North Herts Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Did you know that Israel’s own leading human rights NGOs say its treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid?

There are many reasons to focus our energies on campaigning for Palestinian rights and freedom.

There is the fact that some 750,000 Palestinians who were driven from their homes during Israel’s “war of independence” in 1948 were never allowed to return, in violation of international law and a UN resolution specifying that they must be allowed to do so. There is the fact that for over half a century since 1967, Israel has imposed an illegal military occupation on the entire Palestinian territories – including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – outside its own internationally-recognised borders. There is the fact that in that time, the Israeli state has supported the establishment and continual expansion of illegal settlements – now home to some 700,000 Israelis – on stolen Palestinian land in those occupied territories. That is settler colonialism and it is an ongoing war crime; and yet here in the UK, produce from those illegal settlements is sold in our supermarkets. Most recently, there is the appalling military assault that we’ve all witnessed in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has ruled is plausibly a genocide.

Crucially, our own UK government plays a direct role in enabling all of these crimes, including by providing weapons and diplomatic cover, and by helping to ensure impunity for Israeli officials. That gives us a special responsibility to act.

In addition to all of the above, there is a further reason which on its own would justify committing ourselves to the struggle for Palestinian rights – that is, the fact of apartheid. Human Rights Watch explains the crime of apartheid as follows:

“International criminal law… define[s] apartheid as a crime against humanity consisting of three primary elements: (1) an intent by one racial group to dominate another; (2) systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group; and (3) particularly grave abuses known as inhumane acts. Racial group is understood today also to encompass treatment on the basis of descent and national or ethnic origin.”

—Israeli Apartheid: “A Threshold Crossed” (2021)

There is agreement among a wide range of expert observers that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians meets the legal definition of apartheid. The following are just a few of those who confirm this view:

• Human Rights Watch

• Amnesty International

• Israel’s own leading human rights NGOs. The renowned B’Tselem has produced a useful visual explainer and a more detailed report. Yesh Din has also produced this report.

• Palestinian human rights NGOs like Al-Haq and Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights

• Jewish civil society groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow in the US, and Na’amod in the UK

• UN Special Rapporteurs responsible for monitoring the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

• Judges at the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court. In July 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel is in breach of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid. In a separate opinion, Judge Salam observed that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “undeniably the expression of a policy that is tantamount to apartheid”. Judge Tladi, who himself grew up as a Black South African under Apartheid, said “it is impossible to miss the similarities”.

If you share our view that ordinary people around the world were right to join the international campaign of boycotts and protest that helped end apartheid in South Africa, then now is the time to join us in standing against occupation, war crimes and apartheid in Israel and Palestine.