Dr. Rima Khalaf Hunaidi:

I thank Deputy Darragh O'Brien for his perceptive remark that the longer this is allowed to continue, the less realistic a two-state solution will become. The real question in this regard relates to why this is being allowed to drag on. It is definite that the Palestinians are not causing the process to drag on, given that they are living under a brutal foreign occupation that they want to end as soon as possible.

Israel wants to drag on the occupation because the longer it takes to resolve, the more facts on the ground can be established, the most important being the establishment of settlements in the occupied territories. As Dr. Barghouthi said, when the Oslo agreements were signed there were around 100,000 settlers in the occupied territories. Now, more than 700,000 settlers live there.

I worked for the UN and while I was there we looked at the map of the West Bank. We discovered that Israel has illegally expropriated 20% of the West Bank. If one adds the lands that are now what are called shooting, military or green zones and the lands taken by illegal Israeli settlements, as well as the lands that surround Israeli settlements that Palestinians are not allowed to access, one will find that more than 60% of the land of the West Bank is no longer accessible to Palestinians. These are the facts on the ground that Israel is establishing. That is why we were very excited to know about the Bill that will ban the products of illegal settlements established by an occupying power in an occupied territory from being sold on the Irish market, regardless of who the occupier is. If signals are sent to Israel that it will not benefit from delaying the end of occupation then maybe the parties can be pushed towards a speedy resolution of the conflict and thus end the occupation for the benefit of all. The ultimate objective is to establish peace.

The regime Israel has imposed on the Palestinians is an apartheid regime, which we determined using the definition for apartheid in international law. I will start by quoting the definition for apartheid in the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines the crime of apartheid as "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". The inhumane acts are listed in the apartheid convention. We considered all of the acts that Israel has perpetrated against Palestinians and compared them with the inhumane acts listed in the apartheid convention. We concluded that Israel has committed all of the inhumane acts listed in the apartheid convention except for genocide. It is worth noting that the apartheid South African regime did not commit genocide but committed all of the rest of the inhumane acts.

The report considered how Israel treats different segments of the Palestinian people. Israel has divided Palestinians into four categories. First, the Palestinians who live in the occupied territories or the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967. Earlier, Dr. Barghouthi gave examples of how services are determined by a person's religion and national origin. Palestinians are deprived of services but Israeli settlers who reside illegally in the occupied territory can access land, water and natural resources.

The most important signal that it is an apartheid regime is that Israel imposes two legal systems to the same piece of land. On the one hand, military rule is imposed on the Palestinians. On the other hand, a different legal system and laws are applied to Jewish Israelis who settled in occupied territories. One cannot apply one legal system to one racial group and another system to another racial group. Such a dual legal system makes legal protection, human rights, the ability to benefit from public services and everything in one's life dependent on one's ethnic origin and religion.

I contend that an apartheid regime is imposed on Palestinian refugees because, according to Israeli law, such refugees are not allowed to return home because they are not Jewish. Had they been Jewish, they would not have been expelled or uprooted from their homes to start with. It is a little bit more tricky in east Jerusalem because Israel illegally annexed the area after occupation in 1967. After annexation, Israel classified the residents as permanent residents and, therefore, they were no longer the citizens of the city. By comparison, the Israelis who illegally went to live in east Jerusalem are nationals and citizens and, therefore, can avail of all of the services. Discrimination is obvious in health services, educational services, municipal services etc.

The most controversial aspect is whether Israel has imposed an apartheid regime within the State of Israel. As a Jewish state, the basic Israeli legal architecture codifies a privileged status for its Jewish citizens and allows discrimination against all others, particularly against Palestinians. According to Israeli law, Palestinians can be citizens of the state of Israel but they cannot be nationals of the state of Israel. The country differentiates between nationality and citizenship. Only the Jewish citizens of Israel can be nationals of the State of Israel and, therefore, Palestinians cannot access and benefit from all of the nationality rights granted to Jewish citizens, including access to land. As much as 93% of the land in Israel has been deemed Government land, which can only be developed for the benefit of its Jewish citizens. Non-Jewish citizens cannot benefit from Government land. There is also discrimination when it comes to immigration. Only Jews are allowed to immigrate to Israel. Palestinians who were born in Palestine, which is Israel now, are not allowed to come back.

There are now 50 Israeli laws that explicitly discriminate against its non-Jewish citizens. They cover a wide range of domains, including constitutional protection, immigration, political participation, the state budget and the ability to benefit from state land and public services. One would question why such discrimination was allowed to persist. The reason is equality is not a legal principle under basic Israeli laws. While all constitutions state that all citizens are equal regardless of their race and gender, equality is not a legal principle in Israel and, therefore, non-Jewish citizens cannot lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court to be treated the same as Jewish citizens.

We all accept that the German nation is the nation state of the German people and the French state is the nation state of the French people. The Israeli Supreme Court decided that the Israeli state is not the state of the Israeli people but the Jewish people only. That demonstrates an institutionalised system of discrimination that targets a racial group, namely, Palestinians and favours another racial group, namely, Israelis. The objective of such domination is to perpetuate the system of apartheid and discrimination.