UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid”, Executive Summary , 15 March 2017: “This report concludes that Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.
The analysis in this report rests on the same body of international human rights law and principles that reject anti-Semitism and other racially discriminatory ideologies, including: the Charter of the United Nations (1945), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965). The report relies for its definition of apartheid primarily on article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973, hereinafter the Apartheid Convention):
The term "the crime of apartheid', which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to... inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.
Although the term "apartheid" was originally associated with the specific instance of South Africa, it now represents a species of crime against humanity under customary international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, according to which:
"The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
Against that background, this report reflects the expert consensus that the prohibition of apartheid is universally applicable and was not rendered moot by the collapse of apartheid in South Africa and South West Africa (Namibia)…
Domain 1 embraces about 1.7 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. For the first 20 years of the country's existence, they lived under martial law and to this day are subjected to oppression on the basis of not being Jewish. That policy of domination manifests itself in inferior services, restrictive zoning laws and limited budget allocations made to Palestinian communities; in restrictions on jobs and professional opportunities; and in the mostly segregated landscape in which Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel live. Palestinian political parties can campaign for minor reforms and better budgets, but are legally prohibited by the Basic Law from challenging legislation maintaining the racial regime. The policy is reinforced by the implications of the distinction made in Israel between "citizenship" (ezrahut) and "nationality" (le'um): all Israeli citizens enjoy the former, but only Jews enjoy the latter. "National" rights in Israeli law signify Jewish-national rights. The struggle of Palestinian citizens of Israel for equality and civil reforms under Israeli law is thus isolated by the regime from that of Palestinians elsewhere.
Domain 2 covers the approximately 300,000 Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem, who experience discrimination in access to education, health care, employment, residency and building rights. They also suffer from expulsions and home demolitions, which serve the Israeli policy of "demographic balance" in favour of Jewish residents. East Jerusalem Palestinians are classified as permanent residents, which places them in a separate category designed to prevent their demographic and, importantly, electoral weight being added to that of Palestinians citizens in Israel. As permanent residents, they have no legal standing to challenge Israeli law. Moreover, openly identifying with Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory politically carries the risk of expulsion to the West Bank and loss of the right even to visit Jerusalem. Thus, the urban epicentre of Palestinian political life is caught inside a legal bubble that curtails its inhabitants' capacity to oppose the apartheid regime lawfully.
Domain 3 is the system of military law imposed on approximately 6.6 million Palestinians who live in the occupied Palestinian territory, 4.7 million of them in the West Bank and 1.9 million in the Gaza Strip. The territory is administered in a manner that fully meets the definition of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention: except for the provision on genocide, every illustrative "inhuman act" listed in the Convention is routinely and systematically practiced by Israel in the West Bank. Palestinians are governed by military law, while the approximately 350,000 Jewish settlers are governed by Israeli civil law. The racial character of this situation is further confirmed by the fact that all West Bank Jewish settlers enjoy the protections of Israeli civil law on the basis of being Jewish, whether they are Israeli citizens or not. This dual legal system, problematic in itself, is indicative of an apartheid regime when coupled with the racially discriminatory management of land and development administered by Jewish-national institutions, which are charged with administering "State land" in the interest of the Jewish population. In support of the overall findings of this report, annex I sets out in more detail the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory that constitute violations of article II of the Apartheid Convention.
