BBC:
A UN human rights envoy has compared Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories to elements of apartheid.
The UN's Special Rapporteur, John Dugard, describes the regime as being designed to dominate and systematically oppress the occupied population.
Mr Dugard is a South African professor of international law assigned to monitor Israeli human rights abuses.
He has extensively studied apartheid in South Africa and has compared it to what he saw under Israeli rule.
This comes after former President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid drew heavy criticism and caused Carter to face accusations of antisemitism.
But others who have a firsthand knowledge of apartheid have also made the same comparison. In a 2002 issue of The Nation, Desmond Tutu (with Ian Urbina) wrote, "Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the occupied territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar."
There is a growing divestiture movement in the world, aimed at ending institutional investment in Israel's system of apartheid. It was divestiture, more than any action by governments, that brought down S. African apartheid. But not without tremendous costs to S. African businesses.
Israel would be very wise to pay attention to its critics.
Tags: news | politics | Israel | Palestine | racism | apartheid | UN
3 comments:
> Israel would be very wise to pay attention to its critics.
Israel's critics aren't charged with protecting Israel's citizens. Every relaxation of control so far -- most blatantly the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip -- has been met with increased attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilian centers.
This does not constitute a climate where Israel can listen to its irresponsible critics.
"... said the UK to irish catholics in Northern Ireland."
Or the US to the Cherokee.
The fact of the matter is that there's no other country in the world were we'd tolerate this sort of treatment of an ethnic population.
If you disagree with that, you go ahead and name one.
If it's a crime for one country to do it, it's a crime for any country to do it.
Thor - I absolutely agree with Wisco. When you say Israeli civilian centers do you mean the illegal settlements in the West Bank?? What part of UN Resolution 242 is confusing...? The Israeli pullout of Gaza was the first time in awhile Israel did anything according to international law - but I guess you're waiting for all of us to start applauding your humanity, right? The more Israel stalls on a two state solution the more people like me push for a one state solution (Israel-Palestine) that is truly democratic (one man, one vote -what a concept!) No more talk of occupation - you broke it you own it my friend. Now give them the damn vote to the Knesset not some government that is stateless!
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