Israel Owns the UN as well as the US
In his book Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid published 11 years ago, President Jimmy Carter raised the
question whether Israel had stolen Palestine and excluded the rightful
residents from their homeland.
On March 15 UN
Under-Secretary General and director of the UN’s West Asia Commission Rima
Khalaf published a UN report that also concludes that “Israel is committing the
crime of apartheid.” By Friday March 17, Israel’s puppets, UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, had forced
Under-Secretary General Khalaf to resign.
The report won’t be up
long. Read it while you can before it is taken down:
15
MARCH
2017
Beirut, Lebanon
United Nations Under-Secretary-General
and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western
Asia (ESCWA) Rima Khalaf pointed out today that it is not an easy matter for a
United Nations entity to conclude that a State has established an apartheid regime.
In recent years, some have labelled Israeli practices as racist, while others
have warned that Israel risks becoming an apartheid State. A few have raised
the question as to whether in fact it already has.
Khalaf’s remarks were
given during a press conference held this afternoon at the UN House, in Beirut,
when she launched a report by ESCWA on “Israeli Practices towards the
Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid.”
Khalaf noted that Israel,
encouraged by the international community’s disregard for its continual
violations of international law, has succeeded over the past decades in
imposing and maintaining an apartheid regime that works on two levels. First,
the political and geographic fragmentation of the Palestinian people which
enfeebles their capacity for resistance and makes it almost impossible for them
to change the reality on the ground. Secondly, the oppression of all
Palestinians through an array of laws, policies and practices that ensure
domination of them by a racial group and serve to maintain the regime.
The Executive Secretary
stressed that the importance of this report is not limited to the fact that it
is the first of its kind published by a United Nations body, clearly concluding
that Israel is a racial State that has established an apartheid regime. It also
provides fresh insight into the cause of the Palestinian people and into how to
achieve peace.
Khalaf maintained that
the report shows that there can be no solution, be it in the form of two
States, or following any other regional or international approach, as long as
the apartheid regime imposed by Israel on the Palestinian people as a whole has
not been dismantled. Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Not only does
international law prohibit that crime, it obliges States and international
bodies, and even individuals and private institutions, to take measures to
combat it wherever it is committed and to punish its perpetrators. The solution
therefore lies in implementing international law, applying the principles of non-discrimination,
upholding the right of peoples to self-determination and achieving justice.
Khalaf concluded that the
report recognizes that only a ruling by an international tribunal would lend
its conclusion that Israel is an apartheid State greater authority. It
recommends the revival of the United Nations Centre against Apartheid and the
Special Committee against Apartheid, the work of both of which came to an end
by 1994, when the world believed that it had rid itself of apartheid with its
demise in South Africa. It also calls on States, Governments and institutions
to support boycott, divestment and sanctions initiatives and other activities
aimed at ending the Israeli regime of apartheid.
The report was prepared,
at the request of ESCWA, by two specialists renowned for their expertise in the
field: Richard Falk, a former United Nations special rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University; and
Virginia Tilley, a researcher and professor of political science at Southern
Illinois University with a wealth of experience in Israeli policy analysis.
Two former special
rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory,
Falk and his predecessor, John Dugard, raised in their reports the issue of
whether Israel has actually become an apartheid State and recommended that it
be examined more closely. About two years ago, member States requested that the
ESCWA secretariat prepare a study on the matter. At the Commission’s
twenty-ninth session, held in Doha, Qatar in December 2016, member States
adopted a resolution stressing the need to complete the study and disseminate
it widely.
The report concludes, on
the basis of scholarly enquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel has
imposed a regime of apartheid on the Palestinian people as a whole, wherever
they may be. A regime that affects Palestinians in Israel itself, in the
territory occupied in 1967 and in the diaspora.
During the press
conference, Khalaf gave the floor to Falk and Tilley who participated by video
conference. Falk said that this study concludes with clarity and conviction
that Israel is guilty of the international crime of apartheid as a result of
the manner in which exerts control over the Palestinian people in their varying
circumstances. It reached this important conclusion by treating contentions of
Israeli responsibility for the crime of apartheid by rigorously applying the
definition of apartheid under international law.
Falk added that the study
calls, above all, on the various bodies of the United Nations to consider the
analysis and conclusions of this study, and on that basis endorse the central
finding of apartheid, and further explore what practical measures might be
taken to uphold the purpose of the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment
of the Crime of Apartheid. It should also be appreciated that apartheid is a
crime of the greatest magnitude, treated by customary international law as
peremptory norm, that is a legal standard that is unconditionally valid,
applies universally, and cannot be disavowed by governments or international
institutions.
For her part, Dr Tilley
noted that it has become entirely clear that “we are no longer talking about
risk of apartheid but practice of apartheid. There is an urgency for a response
as Palestinians are currently suffering from this regime. There are many references
to apartheid in polemics on the Israel-Palestine conflict.” She added that
reference for a finding of apartheid in Israel-Palestine is not South Africa
but International Law. She concluded that the key finding is that Israel has
designed its apartheid regime around a strategic fragmentation of the
Palestinian people geographically and legally.
*****
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