Another Group Recognized ‘Israel’s’ Palestinian Apartheid. How Will The World React?
By Mariam Barghouti | WP
Last week, I found myself with a group of friends hiding from the chill of Ramallah, West Bank, to discuss Amnesty International’s recent report designating ‘Israel’ an apartheid regime. And even though we welcomed it, we couldn’t hide our frustration.
With the release of a 278-page report compiled over a period of four years, Amnesty joined Human Rights Watch and the ‘Israeli’ rights group B’Tselem in laying out how ‘Israel’ is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians.
‘Israeli’ representatives — after failing to stop Amnesty from publishing the report — were quick to denounce it, calling it radical and ‘anti-Semitic.’ Commentators, meanwhile, applauded the “groundbreaking” reports, calling this moment a “reckoning.”
The fact is that Palestinians have painstakingly documented the reality of apartheid for the past seven decades. Our voices shouldn’t require validation from international organizations. Yet it’s still sobering to see these organizations receiving the same attacks that Palestinians often get for speaking the truth.
The Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports detail four major pillars of ‘Israeli’ apartheid across the whole of Palestine and Palestinians: intent to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people; fragmentation into domains of control; segregation and control; and dispossession of land and property.
However, Amnesty makes the distinction of saying that apartheid and domination include Palestinians across the entirety of historic Palestine. This is a step in the right direction, given that human rights groups have often focused on ‘Israeli’ discriminatory practices only in the West Bank and Gaza.
For too long the media, politicians and, yes, even human rights organizations have ignored the deep essence of apartheid. This isn’t just about the intentional discrimination between non-Jewish Palestinians and Jewish ‘Israelis’. The settler-colonialist practices of ‘Israeli’ abuse and apartheid vary across the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem [al-Quds], historic Palestine and the diaspora, and have fractured the collective Palestinian experience.
The findings of human rights organizations are not just mere accusations and allegations; they outline ‘Israeli’ apartheid practices through concrete evidence. But why are these organizations doing work that should be carried out by the International Criminal Court?
For too long ‘Israel’ has been able to avoid deep scrutiny over its practices of systemic repression. But the campaign to discredit and vilify is intensifying. Rights groups are being targeted and labeled terrorist organizations.
But there are other, perhaps less obvious ways in which ‘Israel’ distracts from its abuses. The fact that rights groups are now echoing each other, for instance, traps us all in a debate loop, protracting the necessary legal actions. Another strategic approach is the way ‘Israel’ weaponizes charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ to manipulate and gaslight.
An ‘Israeli’ ambassador to the United Nations once accused the international body of colluding with “supporters of terror” for addressing ‘Israel’s’ military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The baseless attacks would be tragically comical if they didn’t pose a serious obstruction to our pursuit of dignity and freedom. One day ‘Israel’ supporters are calling movie stars and ice cream companies ‘anti-Semitic’ over social media, the next they’re trying to shut down debate with “What about Hamas?” or the paternalistic “Palestinian leadership is the real problem for Palestinians, not ‘Israel’.” They falsely conflate confronting ‘Israeli’ repression as attacking the right of Jewish people to exist.
But now, some are seeing the reality that Palestinians have decried for decades. ‘Israel’, for its part, seems more intent on attacking the apartheid label than doing anything to actually dismantle its apartheid regime.
