Israel and The Apartheid Analogy - Crime of Apartheid and Israel

Crime of Apartheid and Israel

In 1973 the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group ... over another racial group ... and systematically oppressing them." In 2002 the crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."

In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard stated that "elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law" and suggested that the "legal consequences of a prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid" be put to the International Court of Justice. In 2009 South Africa's statutory research agency the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) published a report stating that "the State of Israel exercises control in the with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid." The report was written by a team of international law experts and scholars and does not represent an official position of the HSRC. In 2010 United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard A. Falk reported that criminal apartheid features of the Israeli occupation had been entrenched in the three years since the report of his predecessor, John Dugard. In March 2011, Falk said, "The continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians is creating an intolerable situation ... can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing."

The question of whether Israelis and Palestinians can be said to constitute "racial groups" has been a point of contention in regard to the applicability of the ICSPCA and Article 7 of the Rome Statute. Political writer Ronald Bruce St John has argued that in regards to the ICSPCA Israeli policy in the West Bank cannot technically be defined as apartheid, because it lacks the racial component. However he then states that with the 2002 introduction of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "the emphasis shifts to an identifiable national, ethnic or cultural group, as opposed to a racial group," in which case "Israeli policy in the West Bank clearly constitutes a form of apartheid with an effect on the Palestinian people much the same as apartheid had on the non-White population in South Africa." The HSRC's 2009 report states that in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jewish and Palestinian identities are "socially constructed as groups distinguished by ancestry or descent as well as nationality, ethnicity, and religion." On this basis, the study concludes that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can be considered "racial groups" for the purposes of the definition of apartheid in international law.

Activists for Palestinian rights have accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid. For example, in 2006, at the UN-sponsored International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People, Phyllis Bennis, co-chair of the International Coordinating Network on Palestine, alleged that the crime of apartheid is being committed by Israel. Likewise, Zahir Kolliah of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid has argued that the indigenous Palestinian population lives under an apartheid regime settler colony as described by the ICSPCA.

In contrast, according to South African former constitutional Judge Richard Goldstone, the situation in Israel does not conform to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute. As examples, Godstone pointed to the facts that Israeli Arabs vote, have political representation in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on the Israeli Supreme Court, and that Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment. According to Goldstone, in Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal, and inequities are often successfully challenged in court.