Israeli Apartheid and the Palestinian Question — Stephen Lendman

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A Palestinian protestor holds a banner during a demonstration on a road to Jerusalem, January 23, 2019. — AFP via Getty Images

Apartheid, occupation, and grand theft of historic Palestinian land are core Israeli policies. Supported by the West, they’re major international law breaches.

STEPHEN LENDMAN | Clarion India

Article 7 of the Rome Statute states the following:

“The ‘crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts…committed in the context of an institutionalised 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.”

Apartheid, occupation, and grand theft of historic Palestinian land are core Israeli policies.

Supported by the West, they’re major international law breaches.

Israel’s Nation-State Basic Law legitimizes Jewish supremacy over Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens — what colonization, occupation and apartheid are all about.

Israel’s version exceeds the worst of South Africa’s — including state-sponsored extermination of unwanteds, enslavement, torture, arbitrary arrests, illegal imprisonments, denial of the right to life and liberty, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and other abusive acts imposed by Jews on Arabs.

Richard Falk, earlier said “Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid in relation to the Palestine people should be taken with the utmost seriousness by all those who affirm human solidarity and care about making visible the long ordeal of a suffering and vulnerable people.”

On Thursday at the UN Security Council, Russian Deputy UN envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy said the following on the Palestinian question:

“We advocate for finding a just solution to the Palestinian problem on the basis of the ‘two-state’ principle and internationally recognized legal framework that provide for creating an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” adding:

“We are concerned over Israel’s continuing settlement activity (including) in East Jerusalem.”

“It undermines the prospects of creating a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.”

“Palestinians need assistance in responding to acute humanitarian and socio-economic problems on the occupied territories and in Gaza.”

Rhetorical support like the above is ineffective without actions against Israeli apartheid viciousness in support of fundamental Palestinian rights.

In March, B’Tselem published a report titled: “This Is Ours – And This, Too: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank,” explaining:

From inception in 1948, Israeli regimes have enforced Jewish supremacist policies over Arabs they consider inferior “in the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

Short of formally annexing the West Bank, its ruling authorities are stealing it dunam by dunam — displacing and dispossessing Palestinians from their own land while the world community yawns and does nothing to uphold the rule of law.

Over 280 Israeli settlements and outposts are on over two million dunams of stolen Palestinian land.

What’s gone on for decades “transformed the geography of the West Bank beyond recognition,” B’Tselem stressed.

Exclusive Jewish development is longstanding Israeli policy.

Dispossessed Palestinians are forced into disconnected cantons.

Recent construction and infrastructure “is proceeding on a scale not seen in decades,” said B’Tselem, adding:

“This large-scale development is designed to facilitate another significant spike in the number of settlers living in the West Bank, which settlement leaders predict will reach one million in the near future.”

In stark contrast, long-suffering Palestinians are denied their fundamental rights.

They’re “deprived of any ability to influence their own future and forced to live in disconnected, dwindling, economically suppressed enclaves.”

“They are forced to look on as they are dispossessed of more and more land, while communities and infrastructure are built (exclusively) for Jewish citizens.”

“Two decades into the 21st century, Israel appears more determined than ever to continue upholding and perpetuating an apartheid regime throughout the area under its control, well into the coming decades.”

According to the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel:

“Israel has 30 days to explain why Arab communities don’t receive development benefits enjoyed by neighboring Jewish towns,” according to an April 22 Israeli Supreme Court ruling in response to an Adalah petition to the High Court.

In response to the ruling, Adalah and the Arab Center for Alternative Planning said the following:

“Palestinian Arab communities in Israel suffer from a housing crisis, much of which is reflected in high prices and a lack of affordable housing.”

“Israeli government policy is creating a situation in which weaker Arab communities don’t receive the same benefits as their neighbors in stronger Jewish communities.”

“This order signals a recognition of serious issues relating to Israeli state criteria excluding Palestinian citizens, and we expect this reality to be similarly reflected in the Israeli Supreme Court’s final ruling.”

For the past 73 years, Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens almost never have been afforded rights affirmed under international law by Israeli regimes.

Most often, its courts rubber-stamp what legitimate tribunals never tolerate.

Whatever Israel’s Supreme Court rules on the above issue, justice for long-suffering Palestinians will continue to be denied — including by world community indifference toward them.

theclarionindia
theclarionindiahttps://clarionindia.net
Clarion India - News, Views and Insights about Indian Muslims, Dalits, Minorities, Women and Other Marginalised and Dispossessed Communities.

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