Apartheid (see also Israel Environmental Apartheid)
Updated 2024-08-24
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Amnesty International -Israel Apartheid https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
Crime of Apartheid The Government of Israel’s System of Oppression Against Palestinians. https://www.amnestyusa.org/campaigns/end-apartheid/
A Threshold Crossed Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights
A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. One regime, inside the borders of the sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine million, all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories Israel took over in 1967, whose final status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects.
Over time, the distinction between the two regimes has grown divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for more than 50 years – twice as long as the State of Israel existed without it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now reside in permanent settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice. Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All this leads to the conclusion that these are not two parallel regimes that simply happen to uphold the same principle. There is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle. https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
2024-07-27 In US, Netanyahu Spoke of “Democracy” But Offers Indefinite Apartheid Speaking before a joint session of Congress this week in an attempt to justify the mass destruction and death wrought by Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preached about his country’s “powerful and vibrant democracy” to applause from an audience dominated by Republicans as protests raged outside the Capitol.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist living under Israeli occupation in Hebron in the West Bank, said Americans should not be fooled. Military occupation and democracy are contradictory, Amro argued, and alleged war criminals such as Netanyahu have no right to talk about “democracy” when Palestinians living under illegal occupation face state-backed violence and displacement.
“For sure I live under Israeli apartheid and Israeli occupation and Israeli supremacy,” Amro told Truthout after the speech. “Netanyahu can’t talk about democracy when his government is occupying the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem and not allowing us to practice our own freedoms.” https://truthout.org/articles/in-us-netanyahu-spoke-of-democracy-but-offers-indefinite-apartheid/
2024-04-22 West Bank Pogrom ‘Underscores Urgent Need to Dismantle Apartheid’: Amnesty Amnesty International said Monday that the ongoing surge in deadly violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank “underscores [the] urgent need to dismantle apartheid” in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
For more than a week now, Israeli settlers have been attacking West Bank Palestinians in towns and villages including Al-Mughayir, Duma, Deir Dibwan, Beitin, and Aqraba, killing at least four people including a child; wounding dozens of others; and destroying homes, vehicles, and other property.v Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have either stood and watched or participated in the settler attacks, which the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and others are calling a “pogrom.”
Amnesty said the “alarming spike in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in recent days highlights the urgent need to dismantle illegal settlements, end Israel’s occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories, and its longstanding system of apartheid. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israeli-settler-attacks-west-bank
2023-11-00 Catastrophe in Palestine and Israel: Apartheid on the Road to Genocide Israel’s government of Benjamin “Mr. Security” Netanyahu is the most viciously racist, anti-democratic and incompetent, and one of the most corrupt — although there is competition for that distinction — in the country’s history. It is now probably also the most widely reviled for its catastrophic failures.
In fact, Israel’s mass bombing and invasion of Gaza has one overriding priority beyond all other considerations — keeping Netanyahu’s coalition in power and himself out of prison on multiple corruption charges. Neither Palestinian, nor Israeli, nor hostages’ lives can get in the way of that supreme goal. Because the coalition depends on the support of the fascistic, open ethnic-cleansing Jewish Power and Religious Zionism Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the dimensions of the war are literally genocidal. That potential has been present in Israeli politics all along, but Netanyahu’s need to hold political office for protection from prosecution (sound familiar?) overrides certain restraints on all-out destruction that global politics and U.S. interests usually impose.
Mustafa Barghouti, a physician in Ramallah and president of the Palestinian National Initiative, has repeatedly warned (for example on “Democracy Now,” October 19) of a scenario where Israel depopulates and annexes northern Gaza, then turns to ethnically cleansing and annexing the West Bank. https://againstthecurrent.org/atc227/catastrophe-in-palestine-and-israel/
2023-10-12 Palestinian Journalist: Latest Violence Shatters Notion That Israeli Apartheid Is Sustainable Palestinian journalist and senior editor at +972 Magazine Amjad Iraqi believes Hamas breaking through the military border between Gaza and Israel has shattered the belief that the occupation is sustainable. Without being able to ignore Palestinians, Iraqi says, long-term reflection on Israel’s apartheid system is possible, but in the short term, the international community is indulging Israel’s desire for revenge. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/12/amjad_iraqi
2023-10-10 Mohammed El-Kurd: How Much Palestinian Blood Will It Take to End Israel’s Occupation & Apartheid? Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd says Western reaction to Israel’s assault on Gaza has once again highlighted the double standard when it comes to how Israeli and Palestinian lives are valued. Israel is bombarding the densely populated coastal territory in retaliation for Saturday’s Hamas attack on southern Israel, as well as tightening the existing siege even further. Israeli officials have vowed to wipe out Hamas despite warnings of massive civilian casualties inside Gaza. “One wonders how much bloodshed, how much Palestinian death is necessary for people to realize that violence begets violence and that the occupation and the colonization of Palestine, the blockade of the Gaza Strip needs to end for all of this violence to end.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/10/mohammed_el_kurd_palestine_israel_gaza
2023-10-09 Palestinians, pushed beyond endurance, defend their homeland against violent apartheid The humanitarian catastrophe has continued unabated in Gaza for years. The suffocating Israeli military and naval blockade has lasted for 16 years. That blockade has imprisoned and starved two million people and denied them medical aid. Palestinians in Gaza are routinely massacred, and children have been traumatised by recurring bombing campaigns. In essence, Gaza is one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. The blockade extends to commercial goods, food, fuel, and even humanitarian aid. The ongoing siege is continuously destroying the lives of the people who live there, in extreme poverty, with little access to clean water and with about four hours of electricity a day. Hamas is responding to same, to occupation, oppression, illegal settlement, and desecration of Palestinian religious symbols, especially, and recently, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
But of course, it is not just Gazans. It is Palestinians. In the West Bank, since the election of the current government in Israel, that government has escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, and daily humiliation. Recently, Israeli forces have repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem. https://johnmenadue.com/palestinians-pushed-beyond-endurance-defend-their-homeland-against-violent-apartheid/?