Domain 4 refers to the millions of Palestinian refugees and involuntary exiles, most of whom live in neighbouring countries. They are prohibited from returning to their homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. Israel defends its rejection of the Palestinians' return in frankly racist language: it is alleged that Palestinians constitute a "demographic threat" and that their return would alter the demographic character of Israel to the point of eliminating it as a Jewish State. The refusal of the right of return plays an essential role in the apartheid regime by ensuring that the Palestinian population in Mandate Palestine does not grow to a point that would threaten Israeli military control of the territory and/or provide the demographic leverage for Palestinian citizens of Israel to demand (and obtain) full democratic rights, thereby eliminating the Jewish character of the State of Israel. Although domain 4 is confined to policies denying Palestinians their right of repatriation under international law, it is treated in this report as integral to the system of oppression and domination of the Palestinian people as a whole, given its crucial role in demographic terms in maintaining the apartheid regime…
The report concludes that the weight of the evidence supports beyond a reasonable doubt the proposition that Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity, the prohibition of which is considered jus cogens in international customary law. The international community, especially the United Nations and its agencies, and Member States, have a legal obligation to act within the limits of their capabilities to prevent and punish instances of apartheid that are responsibly brought to their attention. More specifically, States have a collective duty: (a) not to recognize an apartheid regime as lawful; (b) not to aid or assist a State in maintaining an apartheid regime; and (c) to cooperate with the United Nations and other States in bringing apartheid regimes to an end. Civil society institutions and individuals also have a moral and political duty to use the instruments at their disposal to raise awareness of this ongoing criminal enterprise, and to exert pressure on Israel in order to persuade it to dismantle apartheid structures in compliance with international law. The report ends with general and specific recommendations to the United Nations, national Governments, and civil society and private actors on actions they should take in view of the finding that Israel maintains a regime of apartheid in its exercise of control over the Palestinian people” (UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Palestine and the Israeli Occupation, Issue No. 1, “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid”, Executive Summary , 15 March 2017: https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/0FE292B1F4A5971A852580E5004987A8 ).
The full text of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_3379 ) was adopted on November 10, 1975 by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), "determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". The resolution was revoked by Resolution 46/86 on December 16, 1991. In the history of the UN, this is the only resolution that has ever been revoked.
The US, UK, Apartheid Israel, Canada, New Zealand, EU countries, US puppets, Apartheid South Africa puppet Swaziland and Apartheid Australia under the Labor Whitlam Government all voted “no”. US South American puppets and the Apartheid South Africa puppet Botswana abstained.
3379 (XXX). Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination
The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 1904 (XVIII) of 20 November 1963, proclaiming the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and in particular its affirmation that "any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous" and its expression of alarm at "the manifestations of racial discrimination still in evidence in some areas in the world, some of which are imposed by certain Governments by means of legislative, administrative or other measures",
Recalling also that, in its resolution 3151 G (XXVIII) of 14 December 1973, the General Assembly condemned, inter alia, the unholy alliance between South African racism and zionism,
Taking note of the Declaration of Mexico on the Equality of Women and Their Contribution to Development and Peace 1975, proclaimed by the World Conference of the International Women's Year, held at Mexico City from 19 June to 2 July 1975, which promulgated the principle that "international co-operation and peace require the achievement of national liberation and independence, the elimination of colonialism and neo-colonialism, foreign occupation, zionism, apartheid and racial discrimination in all its forms, as well as the recognition of the dignity of peoples and their right to self-determination",
Taking note also of resolution 77 (XII) adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity at its twelfth ordinary session, held at Kampala from 28 July to 1 August 1975, which considered "that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being",
Taking note also of the Political Declaration and Strategy to Strengthen International Peace and Security and to Intensify Solidarity and Mutual Assistance among Non-Aligned Countries, adopted at the Conference of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Non-Aligned Countries held at Lima from 25 to 30 August 1975, which most severely condemned zionism as a threat to world peace and security and called upon all countries to oppose this racist and imperialist ideology,
Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.
UN revocation under US pressure (1991).
According to Wikipedia (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_46/86 ) United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86 passed on December 16, 1991, revoked Resolution 3379 with a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions.
Israel made revocation of resolution 3379 a condition of its participation in the Madrid Peace Conference, in progress in the last quarter of 1991. Under pressure from the administration of President George H.W. Bush in the United States, the UN passed the resolution. The text of the revocation was simply:
"The general assembly decides to revoke the determination contained in its resolution 3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975."
This formed resolution 46/86, which is one of the shortest in UN history. During this session, President Bush told the General Assembly:
"...to equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and forget the terrible plight of Jews in World War II and indeed throughout history."
The motion was supported by 111 (including the 90 nations who sponsored the resolution), opposed by 25 nations and abstained by 13 nations.
Andreas Antonius Maria "Dries" van Agt (Dutch centrist Christian-Democratic Appeal Party prime minister, 1977-1982) on war criminal Netanyahu’s visit to the Netherlands (2016): “There’s a war criminal coming to this country. The occupation and expansion… building of settlements, of occupied territory, this is according to the Rome Statute, which is… the setup… the statute on which the international criminal court is based, in so many words, a war crime. So why should we receive someone [Netanyahu] who continues with such things, we could have sent him right away to the international criminal court, that would have been better” ( quoted in “Dutch ex-PM: “war criminal” Netanyahu should be tried in Hague”, Times of Israel, 6 September 2016: http://www.timesofisrael.com/dutch-ex-pm-war-criminal-netanyahu-should-be-tried-in-hague/ ).
