The global, Palestinian-led struggle to dismantle Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism mobilizes grassroot pressure and lobbies decision makers to end this oppressive system. This includes pressure to activate UN mechanisms to investigate Israeli apartheid as a first and necessary step towards dismantling it, so that the Indigenous Palestinian people can enjoy freedom, justice and equality.
Hundreds of MPs and 10 ex-Presidents from the Global South, Israeli as well as international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, all agree with what Palestinian experts and human rights organizations have been saying for decades: Israel is perpetrating the crime against humanity of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
Apartheid is a crime against humanity that requires States and inter-state organizations, especially the UN, to fulfil their legal obligations to dismantle it.
Since 2020, Palestinian civil society has demanded:
“Israel's regime of military occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid feels more invincible than ever, perpetrating massacres, gradual ethnic cleansing, and siege, and pursuing the Zionist dream of Palestine without its Indigenous Arab Palestinian people. Towards decolonization and liberation, the BDS movement is building people’s power globally to end this invincibility and international complicity that enables Israel’s regime of oppression to exist.”
“We have hope in our people, Palestinians are united to fight back against Israel's institutionalized oppression, settler colonialism and apartheid. Israel's impunity must end and sanctions on Israel must be imposed now!”
“The citizens, states and governments of the world are no longer prepared to tolerate the Israeli government’s mad rush to create a "Greater Israel" or an apartheid system of occupation and discrimination.”
“We call things as they are: ethnic cleansing, apartheid, forced eviction, war crime.”
“Now is the time to boycott the apartheid Israeli state, to divest and to impose sanctions against it until it complies with international law. Like black South Africans, Palestinians deserve freedom, justice and equality.”
“I am a Palestinian bedouin living in this land. I have seen and suffered the discrimination and racism. … Men and women gathered to protest for their rights because Israeli apartheid is trying to … take this land. … They treat us like refugees in our own land. We’ve been here before 1948, before [the establishment of] Israel.”
“In Palestine, a Zionist settler-colonial project maintains an apartheid regime, violates provisions of international human rights and humanitarian law, and commits crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Palestinian people.”
"Israel may be outraged by the word [apartheid, but] everyone else should be outraged by the policy. Condemnations alone will never suffice to deter Israel. It is time to translate your words into actions. Actions to end apartheid."
“...seismic shifts are still needed in the higher echelons of global political establishments … in order for us to edge closer toward Palestinian liberation. Such shifts can only be achieved with massive grassroots mobilization that rejects ongoing settler colonialism and apartheid in all its manifestations, and calls not only for equality but also for justice and decolonization.”
“The regime of apartheid has evolved into something far more disturbing. The designation of apartheid no longer applies only to the occupied territories annexed in 1967, but to the whole area encompassing the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Between the river and the sea, it is abundantly clear that Israel meets the definition of the crime of apartheid under international law.”
“South Africa’s view is that strong action to support Palestine must be taken by the UN and a committee on apartheid should be established under the auspices of the UN General Assembly to verify [it] meets the criteria.”
“For many decades already, the Palestinian people have been suffering discriminatory policies, denial of basic human rights, imposition of harsh living conditions, as well as confiscation of their land and property. These and other inhumane acts committed by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinians are tantamount to the crime of Apartheid and clearly inconsistent with the pursuit of peace and peaceful co-existence in the region.”
“What has become increasingly clear in recent years is Israel’s intent to maintain its structural domination and oppression of the Palestinian people through indefinite occupation. This gives the dual legal regimes imposed in Palestinian territories by Israel — together with the inhumane and abusive acts that are carried out against Palestinians — new significance, resulting in a situation that arguably constitutes apartheid.”
“The General Assemblyof the UN played a central role in the successful dismantling of apartheid in South Africa... it should play an equally important role in ending Israel’s apartheid regime against Palestinians.”
“Our report reveals the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights.
We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act.”
“Having lived through the apartheid regime in South Africa, we were quickly able to draw parallels between present-day Israel/Palestine and South Africa under apartheid rule. We fought the injustices imposed on us as Africans – supported by the world; and it is our turn to stand in solidarity with Palestine in challenging the same oppressive practices and beliefs carried out by Israel.”
“We must explore the possibility within this Human Rights Council of establishing a mechanism to deal exclusively with the Israeli apartheid practices against the Palestinian people on both sides of the Green Line. It is also time for the UN General Assembly to consider reviving the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid.”
“Your voice is more powerful than Israeli guns and stun grenades. And you will see justice. You will see the dismantling of Israeli apartheid.”