Landmark UN report scores Israeli apartheid
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A powerful United Nations report labels Israel “an apartheid regime” that “dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.” It also calls for “boycott, divest ment and sanctions (BDS) activities and [urges gov ernments to] respond positively to calls for such ini tiatives.”
Issued by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) on Mar. 15, it concludes that “beyond a reasonable doubt,” in accord with ex isting international law, “Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crimes of apartheid.” According to these covenants, apartheid is catego rized as the second gravest crime against humanity, second only to genocide.
While numerous past UN reports have been highly critical of Israel, this is the first to explicitly describe Israel as both an apartheid and racist state. Not sur prisingly, the report was quickly disavowed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after it met with angry condemnations from the U.S. and Israel. U.S. UN envoy Nikki Haley denounced the report as “antiIsrael propaganda.”
ESCWA Director Rima Khalaf was forced to resign her position due to pressure from UN officials to re move the report from its website. Khalaf is a Jorda nian national held in high regard in the international community. She played a major role in previous re ports highly critical of Arab regimes.
This new report was co-authored by Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, and Virginia Tilley, of South ern Illinois University. Both are well-known experts on Middle-East politics and history; and Falk is an eminent international law expert.
The full version appeared on the UN site, but only a summary now remains. The full 75-page report is available at: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ ali-abunimah/un-official-resigns-after-pressurewithdraw-israel-apartheid-report. It describes a full range of laws, practices, and administrative mecha nisms through which the Israeli state maintains a sys tem that segregates Palestinians from Jews through out the territories it controls.
In describing Israeli apartheid, the UN report does not compare Israel to apartheid South Africa but in stead to the “1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apart heid,” which defines apartheid as “inhuman acts com mitted for the purpose of establishing and maintain ing domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”
It refers to the “state’s essentially racist character.” It also strongly implies that apartheid currently ex ists not only throughout the occupied territories, but also within the pre-1967 borders. It points to how apartheid policies and laws, implemented via “demo graphic engineering,” have been veiled in a shroud of “democracy’ since the inception of the Israeli state:
“The first general policy of Israel has been one of demographic engineering, in order to establish and maintain an overwhelming Jewish majority in Israel. As in any racial democracy, such a majority allows the trappings of democracy—democratic elections, a strong legislature—without threatening any loss of hegemony by the dominant racial group. In Israeli discourse, this mission is expressed in terms of the so-called “demographic threat,” an openly racist refer ence to Palestinian population growth or the return of Palestinian refugees.”
This “demographic engineering” includes the ex pulsion of nearly 800,000 Palestinians in 1948 and denial of the right of return of more than 6 million Palestinians in the worldwide diaspora. The report discusses how Israel’s “Law of Return” provides auto matic citizenship and all associated rights to Jews liv ing anywhere in the world regardless of where they were born. At the same time, it “denies citizenship even to those Palestinians who have a documented history of residency in the country.”
Within the pre-1967 borders, Israel points to its “democratic” elections in which Palestinians have a formal right to vote. However, according to Israel’s Basic Law, a set of laws similar to a constitution, all parties are barred from holding positions that run counter to the concept of a Jewish-exclusive state. So, (Above) Palestinian women trying to enter Jerusalem for Friday prayers are confronted by Israeli checkpoint.
a political platform upholding democratic rights for all—equal rights—is essentially illegal. Palestinians are allowed to vote, but not for Palestinian rights or in opposition to Jewish exclusivity.
This UN report is published amid strong worldwide opposition to the rapid growth of illegal Jewish set tlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This further exposes Israel’s determined drive for a sin gle Jewish-exclusive state. Emboldened by Trump’s victory in the U.S. elections, Israel has recently an nounced plans to construct nearly 6000 new illegal settlement housing units. This new construction has been accompanied by a sharp increase in demolition of Palestinian homes.
Other recent developments include a well-financed campaign to criminalize and suppress support for Palestinian rights. On Mar. 6 Israel’s legislature enact ed a new law barring entry or residency to non-Israe lis who advocate boycott of Israeli products produced in any part of Israel and its occupied territories.
Already, Israel restricts nearly all entry to territo ries it occupies and controls, and for years has used broad discretion to deny access to political activists, Palestinians, and other Arabs. This new law will have greatest impact on Palestinian citizens of Israel who are applying for reunification with family members living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip or outside the country. n