Apartheid

Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University, says limiting academic freedom keeps students from becoming engaged citizens. (AP/Donald Stampfli)
Two British universities cancelled talks by international law professor Richard Falk this week after he co-authored a UN-commissioned report that concluded Israel is an “apartheid state”.
A Falk presentation at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) faced disruptive protests on Monday.

March 21 was the 57th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre that was carried out by the South African apartheid regime against protesting Africans in 1960. This protest was organized by the liberation organization, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It targeted the pass law of the settler-colonial regime that regulated the movement and residential pattern of the indigenous Africans.

A Palestinian child looks at Israeli soldiers patrolling in the West Bank city of Hebron, Monday, Sept. 23, 2013. (AP/Nasser Shiyoukhi)
A United Nations rights expert issued a scathing report criticizing Israel’s policies Monday, just a few days after the world body withdrew a report that accused Israel of “apartheid” against Palestinians after U.S. and Israeli pressure.

[Prefatory Note: Below is the text of a report co-authored by Virginia Tilley and myself, commissioned by the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) that examines the argument for regarding Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ with respect to the whole of the Palestinian people, that is, not only those Palestinians living under occupation, but also those living as residents of Jerusalem, those living as a minority in Israel, and those enduring refugee camps and involuntary exile.

(ANTIMEDIA) A U.N. report published this week accused Israel of imposing an “apartheid regime” of racial discrimination on the Palestinian people. Shortly after its release, the official who approved its publication resigned amid pressure to pull it, and the report has since been withdrawn.

A new United Nations report accuses Israel of having established “an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole”.
The publication comes amid renewed debate about whether, through its settlement policy and rejection of Palestinian self-determination, the Israeli government is creating – or even has already created – a de facto “one-state”, which critics warn would constitute a form of apartheid.
It urged governments to “support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives”.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, center right, walks up stairs during his meeting with Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, in Jerusalem Wednesday, March 8, 2017. (Ronen Zvulun/AP)
(REPORT) — Israel has to choose between a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or an “apartheid system”, the British foreign secretary told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Boris Johnson made a quick 24-hour visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories on Wednesday in which he met politicians and figures from both sides of the conflict.

21st Century Wire says…
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned yesterday that the alternative to an Israel-Palestine two state solution is a ‘apartheid system’, whilst stressing “rock like” support for Israel. In a stop over visit to Israel, including the West Bank, Johnson said, “What we are saying is that you have to have a two-state solution or else you have a kind of apartheid system,” 

(REPORT) — Israeli TV host, comedian and comedy writer Assaf Harel used the final episode of his show “Good Night with Assaf Harel” on Wednesday night to draw attention to the stark differences in living standards in Israel, and to denounce the treatment of Palestinians.
In a scathing indictment of Israeli society, broadcast on the national station Channel 10, Harel told viewers: “Apartheid has been here for ages. Ages.”
However, he said, Israelis have not taken action against it because they are on the “good” side of the divide.

An Israeli border police officer stands as Palestinian women wait to cross the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, June 17, 2015. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
(ANALYSIS) — Forty years after the publication of the Koenig Memo (or Koenig Document), a new look at this historic paper is necessary to answer a key question: is it the foundation for designating Israel as an apartheid regime in accordance with international law?