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was a very famous American writer of essays, novels, screenplays and Broadway plays. His numerous books included Myra Breckinridge, the historical novels Julian, Burr and Lincoln and The City and the Pillar that was notable for featuring explicit homosexuality. He was anti-war and demolished his barbarous critics with scathing wit (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal ).
Gore Vidal was one of 18 FAMOUS WRITERS including 3 Nobel Laureates who in an Open Letter published worldwide slammed Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide as “[Israel’s] long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation”:
“The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.
That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.
Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly--who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?
Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.
This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.
PS: As Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the documentary film Arna's Children, asked: "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?"
John Berger
Noam Chomsky
Harold Pinter
José Saramago
Eduardo Galeano
Arundhati Roy
Naomi Klein
Howard Zinn
Charles Glass
Richard Falk
Gore Vidal
Russell Banks
Thomas Keneally
Chris Abani
Carolyn Forché
Martín Espada
Jessica Hagedorn
Toni Morrison.
This letter has been printed in newspapers throughout the world, including Le Monde, El País, The Independent and La Repubblica.” [1].
[1]. 18 writers, “A letter from 18 writers including 3 Nobel laureates”, The Nation, 18 August 2006: http://www.thenation.com/article/letter-18-writers .
PS. In answer to Juliano Mer Khamis’ question (above) "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?" a possible candidate is Gideon Polya's "Qana" (see: Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/ ) , a huge painting (1.3 metres x 2.9 metres) that is is geometrically and conceptually based on Pablo Picasso's huge anti-war painting "Guernica" about the Nazi and fascist destruction of the Basque town of Guernica in Spain in 1937. Qana is based on the 2006 destruction by the war criminal Israelis (for the second time) of the Southern Lebanese town of Qana (assertedly where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding feast). Some elements (the screaming woman, the bull, the screaming horse are common) as is the geometrical scaffolding (a double Golden Rectangle between upper and lower strips).
Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001 (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/vlazna090413.htm ).
Dr. Vacy Vlazna on the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Palestinians (2013): “With regard to Israel's occupation of Palestine, decent people scratch their heads and ask, “Why do the Israelis behave like Nazis to the Palestinians?' or ‘Why, having suffered the Holocaust, do Israelis make Palestinian's suffer?” They are important questions, and the answer is shocking and distressing. Speaking personally, this puzzled me. My parents lived under Nazi occupation in then-Czechoslovakia and were Jewish sympathisers so I was enlightened on the evils of Nazism including the Lidice atrocity. When I was 16, I read the The Belsen Trial detailing the horrors of the holocaust in one concentration camp and in my twenties fell under the propaganda spell Uris' Exodus. Then as an activist for Palestinian human and political rights, I was bewildered by the Israeli record of Nazi-like persecution of Palestinians until... until I attended a talk by Avigail Abarbanel, former Israeli soldier and now activist for Palestinian rights, who shared with us the state-induced compulsory trauma and victimhood, which is, sadly, Israeli childhood. The world is outraged, as it must be, about the shocking incidence of child abuse and child soldiers, illegal under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet there isn't a murmur of condemnation of the Israeli practice, shades of Huxley, of artificially altering with Zionist conditioning from birth, the minds of its children (with some lucky exceptions) who hatch at 18 years of age into mindless, cruel soldiers and soulless citizens. Individuals who do not conform, who miraculously hold onto an independence of mind and compassion, are made into pariahs and branded with the pejorative, ‘Self-Hating Jew' and ‘traitor'… With a boost from the Hebrew Bible, Israeli children are made immune to the immorality of contemporary ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians through the heroic justification of the same methods in Joshua's conquest of Canaan. Shlomo Sand says ‘ under no circumstances is it permissible to skip over the book of Joshua. Moreover, even though the teaching of this “past” has been proven ethically and pedagogically destructive, the Israeli education system refuses to exclude from the curriculum these shameful accounts of extermination.” [1].
