The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD) is observed annually on the day in 1960 when police in Sharpeville, South Africa, killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid. Today, Palestinians struggle against Israel’s apartheid, while civic space continues to shrink for activists, defenders and human rights organizations alike. Despite the concerted campaign of smears and attacks, a consensus voice continues to grow that condemns Israel’s system of racial discrimination as an apartheid regime against all Palestinians—on both sides of the Green Line, including in Gaza, and in the diaspora. Recently, a swell of Israeli and international organizations, as well as other members of the international community, have joined calls to combat the Israeli authorities’ commission of this crime.

According to Al Mezan’s recent report, The Gaza Bantustan – Israeli Apartheid in the Gaza Strip, Israel imposes this regime over Palestinians in Gaza through its 14-year closure and associated punitive measures that allow the State to maintain effective control over the Strip in furtherance of its domination of all Palestinians. Al Mezan’s monitoring on the ground demonstrates the Israel authorities continued perpetration of numerous inhuman acts: in May 2021, the Israeli military launched an offensive on Gaza that was characterized by direct and disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilian homes; in the past six months, Israel’s military continued to use excessive force, injuring seven fishermen and four farmers; in the same period, Israeli authorities maintained their arbitrary arrest practices, detaining 16 fishermen and 23 others in the access restricted area; and Israel continued its unrelenting restrictions on the movement of people and goods, imposing unlivable conditions on Gaza’s population and separating them from the rest of Palestine and the outside world.

Efforts to challenge these human rights violations and others are met with a concerted campaign by Israel and its associated actors to smear, silence and undermine critical voices. At the start of the ongoing 49^th UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, the High Commissioner for Human Rights called this a “long-standing series of actions by Israel to silence human rights defenders and civil society organizations speaking up for human rights of Palestinians and shrink the space in which they operate”.[1] Al Mezan highlighted that Israel’s recent ‘terror’ designation of six Palestinian organizations—based on undisclosed ‘secret evidence’ and without due process—is a flagrant example of these reprisals.

At the Council, Al Mezan, with Palestinian and international organizations, emphasized the human rights violations that are serving Israel’s regime of racial discrimination. In a statement to the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, the organizations highlighted “the scale of housing discrimination across historic Palestine, where Israel’s systemic apartheid remains institutionalized in its government and parastatal bodies affecting housing and spatial reality.” Another joint statement recognizes “transnational corporations and business enterprises’ […] contributive role in the furtherance of colonization,” a development requiring “effective accountability mechanisms that strengthen international law within the private sector”.[2]

South Africa called on “Israel to halt its Apartheid style discriminatory land occupation and annexation policy of the Palestinian territory [and] to prosecute those responsible for violations of human rights against Palestinians”, while Malaysia clarified that Israel’s “oppressive and inhumane acts, which include the imposition of harsh conditions and large-scale land and property confiscation, are comparable to the crimes of apartheid.” Meanwhile, Pakistan took the floor on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to state that “Israel’s laws, policies and practices have enabled the establishment and maintenance of an apartheid regime” and Indonesia “strongly condemned Israel’s continued practice of inhumane and apartheid policies”.[3]

The State of Palestine clarified to the Council that the occupation of Palestine is “colonial and settler” in nature. Notably, Al Mezan’s analysis highlights that from the beginning of the twentieth century, Zionist colonialist ideology began to lay the groundwork for the system of discrimination and racial domination of the Palestinian people that would later be formalized through the State of Israel and recognized as apartheid today.

As Al Mezan marks IDERD this year under the banner “Voices for Action Against Racism”, the Center recognizes the growing, instrumental work of human rights defenders, organizations and states to combat Israel’s apartheid, and calls on the rest of the international community and UN Member States to act against racism by also recognizing and condemning Israel’s regime of institutional discrimination, oppression, and apartheid against the Palestinian people. On IDERD, Al Mezan recalls that the instruments of Israel’s apartheid derive from its ongoing settler colonial project, and calls for freedom, justice and dignity for the Palestinian people.

[1] A_HRC_49_25, para 35

[2] Oral statements delivered within the forum of the Human Rights Council are available on the United Nations' Extranet at this link: https://hrcmeetings.ohchr.org/HRCSessions/RegularSessions/49session/Pages/default.aspx

[3] Ibid