"Israel" is an apartheid regime: UNHRC report
4 Min Read
The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in occupied territories submitted a report that concludes that "Israel's" treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.
-
A Palestinian boy sits on a classroom chair before a horrific scene as Israeli authorities demolish a school site in the village of Yatta, south of the West Bank city of Al-Khalil (AFP)
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has presented a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), saying that the situation in "Israel" and the occupied territories is akin to apartheid.
Michael Lynk wrote in a 19-page report, submitted to the body on Tuesday, that Israeli Jews and Palestinians lived "under a single regime which differentiates its distribution of rights and benefits on the basis of national and ethnic identity, and which ensures the supremacy of one group over, and to the detriment of, the other."
He added that "The political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits, and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule… satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid."
Lynk differentiated between the situation in South Africa but still emphasized that the situation in Palestine amounts to apartheid.
Apartheid is an international legal term that refers to the systematic oppression of one racial group over another.
The rapporteur adds that there are "pitiless features" of "Israel's" apartheid in Palestine that were not found in South Africa. Examples include segregated highways, checkpoints, a barricaded population, missile strikes and tank shelling of civilians, and above all the "abandonment of the Palestinian's social welfare to the international community."
"With the eyes of the international community wide open, Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world."
Lynk's report is set to be publicly released today on Thursday, ahead of an 'item 7' discussion, the permanent UNHRC agenda item earmarked for Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians and other Arabs.
According to the research, "Israel" is pursuing a plan of "strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian territory into separate areas of population control, with Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem [Occupied Al-Quds] physically divided from one another".
According to Lynk, "Israel" utilizes Gaza for the "indefinite warehousing of an unwanted population of two million Palestinians".
The report adds that work permits issued to Palestinians to work in "Israel" are considered the "exploitation of labor of a racial group."
In February, Amnesty International released a report in which it detailed an investigation into how "Israel" maintains a system of apartheid against Palestinians, describing the theft of Palestinian land, unlawful murder, restriction of mobility, and other elements that make up apartheid.
Read more:US rejects Amnesty International report accusing "Israel" of apartheid
Saleh Higazi, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa office at Amnesty stated that "The Special Rapporteur's findings are an important and timely addition to the growing international consensus that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against the Palestinian people.
"Palestinian human rights organizations have been calling the situation apartheid for years, and this report is a landmark moment of recognition of the lived reality of millions of Palestinians."
Despite a growing number of rights organizations labeling Israeli actions as apartheid, the US and "Israel's" western allies have abstained from making such comments.
The senior governance affairs manager at Jewish Voice for Peace-Action said the report echoes what human rights organizations have been saying for years: "Israel is committing the crime of apartheid."
"For [US President Joe] Biden and Congress, the task is clear: end all US military funding to this violent apartheid regime."
In a recent report to the United Nations, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School has joined the international community by recognizing that the Israeli occupation regime is one of apartheid.
A 22-page report titled "Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank: A Legal Analysis of Israel's Actions", a collaboration between Harvard, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, found that the Israeli occupation's practices in the occupied West Bank were criminal and breached the prohibition of apartheid.
Through this move, Harvard has joined other academia, Palestinians, international human rights groups, civil rights advocates, and a fair share of the international community in condemning the Israeli occupation for its gruesome crimes against Palestinians that range from murder and arbitrary imprisonment to forced displacement and much more.
