Human Rights Watch Condemns Israeli ‘Apartheid’

May 9, 2021 (EIRNS)—Human Rights Watch, a New York-based NGO, has issued a report of over 200 pages, titled, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” The report explains that Israel has the

“intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, the intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.”

Although White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated that “as to the question of whether Israel’s actions constitute apartheid, that is not the view of the administration,” leaders of the South African liberation movement have told a different story.

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,” said then-South African President Nelson Mandela in 1997. Archbishop Demond Tutu was quoted by Israeli daily Ha’aretz in 2014, that “Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation.” He also explained his support for the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement:

“I have witnessed the systematic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces.... Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government.”

Along with the barbaric persecution of Julian Assange, the issue of objecting to Israeli policy is an important force for censorship. Some U.S. states have passed laws requiring contractors and state employees to state that they will not support the BDS movement—as clear a violation of someone’s free speech rights as can be imagined. Cornel West, who had previously held tenure at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, was recently blocked from a tenured job at Harvard. He explained why he believes this occurred: “Being the faculty advisor for the Palestinian student group was the one that probably went outside the line for many Harvard staff.”