Biden was a critic of South African apartheid. Where does he stand on Israel today?, #Biden #critic #South #African #apartheid #stand #Israel #today Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
In 1986, a relatively fresh senator from Delaware gave a passionate speech about the immorality of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the support his country gave to it. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, 43-year-old Joe Biden slammed his fist on the table when he attacked Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz for supporting the South African government, which imposed a system of segregation policies. against the non-white majority.
“I’m ashamed that’s our policy” […]† I am ashamed of the lack of moral backbone!” he said. “These people are being crushed and we are sitting here with the same kind of rhetoric.”
‘What is our timetable? What do we say to that abhorrent regime? Are we saying you have twenty days, twenty months, twenty years? We asked them to set up a timetable, what is our timetable? Where do we stand morally?” he asked.
It was a strong denunciation of a system of racial oppression operated by a US ally, and one of many the senator has spoken out on the subject throughout his career. But some 35 years later, the very same questions are asked of Mr. Biden when he visits Israel and Palestine for the first time since becoming President of the United States.
When Mr. Biden travels to Bethlehem in the coming days, he will be greeted by large billboards that read, “Mr. President, this is apartheid,” alongside a map of what remains of the unaffiliated Palestinian territories — a stunt organized by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
During an interview with Israeli television on Wednesday, the president was asked what he thought of “votes in the Democratic Party” calling Israel an apartheid state.
“There are very few. I think they are wrong. I think they are making a mistake. Israel is a democracy. Israel is our ally. Israel is a friend. I don’t think I apologize,” he said, before moving on to tout the $4 billion in military aid his government has given to Israel.
It was a softball question, framed as an internal political disagreement rather than a practical reality. In any case, it was not fully answered. But there are reasons to expect that it should be.
Since Biden’s last visit to Israel in 2016, a consensus has emerged among leading human rights groups on the issue of apartheid in Israel. That consensus is that Israel is now committing the same crimes that Mr. Biden once vigorously condemned as a senator.
Last year saw a significant shift in the way rights groups described Israel’s occupation. In January 2021B’Tselem published a detailed report in which it labeled Israel an “apartheid state.”
“By creating geographical, demographic and physical technical space, the regime allows Jews to live in a contiguous area with full rights, including self-determination, while Palestinians live in separate units and enjoy fewer rights,” the group said.
“This qualifies as an apartheid regime, although Israel is widely seen as a democracy that maintains a temporary occupation,” it added.
Shortly after, in April of last year, Human Rights Watch presented its own milestone 213-page report who came to the same conclusion. The rights group found that Israeli authorities are “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
“We have come to this determination based on our documentation of an overarching government policy to uphold * by Jewish Israelis on Palestinians, coupled with serious abuses against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem,” HRW said.
Amnesty International followed in February of this year with a report showing that Israel committed the crime of apartheid against Palestinians.
The report “describes how mass seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forced transfers, drastic restrictions on movement and the denial of Palestinian nationality and citizenship are all components of a system that amounts to apartheid under international law.”
And in March, Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, called on the United Nations to do something about what he called apartheid.
“Apartheid is unfortunately not a phenomenon confined to the history books of southern Africa,” he said in a statement his report to the Human Rights Council.
Today, in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, there is a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system that favors the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. he to it.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, responded to the reports by accusing the groups behind them of launching “a Jihad war against the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East.”
Yair Lapid, who was foreign minister at the time of the report but who today hailed Biden as Israel’s prime minister, said in a statement in response to the Amnesty report: “Israel is not perfect, but we are a democracy committed to is subject to international law. , open to criticism, with a free press and a strong and independent justice system.”
The Biden administration also said it rejected the view that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid. “The department’s own reports have never used such terminology,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
The Apartheid Treaty, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1973, declares that apartheid is a crime against humanity and that “inhumane acts resulting from the policies and practices of apartheid and similar policies and practices of segregation and discrimination” are international crimes. The 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also described apartheid as a crime against humanity.
There are, of course, significant differences between the South African apartheid regime and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. But there are also many similarities: Desmond Tutu, an anti-apartheid leader who praised Biden in his 1986 speech, spoke often about it.
“I have witnessed the systematic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is known to all black South Africans who were rounded up, harassed, insulted and attacked by the security forces of the apartheid government,” he said in 2014.
Mr Biden has often spoken of his long-standing and deep relationship with Israel. He has been a consistent supporter, both in word and deed. But his refusal to properly address the issue of apartheid in Israel hollows out his campaign promise that “human rights will be at the center of our foreign policy”. It’s also the kind of vague answer that a younger Joe Biden would have questioned forensically, as he did with Mr. Shultz.
The question that Mr. Biden must now answer is precisely: how he disagrees with the world’s leading human rights organizations and their denunciation of the crime of apartheid in Israel.