Apartheid

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implemented to a slight degree, if any.
The proximity of human rights abuses perpetrated by Israel to apartheid in the narrow
sense, and the identity in the wide sense, as proposed in this investigation, became formally
obvious at the latest on October 19, 2000, when the United Nations Human Rights
Commission condemned Israel for ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against Humanity’ in the wake of
the surge of lethal acts of aggression against Palestinians, acts carried out with impunity on
what was nominally Palestinian territory. 733 In resolutions adopted annually from 1975 until
1991, the UN General Assembly had equated Zionism with racism, but the resolutions had
ended after the 1991 Madrid Middle East peace conference, which led to peace talks and
agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as with Jordan and Syria. 734 On May
17, 2001, the head of the International Red Cross delegation to Israel and the Palestinian
territories, Rene Kosirnik, said Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were
a ‘war crime under humanitarian law’. However, the statement was later withdrawn after the
USA had threatened to cut aid to the organization. 735
On September 2 in the same year, a global conference of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) on racism condemned Israel for being a ‘racist, apartheid state’
committing acts of ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’. The declaration, which also labeled
Zionism ‘racist’, was passed in a majority vote by representatives from nearly 5,000 NGOs.
That conference coincided in time and place with the intergovernmental conference, hosted by
the UN, the third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance, and the NGO declaration, itself partly backed by the UN, was designed to
lobby the governments taking part in the UN conference. The USA and Israel responded as so
many times previously and since with regard to human rights by opting to end dialogue, i.e.
by withdrawing their already insultingly low-level delegates to the UN conference. 736 Along
733 Nebehay: UN Rights Body Condemns Israel, Launches Inquiry, 2000. The US and the EU country
representatives on the commission voted against the resolution, which was nevertheless passed by a simple
majority. Israel dismissed the resolution as ‘hostile, unbalanced and unnecessary’ and vowed not to cooperate
with the proposed UN inquiry, and it never did. N.N.: Israel Says It Won’t Cooperate with UN Inquiry, October
20, 2000. On the following day, the UN General Assembly voted to condemn Israel for ‘use of excessive
violence’. The UN Security Council had also condemned Israeli violence on October 7, but stopped short of
mentioning Israel by name, a measure introduced by the USA along its threat of otherwise vetoing the resolution.
The GA resolution, however, reiterated that ‘Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including
Jerusalem, are illegal’ and an obstacle to peace. The GA resolution further called for ‘the prevention of illegal
acts of violence by Israeli settlers’. Only the USA, Israel and the Pacific Ocean states of Marshall Islands,
Micronesia, Nauru and Tuvalu opposed this resolution. Under intense pressure from the USA, Israel and the EU,
the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, had opened the session of the debate, asking for a conciliatory message
from the assembly and telling members that ‘words can inflame or soothe’. See Leopold: Israel Condemned at
UN for Excessive Use of Force, 2000. A year later, the USA (alone) vetoed a Security Council resolution on the
escalating violence, and the UN General Assembly again branded Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas ‘as
illegal and an obstacle to peace’. In a second resolution, it also called on ‘the occupying power’ – Israel – to
refrain from ‘wilful killing, torture (and) unjustified restrictions of free movement’. Only the Marshall Islands
and Micronesia joined the United States and Israel in opposing the second resolution. Arieff: Countering US
Veto, UN Assembly Boosts Arafat Role, 2001. On August 5, 2002, the UN General Assembly passed a further
resolution expressing grave concern over Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian cities and the ‘dire
humanitarian situation’ facing the Palestinian people. Again, only the USA, Israel, the Marshall Islands and
Micronesia voted against the resolution. Arieff: ‘Concerned’ UN Assembly Demands Israeli Withdrawal, 2002
734 N.N.: Israel Alarmed at UN Racism Forum Agenda, July 4, 2001
735 Goller: Red Cross Says Jewish Settlements War Crime, 2001; After the US threatened to withhold financial
support to the Switzerland-based humanitarian organization over the statement, the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) President, Jakob Kellenberger, made the following promise in a letter to Rep. Eliot Engel,
the US Congressman who was threatening the suspension of aid: “The expression ‘war crime’ has not been used
by the ICRC in relation to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the past and will not be used anymore
in the present context. The reference made to it on May 17 was inappropriate and will not be repeated.”
Monaghan: ICRC Says Israeli “War Crime” Comment was Wrong, 2001.
736 N.N.: NGO Declaration at UN Race Meet Slams Israel, September 2, 2001; Swindells: US, Israel Quit UN
Racism Conference, 2001; Swindells: Activists at Durban Brand Israel a Racist State, 2001. In a reaction to the