Dr. Vacy Vlazna on the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (2014): “At the black heart of Israel’s 65 year rape of Palestine, is the Jewish National Fund ( JNF) which once went by the more germane, Jewish COLONIAL Trust; an opportunistic real-estate jackal that has aggressively deposited its Zionist stink throughout the ancestral land of Palestine.
From its inception in 1901, JNF’s mission of the theft of Palestinian land for the Jews-only Greater (Eretz) Israel is racist, colonial, criminal (colonial expansion is a warcrime under Article 8.2(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute) and bloody.
Max Blumenthal writes “JNF director Yosef Weitz was instrumental in hatching Plan Dalet, the campaign to ethnically cleanse at least 400 Palestinian villages and expel their residents in 1947 and 1948. After the war of 1948, Weitz orchestrated the planting of hundreds of thousands of non-native trees west of Jerusalem to cover up the scores of villages that had just been ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias.”
These days, to cover up its criminal activities, JNF has reinvented itself as ‘the caretaker of the land of Israel on behalf of its owners--Jewish people everywhere’. To promote this benign image of the normalisation of ethnic cleansing, JNF offers tours and missions of Israel that are “intensely emotional, educational and spiritual experiences” of Orwellian Newspeak and war crime whitewash.” [2].
Dr Vacy Vlazna (Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters, editor of a volume of Palestinian poetry, “I remember my name”, and was convenor of Australia East Timor Association) on the boycott of Apartheid Israel from the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships by Malaysia, one of the international hosts of the games) (2019): “Malaysia’s principled boycott was not directed against the athletes but against the Jewish state of Israel in protest of decades of Israel’s brutal illegal occupation, its 12 year illegal siege of Gaza and its months of recent sustained atrocities against Gaza’s unarmed protestors at the non-violent Great March of Return… “According to the latest report issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the total number of wounded is 24,516 since the Gaza Return March started. The injuries in the lower limbs were 49.6% and 8.2% is the head and neck” [about 200 were killed]… The disabilities caused by the Israeli attacks since the beginning of Gaza March of Return reached 94, including 82 amputations in lower bodies, 12 amputations in upper body parts.” The Great March of Return is now in its 48th week. and despite the horror and carnage, young healthy as well as newly maimed Palestinians, children and grandchildren of the refugee survivors of the 1947-8 Nakba (Palestine’s holocaust) continue to protest for their legal Right of Return … Israel, according to international law, is not equitable, it is a belligerent apartheid coloniser which daily perpetrates crimes against humanity and war crimes against the indigenous Palestinian people and therefore the IPC should place sanctions against Israel until its ends its military occupation of Palestine” Vacy Vlazna, “Paralympic body shields”, Countercurrents, 2 March 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/02/paralympic-body-shields-israeli-systematic-mutilation-machine/ ).
[Editor note: According to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) IPC (2019): “The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on Sunday (27 January) stripped Malaysia of the right to host the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships, which were due to be held in Kuching between 29 July and 4 August… ” ( “IPC strip Malaysia of 2019 World Para Swimming Championships”, Paralympics Australia, January 20189: https://www.paralympic.org.au/ipc-strip-malaysia-of-2019-world-para-swimming-championships/ )].
[1]. Dr. Vacy Vlazna, “Zionist Herods and the Massacre of the Innocents”, Countercurrents, 13 April 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/vlazna090413.htm .
[2]. Vacy Vlazna, “Jewish National Fund’s War Crimes Mission”, Countercurrents, 30 January 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/vlazna300114A.htm .
WAINWRIGHT, Sam: "The insistence on Israel’s “right to exist” is really a demand for the maintenance of a supremacist “Jewish’’ state, in which Palestinians are second-class citizens. It makes Israel an apartheid state"
Sam Wainwright (humanitarian Australian writer for Green Left)(2021): “The insistence on Israel’s “right to exist” is really a demand for the maintenance of a supremacist “Jewish’’ state, in which Palestinians are second-class citizens. It makes Israel an apartheid state. This is both unjust and incompatible with peace.No amount of pointing at the failings, crimes or excesses of the Palestinian authorities (whether Hamas or Fatah) can change this. Nor can it change the fact that an oppressed people have the right, morally and in law, to fight back. The only way to guarantee the rights of Palestinians and Israelis is to create peace with justice. That means forging a path towards a democratic secular state, in which all people living in Palestine/Israel are equal regardless of their religion, ethnicity or language” (Sam Wainwright, “Palestinians need a peace based on justice and equality”, Green Left, 20 May 2021: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/palestinians-need-peace-based-justice-and-equality ).
Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an African American author, poet, activist and author of the novel “The Color Purple” (1982) for which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker ).
Alice Walker to Apartheid Israel publisher Yediot Books refusing permission for them to publish the Hebrew translation of her novel “The Color Purple” (2012): “Thank you so much for wishing to publish my novel THE COLOR PURPLE. It isn’t possible for me to permit this at this time for the following reason: As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories. The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating. I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long. It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.” [1].
[1]. Alice Walker, “Letter from Alice Walker to publishers at Yediot Books”, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, 9 June 2012: http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1917 .
Alice Walker (Pulitzer Prize winner , African American novelist, short story writer, poet, activist and author of the novel “The Color Purple” for which she won the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) on supporting BDS (2007): “ What would [the Civil Rights bus boycott] look like, be like, today, in this situation between Palestine and Israel? … It would look like the granddaughter of Rosa Parks, the grandson of Martin Luther King…. It would be to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel to End the Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and by this effort begin to soothe the pain and attend the sorrows of a people wrongly treated for generations. This action would also remind Israel that we have seen it lose its way and have called to it, often with love, and we have not been heard. In fact, we have reached out to it only to encounter slander, insult and, too frequently, bodily harm. Disengage, avoid, and withhold support from whatever abuses, degrades and humiliates humanity” (David Palumbo-Liu, “Backing BDS: another Pulitzer winner comes out for Palestinian rights”, Salon, 22 June 2016: https://www.salon.com/2016/06/22/backing_bds_another_pulitzer_winner_comes_out_for_palestinian_rights/ ).
David Ward is a UK academic and MP. He was elected the new Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East in 2010, taking the seat from Labour. Born in Lincoln, he attended Boston Grammar School in Boston, Lincolnshire and then qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) in 1976. He attended the University of Bradford Management Centre to complete a MBA and a MPhil by research. He thence started working at Leeds Polytechnic (later to become Leeds Metropolitan University) from 1985 for the following 18 years as a Principal Lecturer in finance and strategic management and as a Business Development Manager. In 1996 he obtained a MSc from the University of Leicester. He was elected as Bradford Metropolitan District Councillor on for the Idle and Thackley ward in 1984 and served for 26 years until elected to Parliament in 2010 (see: http://davidward.org.uk/en/page/about-david ).
David Ward MP on Israeli crimes against humanity (2010): “"Having visited Auschwitz twice - once with my family and once with local schools - I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.” [1].
[1]. David Ward quoted by Alan Hart, “Alan Hart: You must not tell the truth! and chutzpah defined”, Sabbah Report, 26 January 2012: http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2013/01/26/alan-hart-you-must-not-tell-the-truth-and-chutzpah-defined/#utm_source=Sabbah+Report+Newsletter&utm_campaign=77b36c8aa0-Mailchimp_RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email .