2023-04-07 Democracy or Apartheid? You Can’t Have Both, Israel. For two consecutive nights this week, during the holy month of Ramadan, the Israeli military stormed Al-Aqsa mosque. They entered the mosque before prayer was over, firing rubber bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas at Palestinian worshippers. These events left at least 12 Palestinians injured, and over 400 were arrested on the first night. Following the raid, Israeli violence spread across the west bank. Dozens have been hurt by inhaling poisonous gas fired by Israeli forces, and a settler in occupied East Jerusalem shot a Palestinian child.
Following the raid on Al-Aqsa on Wednesday night, Israeli settlers were escorted to Al-Aqsa by Israeli forces on Thursday morning. Prior to their arrival, Palestinian worshippers were forced out so that it could be secured for the settlers for the first day of the Jewish Passover holiday. This double standard is not uncommon for Israel as it is inherent to the structure of the settler-colonial state. Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (80% of the Palestinian population) under Israeli control are not citizens and cannot become citizens of the state in which they live, nor can they vote for the government which controls their lives. The other 20% of Palestinians, who have Israeli citizenship, have a 2nd class status. https://codepink.substack.com/p/democracy-or-apartheid-you-cant-have
The lawmakers stated that Amnesty’s report last February “alleges that apartheid was inherent in the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and has been built on and maintained by successive Israeli governments.” The lawmakers asked if EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also views Israel as an “apartheid state.”
The pro-Israel lawmakers should be fully satisfied with Borrell’s written response issued on 20 January. “The Commission considers that it is not appropriate to use the term apartheid in connection with the State of Israel,” Borrell wrote. Borrell affirmed the EU’s reliance on the so-called IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and emphasized: “Claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor is amongst the illustrative examples included under the IHRA definition.” The highly politicized IHRA definition, heavily promoted by Israel and its lobby, has faced broad opposition due to concerns that it will be used in precisely the manner Borrell is now deploying it: to falsely label legitimate criticism of Israel and its crimes as anti-Jewish bigotry.
Borrell provided no factual basis for dismissing the meticulous research from multiple human rights groups showing how Israel perpetrates apartheid, a serious crime against humanity covered by the Rome Statute , the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. https://www.blackagendareport.com/eu-says-its-anti-semitic-call-israel-apartheid-state
2022-02-02 Amnesty apartheid report: The walls protecting Israel are finally crumbling A year ago, it was Israel’s most celebrated human rights group, B’Tselem. Months later, it was the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Now, the one speaking up is Amnesty International – an organisation widely viewed as the most authoritative arbiter of what constitutes human rights violations. Over the past year, all have reached the same conclusion: Israel is an apartheid state. According to Amnesty’s new report published on Tuesday: “Israel’s system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination against Palestinians, as a racial group, in all areas under its control amounts to a system of apartheid.”
This is not just a criticism of Israel’s occupation. All three groups have been pointing out for decades Israel’s flagrant disregard of international law, and its likely commission of war crimes, in the occupied territories. But Israel was little concerned, so long as public debate was confined to the occupation. Its advocates quickly learned that they could always deflect to matters of Israel’s security, by presenting any Palestinian resistance as terrorism.
Now, the consensus is shifting to entirely new terrain – a discursive battlefield where Israel has less effective weapons with which to defend itself. The biggest human rights watchdogs are agreed that everything about Israel’s rule over Palestinians is connected, from its military oppression of those under occupation, to the civil legal system inside Israel that systematically confers inferior rights on the country’s large minority of nominal Palestinian “citizens”.
In other words, Israel’s apartheid structures cannot be disentangled, separating out the occupied territories from “Israel proper”. It is all part of the same, single system of rule by one ethnic-national group, Jews, designed to oppress and marginalise another ethnic-national group, Palestinians. https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/amnesty-apartheid-report-the-walls
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