Joint oral intervention Item 7 – ID with Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 24 March 2022 Delivered by: Elizabeth Rghebi….
- Joint oral intervention
- Item 7 – ID with Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
- 24 March 2022
- Delivered by: Elizabeth Rghebi (video 01:18:54)
Our organizations welcome the historic report by the Special Rapporteur, which concludes that Israeli authorities are committing the crime of apartheid. His conclusion should serve as a wakeup call for governments throughout the world.
The Rapporteur’s study of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967 reflects the larger reality of Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole. Since 1948, Israel has established and maintained an apartheid regime over the Palestinian people regardless of their geographic location, including Palestinian refugees denied their right of return to their homes, lands, and properties.
Double standards on this matter, including those propagated by Europe and the United States, severely undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of international human rights and humanitarian legal standards.
For 73 years, the international community has enabled Israeli impunity and failed to hold Israeli perpetrators accountable for serious crimes against Palestinians. Accountability is long overdue.
With the start of the Nakba in 1948, 85% of the Palestinian people became refugees and internally displaced. The newly established State of Israel in historic Palestine installed a legal regime to institutionalize the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people. Following the military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip since 1967, Israel extended and operationalized its apartheid system in the oPt.
To maintain its apartheid regime, Israel resorts to a wide range of repressive policies to subjugate and control Palestinians, including arbitrary detention, excessive use of force, torture, collective punishment, persecution of human rights defenders and organizations, and structural violence preventing Palestinians’ full enjoyment of their human rights, amounting to inhuman acts of apartheid.
The Rapporteur identified the strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people as a “central strategy” of Israeli apartheid. By dividing the Palestinian people into, at least, four separate geographic, legal, and political categories, Israel ensures that Palestinians cannot meet, group, live together, or exercise any collective rights, particularly their right to self-determination.
We reiterate the need for effective measures to dismantle Israeli apartheid, as put forward by the Special Rapporteur and civil society, including for UN member states to recognize Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people, the reconstitution of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid, the ratification and/or implementation of the Convention against Apartheid and accountability at the International Criminal Court and in the courts of third states.
It is time to act to adopt effective measures, including sanctions, to end Israeli apartheid.
Signatories
- 11.11.11
- Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
- Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights
- Alfoukhary association for rural development
- Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man
- Artists for Palestine UK
- Asociación Paz con Dignidad
- Association Belgo-Palestinienne WB
- Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)
- Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS)
- Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates
- Australia Palestine Advocacy Network
- Australians for Palestine
- Baytna
- Belgian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (BACBI)
- Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Australia (BDS Australia)
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
- Canada Palestine Association
- Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)
- Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy
- CNCD-11.11.11
- Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine (Sydney)
- Comité pour une Paix juste au Proche-Orient, Luxembourg
- Defence for Children International
- Defender Center for Human Rights
- Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
- docP – BDS Netherlands
- ECCP – European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
- Episcopal Peace Fellowship
- Episcopal Peace Fellowship – Palestine Israel Network
- European Trade Union Network for Justice in Palestine
- Fagforbundet
- Fares Al-Arab for Development and Charity Works
- FILEF – Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and their Families – Australia
- France Palestine Mental Health Network
- Friends of Hebron Sydney
- Friends of Sabeel North America
- Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
- Housing and Land Rights Network – Habitat International Coalition
- Human Rights and democratic participation Center “SHAMS”
- ICAHD UK (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions)
- International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR)
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- International Human Rights Network
- International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
- International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW AP)
- Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- Irish Congress of Trade Unions
- Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
- Justice for Palestinians, Calgary
- Justitia Center for legal protection or Human Rights in Algeria
- Kairos Sabeel Netherlands
- Kenya Human Rights Commission
- MADRE
- Makan
- Mwatana for Human Rights
- Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI)
- North Bronx Racial Justice
- Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
- Odhikar
- PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Cape Town
- Palestinian Assembly for Liberation
- Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
- Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP)
- Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)
- Palestinian Land Defense Coalition
- Sadaka-the Ireland Palestine Alliance
- Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
- Scottish Friends of Palestine
- Scottish Palestinian Forum
- Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine
- Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- South African BDS Coalition
- Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
- The Association of Norwegian NGOs for Palestine
- The Canadian BDS Coalition
- The Community Action Center / Al Quds University
- The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy
- The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy – MIFTAH
- The Southwest Coalition for Palestine
- Trócaire
- Union syndicale Solidaires
- UNITED NETWORK FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE IN PALESTINE/ISRAEL
- Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights
- Visualizing Impact
- WESPAC Foundation
- Women in Black Vienna
- Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC)
- Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)