UN Report on Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid (original) (raw)
Related papers
‘Apartheid’. A word which, in Afrikaans, literally means ‘separateness’ or ‘separate development.’ Historically speaking though, it summarizes the series of discriminatory policies enforced by the National Party (NP) of South Africa in the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet, the word itself is not simply another convenient political label for a set of discriminatory laws. With respect to its most common understanding, it is an emotionally charged term which invokes memories of some of the cruelest treatment of men, women, and children in history. Yes, apartheid has certainly outgrown its literal translation and taken on a connotation of pain and embarrassment. Officially, apartheid has been defined as any inhumane act “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” For the purposes of toppling the repressive regime and extending universal suffrage to all citizens of South Africa, this definition was more than sufficient. But after it had accomplished this purpose, there was no effort to develop the law further, leaving it vague and largely useless to combat potentially similar cases of discrimination in other states. From the 1980’s onward, there have been many academics, institutions, and organizations from all over the world who suggest that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is one such example of modern-day apartheid which warrants international legal action. However, thus far, there has been virtually no attempt to use international law to bring about the end of these alleged crimes. This causes one to wonder, if the evidence suggests that the occupation of Palestine indeed constitutes apartheid as it is defined by the Rome Statute and other international legal instruments, then why has the international community failed to take legal action? Could it be that, contrary to the majority opinion of the academic sphere, the case against Israel is simply too weak to justify such measures? This paper will attempt to answer this question in four parts. In the first section, I will analyze the historical evolution of apartheid both as a regime and an international crime. In the second and third, I will assess the arguments for and against the applicability of existing international human rights and criminal law to the Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Finally, in the fourth section, I submit that although Israel’s occupation of Palestine, under the current language of international law, may not amount to apartheid, there does exist another, less controversial answer to the Israeli-Palestinian problem; one which utilizes the international right to self-determination.
2009
One may also wonder whether a claim based on persistent objection can be structural as opposed to substantive. 65 Leonard Barnes offers another explanation of simple distance: since '[f]ormulations of human rights naturally tend to reflect the major frustrations of those who made them', the architects of international law are at a far remove from the oppressed of a colony, of territories where 'economic subordination entails political disability; where political disability may bring with it severe restrictions upon civil liberty and an exceptional widening of the legal meaning of 'sedition' (such restrictions being at their most severe when the metropolitan authorities regard the native culture as backward or inferior); and where official anxiety about sedition and allied offences lead to judicial and police practices which in the metropolitan country would be regarded as unusually harsh.' see 'The Rights of Dependent Peoples' in Human Rights: Comments and Interpretations (UNESCO, Paris, 25 July 1948) UNESCO/PHS/3 (rev.) p 253.
Is Israel an Apartheid State? A Critical Analysis of the Realities in Palestine
Political Science Undergraduate Review
This paper will examine whether the mainstream accusation of Israel being an apartheid state has some validity to it and if so, to what extent. In doing so, it will help build upon the already present political literature surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while presenting a different perspective in the context of apartheid. Specifically, this paper analyzes the historical creation of Israel and how that directly set the tone for the inequalities present in the state today. In this regard, I rely on two case studies, which help determine whether Israel really qualifies as apartheid, so to speak, in terms of international law. Moreover, I present a rebuttal to my thesis and attempt to foil it.
Israel, Palestine, and Apartheid
Insight Turkey, 2020
The term 'apartheid' was coined to describe the system of segregation, practiced for many years in South Africa. However, the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court omitted all references to South Africa in its definition of 'the crime of apartheid' and the term is now defined globally as a crime against humanity. This article explores the similarities and differences between the now abandoned practice of apartheid in South Africa and the current apartheid policies of Israel, highlighting the need to differentiate between Israel proper (within its pre-1967 boundaries), Greater Israel (within the post-1967 boundaries), and Greater Palestine. Whereas Israel claims to offer democratic rights for all its citizens, all seven pillars of apartheid can be shown to exist in the occupied territories, where the Israeli regime is the sole authority, leaving the Palestinian Authority powerless. The article details how the influx of different immigrant communities to Israel has dispossessed the Palestinians from their land. It provides a new definition for the policies practiced, and the many ways in which Israel dictates the lives of the Palestinians, as 'apartheid of a special type. ' It concludes with a proposal to support the policy of bi-nationalism, as stated in in the Haifa Declaration of 2007.
Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
(2013) 24:3 European Journal of International Law 867-913, 2013
Apartheid is a loaded term; saturated with history and emotion. It conjures up images and memories of discrimination, oppression, and brutality; indulgence, privilege, and pretension; racism, resistance, and, ultimately, emancipation. All of which come to us through the history of apartheid in South Africa. Although prohibited and criminalised by international law in response to the situation in southern Africa, the concept of apartheid was never given enormous attention by international lawyers. Following an awakening of interest in the international legal prohibition of apartheid as a potentially appropriate lens through which to view the situation of the Palestinians, this article examines the merits of such a claim in the context of Israeli law and practice in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Apartheid and International Law in Palestine
Nada Kiswanson & Susan Power (eds.), Prolonged Occupation and International Law, 2023
In this chapter I conceptualise and contextualise Israel's apartheid system as a core feature of settler-colonial rule in Palestine since the Naqba and – more recently – as an increasingly central focus of international legal analysis of the Palestinian reality. The chapter begins by situating Israeli apartheid within Zionism’s colonial project in Palestine, and by highlighting the longstanding Palestinian intellectual and activist traditions which have provided the foundations for now-widespread understandings of the apartheid nature of Israel’s regimes of oppression and exclusion of the Palestinians. I trace the vital role that Palestinian lawyers and rights organisations played from the 1980s in developing extensive legal analyses of Israeli apartheid, which western liberal human rights organisations have lately endorsed and elaborated. The chapter then fleshes out some of the key legal and material characteristics of Israel’s apartheid regime as not just a racially discriminatory regime but a colonial-apartheid regime. With that in mind I consider the tactical possibilities and pitfalls for movements seeking to mobilise international law to end apartheid, with reference to the definitions and prohibitions of apartheid that exist across a number of branches of international law.
2018
On 19 July 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed the Nation State Law to widespread criticism, domestically and internationally. This law now constitutionally entrenches the homogenous ethnic sovereignty of the Jewish people in Israel by declaring only the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in Israel, among other matters. This paper demonstrates the way in which this Nation State Law is just the most recent step in a long-standing process of deepening the colonial Zionist project in Mandatory Palestine. And, critically, it is a colonial project which the international community has emboldened through its lack of tangible and meaningful action to hold Israel accountable for its widespread and systematic violations of international law.