Margaret Waspe (Australian humanitarian) (2017): “An adequate historical knowledge is important for our leaders. When history is distorted or re-invented, how can appropriate foreign policy be formed? When the Israeli Prime Minister and our Prime Minister met, it was publicly said that we had a 100 year old history of friendship, since the Battle of Beersheba. Was this corrected at all? Who advises our leaders? Israel became a state in 1948. What are the facts? From the nineteenth century the European Zionists (in Europe) planned to acquire and expand territorial control in the Middle East and intended to use diverse methods to separate the inhabitants from their land. That was an age when European imperialism was still the norm. Palestine then was a thriving agricultural society with approx. 500,000 inhabitants. In the 1920s the British and the Zionists assured the Palestinian leaders, that by allowing in persecuted European Jews, Palestinian rights would be strictly preserved. On that basis, Palestinian leaders agreed to limited immigration of persecuted European Jews – as long as their land, Palestine was able to retain its Arab identity. There is evidence that Muslims were encouraged by a leader to welcome the Jews as brethren according to the hospitable traditions of their religion.8 As the true Zionist intentions became evident, resistance then grew. The British authorities struggled with what they regarded as Zionist terrorist gangs who acted violently to destabilise the social context. The problem was handed to the United Nations, who with difficulty and intense pressure and lobbying, voted in favour of partition in 1947. Was that biased or not? In 1948, in the Naqba (catastrophe) the Palestinians experienced massacre, were forced to flee from their villages and lands, many still now living in permanent refugee camps elsewhere. Evidence from the writing of Zionist government leaders, shows that a deliberate policy was followed, of – covertly provoking an incident over the border in order to incite a retaliatory response, which would instill fear of danger in their people, and could be used as means of further Israeli powerful military attack and extended territorial control. Peace was never intended… In 1974, I worked as a volunteer on Kibbutz Reshafim in Israel, for about 4 months, followed by a similar time living and working with Palestinians in Eastern Jerusalem. I grew to love the land and its people, but I realised I was in a type of apartheid state. As a concerned person I had been working to bring justice and positive change in the Police State of apartheid-era South Africa, with Jewish friends amongst my working associates” (Margaret Waspe, “Open letter to the Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defence, Senators and Members of the Australian Parliament. In search of truth. The Middle east and Australia’s future foreign policy”, 25 March 2017: https://www.fpwhitepaper.gov.au/sites/g/files/net3551/f/submission/170331-715-margaret-waspe.pdf ).
Roger Waters is a rock star musician, formerly of Pink Floyd (see: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/14/pink-floyd-frontman-fury-israel-nazis ).
Roger Waters comparing Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to the 1930s atrocities of Nazi Germany (2013): "The parallels with what went on in the 1930s in Germany are so crushingly obvious”.
Roger Waters in response to Zionist criticism of his comments: “"I do not know Rabbi Boteach, and am not prepared to get into a slanging match with him. I will say this: I have nothing against Jews or Israelis, and I am not antisemitic. I deplore the policies of the Israeli government in the occupied territories and Gaza. They are immoral, inhuman and illegal. I will continue my non-violent protests as long as the government of Israel continues with these policies. If Rabbi Boteach can make a case for the Israel government's policies, I look forward to hearing it. It is difficult to make arguments to defend the Israeli government's policies, so would-be defenders often use a diversionary tactic, they routinely drag the critic into a public arena and accuse them of being an antisemite. The Holocaust was brutal and disgusting beyond our imagination. We must never forget it. We must always remain vigilant. We must never stand by silent and indifferent to the sufferings of others, whatever their race, colour, ethnic background or religion. All human beings deserve the right to live equally under the law." [1].
[1]. Roger Waters quoted in Vanessa Thorpe and Edward Helmore, “”Former Pink Floyd frontman sparks fury by comparing Israelis to Nazis”, Guardian., 15 December 2013”: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/14/pink-floyd-frontman-fury-israel-nazis .
Dr. Ludwig Watzal ( journalist and editor in Bonn, Germany who runs the bilingual blog between the lines. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/ ) (2016): “Hardly any knowledgeable person doubts that Zionist ideology is the purest form of racism. Zionism is Jewish disguised racism as a raison d’etat. Israel comes right after the U. S., as far as racism is concerned. That is why the U. S. donates to this racist regime $ 3.8 bn per year in order to keep this occupation regime going… Clinton and her staff are in the pocket of the Israelis… Apart from her Israel loyalty, Hillary Clinton, and her Ziocon supporters are threatening Russia with a nuclear attack if President Vladimir Putin does not dance to Washington’s pipe. The U. S. media does not report on this Clinton threat as they do not report on Clinton’s lying to Congress or her dubious email traffic that was a severe violation of U. S. national security for which she should have been indicted. They also did not report on Clinton’s using the “N-Word” for an African American. Instead of debunking Clinton and her lies and racism, the media keeps on demonizing Donald Trump for his misogynic rhetoric and former behavior. Rather of electing Hillary Clinton to the White House, the American people should put her in jail. The election of Hillary Clinton will not only be a disaster for the Palestinian people but also to the world as a whole” (Dr. Ludwig Watzal, “Zionism is racism”, Countercurrents, 19 October 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/19/zionism-is-racism/ ).
