UN Report Accuses Israel of Practicing Apartheid Against Palestinians

March 16, 2017

by: Ilse Posselt

Thursday, 16 March 2017 | Reverend Doctor Kenneth Meshoe understands apartheid. As a black man born in apartheid South Africa, the President of South Africa’s African Christian Democratic Party did, after all, suffer the full extent of the system aimed at subjugation and oppression for nearly 40 years. Today, Meshoe uses that personal experience to refute claims that the Jewish state ascribes to the same system.

“There is a widespread allegation, really a slander, that Israel is an apartheid state,” Meshoe told Israel’s Channel 10 television news during a 2015 visit to the Jewish state. “Those who know what real apartheid is, as I know, know that there is nothing in Israel that looks like apartheid.”

In fact, according to Meshoe, “Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.”

Yesterday, an agency within the United Nations (UN) charged Israel with imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people. According to the report entitled “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), “Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”

Commenting on the report, UN Under Secretary and Executive Secretary of the ESCWA Rima Khalaf said that it was the “first of its type” published by a body within the UN. She added that the report “clearly and frankly concludes that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.”

Khalaf, a Jordanian national, is one year younger than Meshoe. Yet unlike Meshoe, she has never lived under the South African apartheid regime and does, in fact, have no personal experience of this specific system of subjugation and oppression.

The ESCWA comprises 18 Arab states. According to Khalaf, the member states requested the compilation of the report. The body claims that the findings are based on “scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.” The ESCWA conceded, however, that only the ruling of an international tribunal could establish such a finding as “truly authoritative.”

Both Israel and the United States spoke out strongly against the report and its findings. In fact, The New York Times speculated that the document is set to exacerbate the already tense ties between the UN and the US. The Secretary General of the UN António Guterres was also quick to distance himself from the report. Moreover, UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters yesterday that the document was released without consulting the UN secretariat. “The report as it stands does not reflect the views of the secretary-general (Antonio Guterres),” Dujarric said.

A spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Ministry hailed the report as on the same level as Der Sturmer, a Nazi propaganda publication known for its blatant anti-Semitic content. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, slammed the report as an “attempt to sear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy.” He labeled the attempt as “despicable” and “a blatant lie.”

“It comes as no surprise that an organization headed by an individual who has called for boycotts against Israel and compared our democracy to the most terrible regimes of the twentieth century would publish such a report,” Danon continued. “We call on the Secretary General to disassociate the UN from this biased and deceitful report.”

For its part, the US also expressed strong sentiments against the report. “The United States is outraged by the report,” US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a statement. “The UN secretariat was right to distance itself from this report, but it must go further and withdraw the report altogether.”

“That such anti-Israel propaganda would come from a body whose membership nearly universally does not recognize Israel is unsurprising,” Haley continued.

The infamous document has two authors. The first is Virginia Tilley, an American political scientist and author of the book, “The One-state Solution.” The second is Richard Falk, a Princeton professor emeritus known for his vehement and outspoken anti-Israel stance. According to Haley, Falk is “a man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories.”

Posted on March 16, 2017

Source: (Bridges for Peace, 16 March 2017)

Photo Credit: Spiff/ Wikipedia