Israel’s former attorney general says his country is an ‘apartheid regime’

Middle East Eye



[Michael Ben-Yair agrees with the Amnesty report and urges the
international community to recognise apartheid]

Feb. 11, 2022

Former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair said on Thursday that
his country is an "apartheid regime" and urged the international
community to recognise this reality and hold Israel accountable.

In an article published in the Irish newspaper The Journal, Ben-Yair
said he agreed with the Amnesty International report last week
classifying Israel as an apartheid state.

"It is with great sadness that I must also conclude that my country
has sunk to such political and moral depths that it is now an
apartheid regime," Ben-Yair said.

The 79-year-old, who served as Israel's attorney general between 1993
and 1996, said Israeli courts uphold "discriminatory laws" to expel
Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which
contributes to the "ongoing domination over these territories."

"It is the Israeli ministerial cabinet for settlements that approves
every illegal settlement in the occupied territories. It was me, in my
role as the attorney general who approved the expropriation of private
Palestinian land in order to build infrastructure such as roads that
have entrenched settlement expansion," he said.

Millions of Palestinians between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea are being permanently deprived of their civil and
political rights, Ben-Yair added, saying that the "status quo on the
ground is a moral abomination."

Ben-Yair's remarks have appeared a week after Amnesty became the
latest organisation to label Israel an apartheid state, joining a
cadre of human rights groups that have used the term to describe
Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians.

Apartheid is a legal term defined by international law that refers to
systematic oppression by one racial group over another.

As well as serving as attorney general, Ben-Yair was an acting Supreme
Court of Israel judge.
Amnesty report

In the 280-page-report, based upon research conducted from 2017 to
2021, Amnesty concluded that since 1948 Israel has pursued policies
that "benefit Jewish Israelis while restricting the rights of
Palestinians".

"Israel's system of institutionalised segregation and discrimination
against Palestinians, as a racial group, in all areas under its
control amounts to a system of apartheid, and a serious violation of
Israel's human rights obligations," Amnesty said.

"The segregation is conducted in a systematic and highly
institutionalised manner through laws, policies and practices, all of
which are intended to prevent Palestinians from claiming and enjoying
equal rights with Jewish Israelis."

This is the case both for Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up
20 percent of the country's population, and the five million
Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Prior to the report's release, Israel urged the rights group against
publishing the study and branded the conclusions "false, biased and
antisemitic".

Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid said Amnesty "is just another
radical organisation which echoes propaganda, without seriously
checking the facts", accusing it of repeating "the same lies shared by
terrorist organisations".

"Israel isn't perfect, but we are a democracy committed to
international law, open to criticism, with a free press and a strong
and independent judicial system," Lapid said in a statement.

The United States also rejected the apartheid label.

"We reject the view that Israel's actions constitute apartheid. The
department's own reports have never used such terminology," US State
Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters last week.

"We think that it is important, as the world's only Jewish state, that
the Jewish people must not be denied their right to
self-determination, and we must ensure there isn't a double standard
being applied."

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general, refuted the criticism of
the report as "propaganda and ideological" rather than evidence-based
in an interview with Middle East Eye.

"Have you done an assessment? Have you considered what is the meaning
of apartheid under international law? Have you even tried to check
whether the policies or practices of Israel meet that definition? No,"
Callamard said in response to the US position.

"We cannot be held hostage by the government of Israel on those
issues. We need to be very clear that our work is predicated on
international human rights standards. And those accusations will not
detract us."