Aspects of Apartheid

Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has been of concerns to many of us working for the United Nations for over two decades. There was a United Nations General Assembly Resolution linking Zionism with Racism two decades ago but it did not stop the Israel Government’s policy of occupation and domination of the Palestinian people. On Friday, the Israel Government representative again accused the newly released of Human Rights Report on Israel human rights abused of Palestinians by John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, as “one-sided” and “rank politicization of the UN’s human rights apparatus”. The new UN report stated that Israel’s law and practices “resemble aspects of apartheid”. John Dugard knows better than anyone what it is like for the people who live under Apartheid for he used to work as professor of Law in South Africa before accepting his UN assignment to monitor Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank. It is important that we should not stay quiet on this matter. We should continue to urge the Israelis as member of the United Nations to respect human rights and to stop the practice of tight control over the flow of goods and movement of the people in and out of Gaza, which added to the existing economic problems and unemployment. Arnold Vercken, official of the World Food Programme, also alerts us that the poorest Palestinian families are now living a meager existence totally reliant on assistance from international communities, and that the number of Palestinians receiving UN food handouts has risen significantly. He reports that the World Food Programme alone is feeding 600,000. The world community should not only help the Palestinians with food and life necessities, but should also speak up and take action to prevent the Israel Government from “suffocating” the Palestinian economy, and “abusing” the human rights of the Palestinian people which drive them more and more into the life of poverty and desperate actions, harmful to themselves and others and to world peace.

Filed under United Nations, World Affairs |