Time’s up, Israel

The renowned Israeli human rights organization, Yesh Din (There is a Law), released a landmark legal opinion titled, The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion. This was written by Adv Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading legal minds specializing in international human rights law and the laws of war. The opinion is damning for Israel.

“The conclusion of this legal opinion is that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank. The perpetrators are Israelis, and the victims are Palestinians.” The report further states that this is the case with or without another round of Israeli annexation, or as Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Gantz, and Ambassador Danon like to call it, “applying sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.” Call it what you may because it is all illegal.

But that’s not all. Annexation does play a role; the opinion notes that “Continued creeping legal annexation, let alone official annexation of a particular part of the West Bank through legislation that would apply Israeli law and administration there, is an amalgamation of the regimes. This could mean strengthening the argument, which already is being heard, that the crime of Apartheid is not committed only in the West Bank. That the Israeli regime in its entirety is an apartheid regime. That Israel is an Apartheid state. ”

You read that correctly. Israel has gone from attacking former US President Jimmy Carter for using the “A” word in the title of his 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, to having to deal with an Israeli organization making the legal case that the entire state may be an Apartheid state.

Israelis should take note. Yesh Din is not a newcomer to this issue. Neither are the many other Israeli human rights organizations that have been exposing reality for what it is for years. Organizations such as B’Tselem, Gisha, HaMoked (Center for the Defence of the Individual), Physicians for Human Rights (Israel), Rabbis for Human Rights, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), Shovrim Shtika (Breaking the Silence), Who Profits?, and Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit), among many others.

The timer ticks faster and faster.

The above-broken taboos have awakened many Jews around the world. But anyone who missed out on the last three decades of facts being made on the ground, by gunships and bulldozers displaying the 'Star of David', would have found a summary of what was to come in a report released at the end of last year. Read on.

One of the most important organs of the UN is The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). This entity comprises a body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its State parties.

Excerpted from: 'Time’s Up Israel: Get Your Knee Off Palestine’s neck'.

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