Why Divest for Palestine

When we speak about war crimes, apartheid and occupation in this case, what do we mean?

Illegal occupation

Israel was established in 1948. In 1967, it invaded the entire Palestinian Territories (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem). It has kept those territories under a brutal military occupation ever since.

Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories is illegal under international law. That has never been in serious dispute. But it was recently also confirmed by the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest judicial body.

While illegally occupying Palestinian territory for nearly 60 years, Israel has stolen more and more of that territory for itself. With the support of the Israeli state, roughly 700,000 Israelis now live in illegal settlements built on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. The very existence of these Israeli settlements is a war crime.

Apartheid

Israel subjects Palestinians to racial segregation, discrimination and persecution so intense that it amounts to the crime of apartheid under international law.

This is not a controversial statement. It is the mainstream view among experts in human rights and international law.

Those who confirm that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians meets the definition of apartheid under international law include:

• Human Rights Watch
• Amnesty International
• Israel’s own leading human rights NGOs. 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 said 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”.

War crimes

Israel has a long and well-documented history of committing war crimes against Palestinian civilians. Gaza is just the latest, most shocking episode.

Israel’s actions in Gaza have resulted in senior Israeli politicians being charged by the International Criminal Court with war crimes including using starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally attacking the civilian population, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.

Even more than this, there is now strong agreement among experts that Israel’s actions in Gaza are in fact genocidal.

Those who confirm this view include:

• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Watch
• Senior UN human rights experts
• The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories
• The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel
• The world’s leading academic experts on genocide, including John Quigley, Ronald Grigor Suny and William Schabas, and Israeli scholars like Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Raz Segal and Daniel Blatman

If you share our view that ordinary people around the world were right to join the international campaign that helped end apartheid in South Africa, then now is the time to join us in demanding that our own County Council stop investing in war crimes, apartheid and occupation.