Quote from “Faces of State Terrorism” by Laura Westra (2012): “Another clear “crime of state” is the ongoing “plunder” of resources still available on planet Earth:
“The US has 4.5% of the World's population but consumes 25% of its resources through anti-democratic hegemony maintained by egregious violence (8 million dead in the US War on Terror alone, the breakdown being 2.5 million dead in Iraq, 4.9 million dead in Afghanistan and 0.8 million dead (including 0.1 million Americans) from opiate drug-related causes due to US alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry). The fundamental message on 1/1/11 is surely 1 (ONE) – 1 man-one-vote, there is only 1 Planet (Spaceship Earth) for Humanity, and equal shares in resources i.e. until we necessarily all cease carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution in 2050 the ratio of my share to your share should be 1 [Polya, 2011].”
Those of us who reside in the more comfortable West and North do not feel the sense of terror and urgency that is the burden of people in the global South, and which is particularly acute in coastal countries and towns, and in the Arctic. Then there is the “hyper-example’ of state terrorism (supported , once again, by the US), that is, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the US’s “partner” Israel, and the elimination of others in the Muslim world (Polya, 2011). 15… Then there is the way “inequality kills…
[Polya, 2011] Gideon Polya, “New Year's Day 1/1/11 Message: Equal Shares on Our One Planet”, Countercurrents, 2 January, 2011: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya020111.htm .
“Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ “ (Laura Westra, “Faces of State Terrorism. Volume 42 of Studies in Critical Social Sciences”, BRILL, 2012, page 128).
Asa Winstanley (London-based investigative journalist who writes about Palestine and the Middle East) (2018): “It’s time to admit that Israeli is an apartheid state… There are differences and there are similarities between apartheid Israel and apartheid South Africa. The white supremacist regime that once ruled South Africa, for example, did not tend to bomb into submission with fighter jets and attack helicopters the puppet Bantustan “homeland” enclaves that it controlled. Israel, however, regularly bombs the civilian population in the Gaza ghetto, using the pretext of “self-defence” against “terrorist” groups. It’s for this reason, and others, that some South African anti-apartheid struggle veterans have said that the Israeli regime is actually a worse form of apartheid than the late, unlamented regime in South Africa. The main point to remember, though, is that this entire debate is a red herring. According to international law, Israel can unequivocally be defined as an apartheid state. A 1976 United Nations document, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, defines the term unambiguously, and Israel’s occupation regime in Palestine very much falls into the A-word category… Israel’s Palestinian citizens face discrimination on many levels simply because they are not Jews. The convention states that the term “the crime of apartheid” applies to acts including measures “calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country… including… [by violating] the right to freedom of movement and residence.”It’s time for people in the West to wake up to these facts and admit that Israel is, root and branch, an apartheid state” (Asa Winstanley, “It’s time to admit that Israeli is an apartheid state”, Middle East Monitor, 24 April 2018: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180424-its-time-to-admit-that-israel-is-an-apartheid-state/ ).
Eric Margolis (anti-racist, Jewish-origin conservative US writer) on Palestinian human rights advocacy of his mother, his mother Nexhmie Zaimi (3 June 2018):“I have been steeped in Mideast affairs since the early 1950s, when my late mother, Nexhmie Zaimi, was one of the first female American journalists to cover the Arab world, interviewing Egypt’s President Nasser, and Anwar Sadat, Jordan’s King Hussein, and Iraq’s strongman, Nuri As-Said. She began reporting the plight of 750,000 Palestinian refugees driven from their homes by the newly created state of Israel. Few Americans had ever heard of Palestinians. They were told Israel was ‘a land without people for a people without land’. My mother’s newspaper articles and lectures brought her much attention and constant death threats and attacks on our New York City home. The newspapers for which she wrote were pressured by major advertisers to drop her columns. A courageous, outspoken woman, Mrs. Zaimi continued public speaking until she was finally silenced by threats to throw acid into my face. Fifty years later, after living in Egypt and a lifetime travelling across the Arab world and Israel, I am an ingrained pessimist. I would like nothing better than see a just Mideast peace, with Arabs and Jews living together peacefully and productively in a secular, non-racist state.” (Eric Margolis quoted in Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor, “The Palestinians cannot be defeated”, PAP, 1 May 2018: http://papofmam.com/2018/05/01/the-palestinians-cannot-be-defeated/ ).