UNHRC Report Accuses ‘Israeli’ Entity of Apartheid

By Staff, Agencies

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the ‘Israeli’-occupied Palestinian territories submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council [UNHRC], in which he concluded that the situation in the occupied territories amounts to apartheid.

In a 19-page report submitted to the body on Tuesday, Michael Lynk said ‘Israelis’ and Palestinians lived "under a single regime which differentiates its distribution of rights and benefits on the basis of national and ethnic identity, and which ensures the supremacy of one group over, and to the detriment of, the other."

"The political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule… satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid," he added.

Lynk said that while the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories differed from that experienced in South Africa, it still amounted to apartheid.

Apartheid is a legal term defined by international law that refers to systematic oppression by one racial group over another.

"There are pitiless features of ‘Israel's’ 'apartness' rule in the occupied Palestinian territory that were not practiced in southern Africa, such as segregated highways, high walls and extensive checkpoints, a barricaded population, missile strikes and tank shelling of a civilian population, and the abandonment of the Palestinians' social welfare to the international community.

"With the eyes of the international community wide open, ‘Israel’ has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world."

Lynk is slated to formally release his report on Thursday ahead of a debate on Agenda Item Seven, the permanent UNHRC item reserved for ‘Israeli’ human rights abuses against Palestinians and other Arabs.

In the report, the Canadian academic argued that ‘Israel’ was pursuing a strategy of "strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian territory into separate areas of population control, with Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem [al-Quds] physically divided from one another."

‘Israel’ uses Gaza, Lynk said, for the "indefinite warehousing of an unwanted population of two million Palestinians."

The issuing of thousands of work permits for Palestinian laborers in the West Bank and Gaza to work in the occupied territories amounts to the "exploitation of labor of a racial group," the report said.

Last month, Amnesty International labelled ‘Israel’ an apartheid entity, becoming the latest organization to join a cadre of human rights groups that have used the term to describe the ‘Israeli’ treatment of Palestinians.

Despite the increasing number of rights groups labelling Zionist policies as amounting to apartheid, the United States and the occupation regime’s other western allies have refrained from making any such declarations.