[News] 90 NGOs call UN to recognise, address zionist settler colonialism and apartheid as root causes of Israel’s ongoing violations

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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90 NGOs call UN to recognise, address zionist settler colonialism and
apartheid as root causes of Israel’s ongoing violations
QudsN - June 28, 2022
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Occupied Palestine (QNN)- 90 Palestinian and international organisations
sent a joint submission to the United Nations Independent International
Commission of Inquiry on Palestine (CoI) “examining Zionist settler
colonialism and apartheid as the root causes of Israel’s ongoing violations
of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”

On 31 May 2022, Al-Haq and 90 Palestinian and international NGOs
<https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20219.html> sent a joint submission to the
Un’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Palestine (CoI) in
response to the unique mandate entrusted with the ongoing CoI established
in May 2021.

The CoI is the first investigating UN body to examine the underlying root
causes of systematic discrimination and repression in the entirety of
colonised Palestine; allowing for the acknowledgment that Israeli
violations in Palestine are rooted in a historical and an ongoing settler
colonial project, and for the consideration of the Palestinian people and
territory as a self-determination unit, instead of a fragmented people and
territory.

The submitting organisations acknowledge that the CoI’s unique mandate, is
mainly attributed to the Palestinian people on the ground, who, in May 2021
mobilized in a collective struggle of popular resistance, which “challenges
73 years of fragmentation, imposed by Israeli settler colonisation and
apartheid in what is known as the Unity Intifada/Uprising.”

Before delving into the Zionist settler colonial and apartheid regime as
the root causes of Israel’s ongoing violation, the submission explains the
necessity behind this framing, instead of the hegemonic narrative around
Palestine, that still portrays the situation as the “Israeli-Palestinian
conflict” which is centred ‘only’ on Israel’s occupation since 1967.

Adopting the settler colonialism and apartheid framework allows for
consideration of the plight of the Palestinian people in its entirety.

This shifts the discourse from a focus on so-called political solutions to
a struggle for self-determination, aimed at dismantling Israel’s regime of
settler colonialism, rather than seeking “reforms” to living conditions
under the reign of Zionism, or “liberal equality”.

The joint submission then delves into the history of the Zionist settler
colonial movement, in order to understand the Israeli settler state as a
product of this movement.

The submission addresses the Zionist movement’s emergence by the end of the
19th century, and how the Movement adopted the combined ideologies of
racialist self-identification of persons of Jewish faith and settler
colonialism, which involves the elimination of the indigenous people and
the annexation of their lands to the benefit of the newly constructed
colonising racial group.

The organisations outline how the Zionist movement used a proto-state
apparatus, and colluded with imperial powers “to create for the Jewish
people a home in Palestine secured by public law.”

The submission outlines Britain’s illegal role in facilitating Zionist
colonisation in Palestine, in violation of the Legal of Nations Covenant,
which provides for the provisional recognition of the Palestinian people
independence, and their right to self-determination, and in violation of
the Mandatory Power’s obligation to administer the territory in the
interest of the indigenous Palestinian people.

Furthermore, the submission examines the planning for the transfer and
replacement of the Palestinian people before the Nakba by the Zionist
settler colonial movement, by examining ‘Plan Dalet’ and its implementation
which led to the destruction of at least 531 Palestinian villages and the
expulsion of their indigenous population, which rendered 80 percent of the
Palestinian people refugees and internally displaced within their own
country.[1] As such, the establishment of the State of Israel on 77 percent
of Palestine was the culmination of the Zionist settler colonial movement
but not its end.

The Israeli settler colonial state adopted the Zionist ideology of
transferring and replacing the indigenous Palestinian people, and
established an institutionalized a regime of Jewish racial domination and
oppression over the Palestinian people, amounting to the crime of apartheid.

The submission then delves into Israel’s apartheid regime, by examining the
series of laws and policies Israel has developed since its establishment,
particularly in the domains of land, planning and zoning, nationality,
residency, and immigration, clearly dividing between the indigenous
Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis, in order to legalize and legitimize
crimes committed before the Nakba, and ensure the continuation of
displacement and dispossession.

The submission explains how these apartheid policies and plans continue
after the belligerent occupation, to maintain the domination and
Palestinian subjugation on both sides of the “Green Line.”

The submission then examines Israel’s strategic fragmentation of the
Palestinian people as a tool to consolidate its apartheid regime, through
the denial of Palestinian refugee their right to return, the imposition of
freedom of movement, residency, and access restrictions, and the denial of
family life. The submission explores Israel’s intention to maintain its
apartheid regime by suppressing Palestinian resistance through its military
rule, wilful killing, suppression of demonstrations, arbitrary detention,
torture and other ill-treatment, and collective punishment, as well as
smear campaigns against groups, and human rights defenders, seeking to
challenge its apartheid regime.

In conclusion, the organisations address Israel’s impunity and the role of
the international community in enabling the colonisation of Palestine. The
organisations commend the CoI as a promising opportunity toward the
acknowledgement of the situation in colonised Palestine as is and to work
toward decolonisation, genuine justice and reparations for the Palestinian
people.

Among the endorsing organisations are Addameer Prisoner Support and Human
Rights Association, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Al-Awda, the
Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the
Middle East (CJPME), and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
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