Bethlehem - Ma‘an - The United Nation’s anti-racism monitoring body, the International Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), is questioning Israel on Friday about its institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), established in 1996, was one of the first human rights treaties to be adopted by the UN. It commits members, of which there are 173 state parties, including Israel, to amend or cancel national laws and policies that create or perpetuate any form of racial discrimination and aims, among other things, to promote racial equality.
A special session is taking place in Geneva in which ICERD is questioning Israel about its evasion of its international duty to report on its implementation of ICERD‘s policies. Israel ratified the convention in 1979.
Ten human rights NGOs, including Israeli, Palestinian and international organizations, have briefed ICERD on Israel‘s discriminatory practises towards its Palestinian citizens, including those under occupation. Over 20 human rights organizations also presented a joint parallel report to CERD, documenting Israel’s breaches of the antiracism treaty. The NGOs accuse Israel of institutional racism towards Palestinians, amounting to apartheid in certain aspects, and a wide range of other human rights violations.
In a press release from some of the petitioning NGOs, Joseph Schechla, coordinator of Habitat International Coalition’s Housing and Land Rights Network, characterized Israel’s Basic Laws and para-statal institutions such as the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency, and the Jewish National Fund as ‘principal agents in carrying out Israel’s material discrimination against non-Jewish citizens and long-expelled refugees who inhabited the country before the creation of the state of Israel.” He noted also that, ‘while these organizations carry out internationally prohibited population transfer as their central task, they nonetheless operate as charitable institutions in many Western countries.‘
Gareth Gleed, legal researcher at Al Haq, a human rights organization based in the occupied Palestinian territories, pointed out that ‘within the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israel’s policy of separation is inherently discriminatory and based on clear violations of international law.‘ He asserted that Israel’s occupation policies ‘serve not only to separate Palestinians from Israeli Jews, but also fragment any continuity among Palestinian areas through movement restrictions, prohibited and restricted roads, settlements, and the Annexation Wall. This wall not only annexes an additional 10% of Palestinian lands, but further separates Palestinian towns and lands, preventing the development of Palestinian communities.‘
Zaha Hassan of the National Lawyers’ Guild, a U.S. legal association founded in 1937 in part because of American Bar Associations refused African-American attorneys as members, stated that ‘almost three years ago, the International Court of Justice called upon the UN to consider further action required to bring an end the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the Annexation Wall, the settlement system and associated regime.‘ She noted also that, ‘as the situation has worsened, a former U.S. president has likening the practices in the West Bank to apartheid.‘
‘As we approach 60 years since Israel’s 1948 dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian population, Israel must be held accountable for continuously violating Palestinian refugee and internally displaced persons’ rights to reparation,‘ asserted Karine MacAllister, of the Bethlehem-based Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights.