Mr. Colm O'Gorman:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak about Amnesty International's recently launched research report entitled, Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity.

As the Chairman mentioned, I am joined by two of my colleagues. Mr. Saleh Higazi is attending online. He is deputy director of our regional office for the Middle East and north Africa region, and head of our office in east Jerusalem. Seated on my left is Mr. Tim Hanley who is the campaigns officer at Amnesty International. We very much look forward to discussing our research in-depth with the committee following my opening statement.

Our report details how Israeli authorities are enforcing a system of apartheid against all Palestinians living under their effective control. This includes Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as well as Palestinian refugees in other countries. The report documents how Israel treats Palestinians as an inferior racial group, segregating and oppressing them wherever it has control over their rights. It provides new evidence of the institutionalised nature of Israel's oppression of Palestinians, and of how Israeli laws and policies are designed specifically to deprive Palestinians of their rights.

Amnesty International adopted a global policy on the human rights violations and crime of apartheid in 2017. This has enabled us to examine the potential situations of apartheid globally on a consistent basis. For example, in 2017, we released a report which found that the Myanmar Government subjects the Rohingya people to a system of apartheid.

For too long the international community has sidelined human rights when dealing with the question of Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinians experiencing the brutality of Israel's repression have called for an understanding of Israel's rule as apartheid for more than two decades. Over time, a broader international recognition of Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid has begun to take shape.

Amnesty International's findings build on a growing body of work on the question of apartheid by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organisations, as well as lawyers, writers and academics. Palestinians have called for an understanding of Israel's rule as apartheid for more than two decades, and have been at the forefront of advocacy in that regard at the UN. More recently, research by the Israeli human rights organisations Yesh Din and B'Tselem, as well as Human Rights Watch, has contributed to a spectrum of analysis within the legal framework of apartheid.

The scale and seriousness of the violations documented in our report make it clear that the international community must drastically change its approach. It must recognise the full extent of the crimes that Israel perpetrates against the Palestinian people for what they are, which is apartheid. Through its failure to take any meaningful action to hold Israel to account for its systematic and widespread violations, and crimes under international law, against the Palestinian population, the international community has contributed to undermining the international legal order, and has emboldened Israel to continue perpetrating these crimes with impunity. Apartheid is a crime against humanity and the international community has an obligation to hold the perpetrators to account.

The report analysed Israel's intent to create and maintain a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians and examined its key components, that is, territorial fragmentation; segregation and control; dispossession of land and property; and the denial of economic and social rights.

Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and then maintaining a Jewish demographic majority, and maximising control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded. Our research has also documented unlawful as well as inhumane or inhuman acts committed by Israel against Palestinians with the intent to maintain this system, including forcible transfers, administrative detention and torture, unlawful killings, the denial of basic rights and freedoms and persecution. It has concluded that such acts form part of a systematic as well as widespread attack directed against the Palestinian population, and amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid as defined in the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. We found that these constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid because they are committed in a context of systematic oppression and domination, and with the intent to maintain that system.

Amnesty acknowledges that inhuman or inhumane acts inside Israel occur to a lesser degree, and in a far less violent manner, than in the occupied Palestinian territories. However, our report documents violations inside Israel that amount to inhumane acts and, in the context of the wider system of domination and oppression of Palestinians, the crime against humanity of apartheid.

Palestinian citizens in Israel enjoy greater rights and freedoms than their counterparts in the occupied Palestinian territories, while the experience of Palestinians in Gaza is very different from those who live in the West Bank. Nonetheless, Amnesty International's research shows that all Palestinians are subject to the same overarching system. Israel's treatment of Palestinians across all areas is pursuant to the same objective, to privilege Jewish Israelis in the distribution of land and resources, and to minimise the Palestinian presence and access to land.

We make a number of very specific calls at the end of this lengthy research report. With regard to the Israeli authorities, our primary call is for Israel to end the international wrong and crime of apartheid by dismantling measures of fragmentation, segregation, discrimination and deprivation that are currently in place against the Palestinian population. In our report, Amnesty provides numerous specific recommendations for how the Israeli authorities can do this.

We call for an end to the brutal practice of home demolitions and forced evictions as a first step. Israel must grant equal rights to all Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in line with the principles of international human rights and humanitarian law. Israel must recognise the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived. Israel must also provide victims of human rights violations and crimes against humanity with full reparations.

The scale and seriousness of the violations documented in our report calls for a drastic change in the international community's approach to the human rights crisis in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. We call on the international community, including Ireland, to put pressure on Israel to end this system of oppression and domination. We call for the Israeli authorities to be held accountable for

committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, and for all those with jurisdiction over the crimes under international law committed to maintain the system of apartheid, to investigate them.

Our recommendations to other states, including Ireland, are: to publically recognise that international crimes, including the crime of apartheid, are being committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories; to not support the system of apartheid or render aid or assistance to maintaining such a regime; and to co-operate to bring an end to this unlawful situation.

We call on governments to immediately suspend the direct and indirect supply, sale or transfer, including transit and transshipment, to Israel of all weapons, munitions and other military and security equipment, including the provision of training and other military and security assistance. We call on them to institute and enforce a ban on products from Israeli settlements in their markets and to regulate companies domiciled in their jurisdiction in a manner to prohibit companies' operation in settlements or trade in settlement goods.

We call on governments to use all political and diplomatic tools at their disposal to ensure Israeli authorities implement the recommendations outlined in this report and ensure that human rights are central to all bilateral and multilateral agreements with the Israeli authorities, including by exercising due diligence to ensure these do not contribute to maintaining the system of apartheid.

We call on governments to exercise universal jurisdiction in investigating any person under their jurisdiction who may reasonably be suspected of committing crimes against humanity or other crimes under international law. We call on them to ensure all proceedings meet international standards of fairness and do not involve seeking or imposing the death penalty. There should be no time limit for prosecuting crimes against humanity, nor should immunity from prosecution or amnesties be granted for such crimes. We call on governments to ensure their legal and institutional frameworks enable the effective investigation and prosecution of perpetrators of the crime against humanity of apartheid.

We have recommendations for Ireland as a member of the UN Security Council. We call on Ireland to support action to impose targeted sanctions such as asset freezes against Israeli officials most implicated in the crime of apartheid. We call on it to support action to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. As I have said, the embargo should cover the direct and indirect supply, sale or transfer, including transit and transshipment of all weapons, munitions and other military and security equipment, including the provision of training and other military and security assistance.

We call on Ireland to support action to explore avenues to bring perpetrators of crimes under international law to account, in particular if Israel itself fails to investigate and prosecute those responsible for crimes against humanity and other human rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinian population in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. This could include referring the entire situation to the International Criminal Court or establishing an international tribunal to try alleged perpetrators of international crimes.

Apartheid is both an international wrong and a crime against humanity. When a crime against humanity is committed the international community has an obligation to hold the perpetrators to account. We hope that by shedding more light on Israel's discriminatory system of domination over the Palestinian people, we will intensify efforts to dismantle the harmful policies and practices that prevent Palestinians from living with equal rights and dignity. This can only be achieved when the international community holds the Israeli Government and other complicit parties accountable. Apartheid has no place in our world and states which choose to make allowances for Israel will find themselves on the wrong side of history. Ultimately, Israel must dismantle the apartheid system and start treating Palestinians as human beings with equal rights and dignity. Until it does, peace and security will remain a distant prospect for Israelis and Palestinians alike.