Israel’s practices in the Palestinian territories are an “even more extreme” form of the apartheid that South Africa experienced before 1994, Pretoria told the UN’s highest court on Tuesday.
“As South Africans, we feel, see, hear and feel deep within ourselves the inhumane discriminatory policies and practices of the Israeli regime as an even more extreme form of institutionalized apartheid against black people in my country” , said Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), which sits in The Hague, is holding hearings this week on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967, with an unprecedented number of 52 countries called to testify.
“It is clear that the illegal occupation of Israel is also being administered in violation of the crime of apartheid […] it is indistinguishable from colonialism,” continued Mr. Madonsela.
“Israel’s apartheid must end,” he added, stressing that South Africa has a “special obligation” to denounce apartheid wherever it occurs and to ensure that “ put an immediate end to it.”
The hearings come amid growing international legal pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7.
They are separate from a case brought to the ICJ by South Africa, which accuses Israel of committing genocidal acts in Gaza. The court has yet to rule on this point, but on January 26 called on Israel to prevent any possible act of genocide. She did not mention a ceasefire.
According to Madonsela, “the international community’s reluctance to hold Israel accountable for its policies and practices and its inability to ensure the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of Israeli troops and an immediate end to Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine […] encourages Israel to cross a new threshold, namely to commit the crime of crimes, genocide.”
Israel is not participating in the hearings but called on the Court to reject the request for an opinion in a written submission dated July 24, 2023.
“Total contempt”
On December 31, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting from the ICJ a non-binding “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem- East “.
This concerns the “prolonged occupation” of Palestinian territory since 1967.
It must also examine measures “aimed at changing the demographic composition, character and status of the holy city of Jerusalem”.
In June 1967, Israel waged the Six-Day War, seizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, the Gaza Strip and the Gaza Strip. Sinai to the detriment of Egypt.
Israel then began occupying the 70,000 square kilometers of seized Arab territory, an occupation later declared illegal by the United Nations.
“The prohibition of apartheid and racial discrimination is […] an imperative of international law” binding on all states, including Israel, said Pieter Andreas Stemmet, a lawyer for South Africa.
“Israel’s complete disregard and lack of respect for these principles makes the occupation inherently and fundamentally illegal,” he added.
The hearings began Monday with three hours of testimony from Palestinian officials, who accused the Israeli occupiers of running a system of “colonialism and apartheid.”
The ICJ rules on disputes between States and its judgments are binding, although it has few means to enforce them.
However, in the present case, the opinion it gives will not be binding. But most advisory opinions are actually acted upon.