Citizen G'kar: Musings on Earth

March 24, 2007

South African UN Envoy Accuses Israel of Apartheid

It seems that Jimmy Carter is not the only public official with the courage to face Israel with the truth. Given that he is from South Africa, it seems likely he would be in a position to know what apartheid is. I have to wonder if Mr Dugard will have his job for long. I'm sure he's not made a friend with the Bush Administration's ambassador.
Al Jazeera
A UN human rights envoy has likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians in occupied territory to "apartheid", and said that failure to tackle the situation will make it hard to solve abuses elsewhere. John Dugard, a UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, made his remarks to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday. Dugard, a South African lawyer, said restrictions on movement and separate residential areas gave a sense of "deja vu" to anyone with experience of apartheid, noting that apartheid was "contrary to international law".


[..]Israel dismissed the statement and Dugard's regular reports to the council as "one-sided, highly selective and unreservedly biased".


Dugard, who was appointed to his position in 2001, said that Gaza was an imprisoned society and that the situation in the West Bank was little better. He said about 500,000 Israeli settlers were now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war.


"Settlers, largely unrestrained by the Israel Defense Forces [the Israeli military], subject many Palestinians to a reign of terror - particularly in Hebron," he said.


Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said such language was "inflammatory and inciteful" and would not contribute to a "process of constructive dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians".

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