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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.addameer.org/news/4938">addameer.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Landmark Palestinian Coalition Report Launch: ‘Israeli Apartheid: Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism’</h1>
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<p><img src="https://www.addameer.org/sites/default/files/styles/scale_ima/public/upload/news/convers/Al-Haq%20Apartheid%20Coalition%20Report.jpg?itok=I4dv5bQ3" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="306">
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<p>30-11-2022
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<div><p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>On
29 November 2022, Al-Haq launched its inaugural coalition report titled:
‘Israeli Apartheid: Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism’. Together
leading Palestinian human rights organisations, Al-Haq, Addameer
Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al Mezan Center for Human
Rights (Al Mezan), the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center
(JLAC), the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue
and Democracy (MIFTAH), and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
(PCHR), explore Israel’s settler colonial and apartheid regime imposed
on the Palestinian people. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>Importantly, the report<b> </b>is
the first major Palestinian publication to expand the current
international discourse on apartheid, and importantly, examines
apartheid as a structural element of furthering Zionist settler
colonialism on both sides of the Green Line. Further, the report
illustrates the additional need to end Israel’s settler colonialism and
the fulfilment of the Palestinian right to self-determination. The
report adds clear Palestinian voices and analysis to the wider
international calls demanding an end to Israel’s apartheid regime.
Palestinian civil society demand decolonisation and dismantling of
Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid regime, the fulfilment of the
inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,
systematically denied since the British mandate, and the right of
refugees and exiles in the diaspora to return.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>This ground-breaking
apartheid report is the product of four years of research and advocacy
by the coalition of Palestinian human rights organisations. In this
time, and from the efforts of this coalition, there has been growing
acceptance of the reality that is Israel’s oppressive apartheid regime
by the international community. While Addameer is encouraged by the
growing global recognition of Israeli apartheid, we note that Zionist
settler colonialism and its eliminatory and population transfer logic
remain absent from recent analyses and reports on apartheid by Israeli
and international human rights organisations such as </span></span></span><a href="https://www.yesh-din.org/en/the-occupation-of-the-west-bank-and-the-crime-of-apartheid-legal-opinion/"><span><span><span>Yesh Din</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>, </span></span></span><a href="https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid"><span><span><span>B’Tselem</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>, </span></span></span><a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution"><span><span><span>Human Rights Watch</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>, and </span></span></span><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/"><span><span><span>Amnesty International</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>. It is this gap that the present report seeks to fill.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>This report aims to
expand on the current apartheid discourse, and push for the recognition
of the colonial practices of Israel, both past and present, and its
consistent use of settler colonial policies against the Palestinian
people, recognising the connection between the Palestinian struggle for
self-determination and the wider, global movement of indigenous
liberation against both colonialism and other associated forms of
structural and institutionalised racism.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>Since 1948, Palestinians have endured an ongoing <i>Nakba</i>
(catastrophe) of forced displacement, refugeehood, and exile; the
denial of their right to return to Palestine; and an ongoing process of
domination, foreign occupation, annexation, population transfer, and
settler colonisation. It is within this frame of both historic and
ongoing violations that Al-Haq analyses apartheid as a tool for the
wider Zionist settler colonial project, rather than in isolation from
contextual facts. The contents of the report explore all aspects of
Israel’s institutionalised racist regime, including its formational
history, before and during the start of the <i>Nakba </i>in 1948;<i> </i>the
legal basis of maintaining apartheid in Israel’s constitutional Basic
Laws, other legislation and military orders; and the importance of
delivering the long promised self-determination of the Palestinian
people.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>Among the many
conclusions from this report, a key take away is how any description of
the situation in Palestine as a ‘conflict’ ignores the reality of the
situation. The unfair power dynamic, the prolonged indefinite
occupation, the exploitive nature of this occupation, and the constant
transfer and expulsion of population with complete disregard for
international law shows Israel’s policies are more than an apartheid
regime, they amount to a colonial-settler policy in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, with the intention of uprooting and erasing the Palestinian people from their homeland.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>We stress that there
can be no solution to the situation as long as the international
community continues to ignore Israel’s systematic human rights abuses
and settler colonial apartheid regime and through it, sustain the
illegal Zionist colonial settler project at the cost of Palestinian
liberation. This report calls on the international community, the United
Nations, states and communities worldwide to act against Israel’s
settler colonial apartheid regime through a series of recommendations,
including:</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<ul><li><span><span><span><a name="_Toc120013788" id="gmail-_Toc120013788"></a><a name="_Toc119338713" id="gmail-_Toc119338713"><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>For
Third States to take steps towards completely decolonising Palestine.
This must involve the dismantlement of all structures of domination,
exploitation, and oppression and the realisation of the Palestinian
people’s inalienable rights, including to self-determination and to
return to their homes, lands, and properties;</span></span></span></a></span></span></span></li><li><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>Third States</span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>
to recognise and condemn, including through regional and international
organisations, Israel’s discriminatory laws, policies, and practices
which have cumulatively established, and continue to maintain, an
apartheid regime of systemic racial oppression and domination, over the
Palestinian people as a whole; </span></span></span></span></span></span></li><li><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>Cooperate to bring
the unlawful situation created by Israel’s settler colonial apartheid
regime to an end by implementing economic sanctions nationally and
multilaterally and by severing diplomatic, cultural, and trade ties with
Israel as required by international law and suspend existing trade and
cooperation agreements with Israel, including national and regional
agreements;</span></span></span></span></span></span></li><li><span><span><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>For Member States
of the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution to reconstitute the UN
Special Committee against Apartheid and the UN Centre against Apartheid
to address Israeli authorities’ commission of the crime against humanity
of apartheid against the Palestinian people as a whole and empower
these bodies to proactively pursue the dismantlement of Israel’s settler
colonial apartheid regime.</span></span></span></span></span></span></li><li><span><span><span><a name="_Toc120013797" id="gmail-_Toc120013797"></a><a name="_Toc119338719" id="gmail-_Toc119338719"></a><a name="_Toc95249967" id="gmail-_Toc95249967"><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>That the Office of the Prosecutor of the </span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>I</span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span><span>nternational
Criminal Court expedite the current investigation into the Situation in
Palestine without undue delay, including into war crimes and crimes
against humanity, comprising, <i>inter alia</i>, the crimes of
apartheid, population transfer, appropriation and destruction of
property, pillage, persecution, wilful killing, murder, and torture
carried out on the Palestinian territory.</span></span></span></span></span></span></li></ul>
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