{"id":204506,"date":"2022-02-14T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=204506"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:05","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:05","slug":"can-israel-stop-the-world-from-saying-apartheid-concealing-the-suffering-in-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/02\/can-israel-stop-the-world-from-saying-apartheid-concealing-the-suffering-in-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Israel Stop the World from Saying \u2018Apartheid\u2019? Concealing the Suffering in Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

2 Feb 2022 – <\/em>On 27 January, the Hebrew-language news site Walla published<\/a> part of the text from a telegram sent by Amir Weissbrod\u2014who is part of the Israeli Foreign Ministry\u2014to Israeli embassies around the world. The telegram warned the Israeli diplomats that in the upcoming 49th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is expected to begin<\/a> on February 28, a report will be tabled regarding Israel\u2019s 2021 bombing<\/a> of Gaza. This report will apparently use the word<\/a> \u201capartheid\u201d to refer to Israel\u2019s occupation of the Palestinians, according to the telegram.<\/p>\n

Weissbrod relayed Tel Aviv\u2019s instructions regarding the report prepared by a UNHRC-appointed committee to the Israeli diplomats through this telegram<\/a>: \u201cThe main goal [for Israel] is to delegitimize the committee, its members and products\u201d and \u201cTo prevent or delay further decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a four year investigation, on February 1, 2022, Amnesty International released a 280-page report<\/a> with a sharp headline, \u201cIsrael\u2019s Apartheid Against Palestinians.\u201d Amnesty \u201cconcluded that Israel has perpetrated the international wrong of apartheid, as a human rights violation and a violation of public international law wherever it imposes this system. It has assessed that almost all of Israel\u2019s civilian administration and military authorities, as well as governmental and quasigovernmental institutions, are involved in the enforcement of the system of apartheid against Palestinians across Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory] and against Palestinian refugees and their descendants outside the territory.\u201d Amnesty further said that these acts \u201camount to the crime against humanity of apartheid under both the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute.\u201d Israel\u2019s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid retaliated<\/a> by accusing Amnesty of quoting \u201clies shared by terrorist organizations.\u201d As if on cue, Israel\u2019s government accused<\/a> Amnesty of anti-Semitism. The Amnesty report will provide key material for the UNHRC investigation.<\/p>\n

One of the immediate issues that will be the focus<\/a> of attention for the UNHRC session is Israel\u2019s Operation Guardian of the Walls<\/a> against the Palestinians in Gaza in May 2021. According to a July 2021 report<\/a> by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which looked at three Israeli strikes that were part of the operation \u201cthat killed 62 Palestinians,\u201d there were \u201cno evident military targets in the vicinity.\u201d In its report<\/a>, HRW used the term \u201cwar crimes\u201d to describe attacks by \u201cIsraeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.\u201d When the firing stopped after 11 days<\/a>, the UNHRC passed<\/a> a resolution in late May 2021 to establish an \u201congoing independent, international commission of inquiry\u201d to investigate various crimes in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel. Navi Pillay, the former<\/a> UN high commissioner for human rights and a former South African judge, was appointed<\/a> to chair the three-person commission, which also included Miloon Kothari, an Indian architect; and Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer. The commission is expected to present its first report<\/a> to the UNHRC in June.<\/p>\n

The commission chaired by Pillay is the ninth<\/a> commission established by the UNHRC to investigate Israeli actions against the Palestinians. It has a very broad mandate<\/a> that includes to study violations of international humanitarian law, according to the \u201cfour Geneva Conventions of 1949,\u201d which both Israel and Palestine are party to, and to continue to investigate these crimes into the future. It is widely expected that Pillay\u2019s report will use the word \u201capartheid\u201d to define Israeli policy in the OPT. This would not be the first time that a United Nations report has used this term to define Israeli actions against the Palestinians. In 2017, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) released<\/a> a report prepared by Richard Falk, \u201ca former United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,\u201d and Virginia Tilley, \u201ca researcher and professor of political science at Southern Illinois University.\u201d The report defined<\/a> Israeli policy against the Palestinians as \u201capartheid\u201d as understood under international law (in his 2014 report<\/a>, Falk had already used the term \u201capartheid\u201d). The release of that 2017 report led to the resignation<\/a> of ESCWA head Rima Khalaf, a distinguished Jordanian diplomat, after she faced \u201cpressure from the [UN] secretary-general to withdraw the report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hasbara 2.0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2006, the Israeli government set up<\/a> a Ministry of Strategic Affairs to essentially run two campaigns, one against Iran and the other against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement<\/a>. This hasbara<\/em> (explaining or, more specifically, propaganda) ministry operated an information war<\/a> that sought to delegitimize BDS activists and to paint anyone who supported<\/a> the movement as an anti-Semite. Largely due to criticisms of its heavy-handedness, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs was shut down<\/a> in July 2021 and some of its functions were shifted<\/a> to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amir Weissbrod\u2019s telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is essentially Hasbara 2.0.<\/p>\n

