but the conflict weighed heavily on the testimonies throughout the day.

“I believe I speak in consonance with virtually the entire international community in expressing the kingdom’s profound revulsion and condemnation of the horrendous death, destruction and displacement of Palestinian civilians, brought about by Israel’s illegal and brutal war,” Mr Al Atiyah said.

“Israel defends this obscene brutality as the necessary price for defeating Hamas. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia firmly rejects this twisted logic.

“Israel’s actions have severely dehumanised the Palestinian population, treating them as dispensable objects, rather than human beings.”

These “disgraceful acts ... demonstrate so vividly how the illegality of the Israeli occupation over more than five decades can generate into the ugliest of consequences”, he said.

Representatives of more than 50 countries will speak during the hearings, which are set to continue until next Monday.