On January 23, 2022, the Israeli government set up a new project<\/a>\u2014Concert\u2014inside the Foreign Ministry. This well-funded project will carry forward the mission of Solomon\u2019s Sling\u2014\u201ca Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) but controlled<\/a> by government representatives,\u201d\u2014to burnish Israel\u2019s image around the world, particularly in the West. Concert will be the means through which the Israeli government plans to transfer millions of dollars to nongovernment organizations and media houses to ensure that the reporting about Israel is positive. \u201cDelegitimization\u201d of any critics<\/a> of Israel is part of the agenda this project aims to achieve.<\/p>\n

The telegram sent by Weissbrod is part and parcel<\/a> of Hasbara 2.0. Weissbrod is an experienced hand, having served Israel at the United Nations in New York and as an ambassador in Jordan, besides working in various ministries in Tel Aviv. In 2011, he told<\/a> Haaretz that the diplomats from most countries understand Israel\u2019s position relating to the \u201cPalestinian Authority\u201d \u201cbehind closed doors\u201d but they \u201care not willing to state publicly what they readily say in a private meeting with Israeli representatives, which is often infuriating.\u201d What such duplicity reveals is that these foreign representatives, who agree with Israel \u201cbehind closed doors,\u201d recognize that public opinion in their countries is against Israeli policy, but these representatives know that they must not annoy the Israelis or the U.S. diplomats, who would otherwise make life difficult for their countries. (A senior Indian diplomat told me plainly that India normalized<\/a> relations with Israel in 1992 because the United States told New Delhi that the \u201croad to Washington had to go through Tel Aviv.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Israel recognizes that few of the countries in the UNHRC will vote against the report that is expected to brand it as an \u201capartheid state<\/a>.\u201d It will try to do two things to prevent the report from coming out: delegitimize the commissioners, notably Pillay, and ask the United States to use its membership on the UNHRC to delay the release of the report.<\/p>\n

War Crimes<\/strong><\/p>\n

In March 2021, Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), confirmed<\/a> that her office had opened an investigation relating to \u201cRome Statute crimes\u201d by Israel against the Palestinians. There are effectively four Rome Statute crimes: crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Each of these crimes is horrendous.<\/p>\n

What Israel fears is that a negative report in the UNHRC might provide evidence for the ICC investigation. On January 3, 2022, Israel\u2019s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told<\/a> Israeli journalists that his government fears that this year a set of international institutions will try to portray Israel as an \u201capartheid state.\u201d These institutions include the UNHRC, the ICC, the International Court of Justice, and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.<\/p>\n

In the press conference, Lapid called<\/a> the characterization of Israel as an apartheid state \u201ca despicable lie.\u201d Two years ago, in June 2020, however, one of Israel\u2019s most respected human rights organizations\u2014Yesh Din<\/a>\u2014published a report<\/a> with a startling conclusion: \u201cIt is a difficult statement to make, but the conclusion of this 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.\u201d Such statements are anathema to Lapid and Weissbrod, but\u2014according to Israeli human rights groups (including B\u2019Tselem<\/a>) and Palestinian human rights groups (including Al-Haq<\/a> and Addameer) as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch\u2014are a reflection of the facts witnessed on the ground, and no amount of Hasbara 2.0 can erase these facts.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at<\/em> Globetrotter. He is the director of <\/em>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research<\/a><\/em> and a senior non-resident fellow at <\/em>Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies<\/a><\/em>, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including <\/em>The Darker Nations<\/a> and <\/em>The Poorer Nations<\/a>. His latest book is <\/em>Washington Bullets<\/a>, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was produced by Globetrotter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Feb 2022 \u2013 Statements by Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups (including B\u2019Tselem, Al-Haq and Addameer) as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch\u2014are a reflection of the facts witnessed on the ground, and no amount of Hasbara 2.0 can erase these facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[2221,120,1030,87,267,1029,487,2395,2414,2415,2416,771,1027,2417,85,2418,109,287,1572,985,880,292,70,126,1025,886],"class_list":["post-204506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-checkpoints","tag-conflict","tag-fatah","tag-gaza","tag-geopolitics","tag-hamas","tag-human-rights","tag-international-criminal-court-icc","tag-israeli-apartheid","tag-israeli-army","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-nakba","tag-oslo-accords","tag-palestine-israel-apartheid-wall","tag-palestine-israel","tag-palestinian-rights","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-settlers","tag-social-justice","tag-state-terrorism","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264108,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204506\/revisions\/264108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}