HUJ Nurit Peled-Elhanan is participating in the Russell Tribunal conference on "Israeli apartheid", Cape Town Nov. 2011
Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Education, Hebrew University
[email protected]
Ediorial Note
Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan (HUJ), is a radical political activist who has traveled widely to promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
The BDS was launched in the 1990s by a group of pro-Palestinian activists -encouraged by the successful struggle against apartheid in South Africa - to force Israel out of the territories. To make this case, radical Israeli academics have been mobilized to portray Israel as a racist state that subjugates the Palestinian population to an apartheid regime equal or worse to the one inflicted on South African blacks. From the very beginning this claim was fallacious, but it has been further divorced from reality as only about fifty thousand Palestinians live under direct Israeli rule.
In her upcoming trip, Peled-Elhanan is scheduled to "testify" before the Russell Tribunal on Palestine during its meeting in South Africa. Created in 1966 by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell to call for the investigation of alleged American crimes in Vietnam, it has sought to create an image of neutrality and judicial credibility with a "jury," examining experts and "witnesses." In fact, the Russell Tribunal is a deeply flawed tool of the radical left. The "jury" includes the likes of Cynthia McKinney, a former member of Congress, whose anti-Semitic comments and allegations that President Bush was involved in the 9/11 plot brought her notoriety in the United States. Even more telling, the RT has never held meetings to investigate the egregious human rights violation in Iran, the persecution and killing of Christians in Muslim countries and the mass killings of protesters in Syria.
The blatant bias of the Russell Tribunal is a close match to the world- view of Peled-Elhanan. In her recent research she found that "racist" textbooks educate Israelis to become wanton and violent killers of Palestinians, but discovered no evidence of racism in Palestinian textbooks. Peled-Elhanan has justified the use of terror against Israeli civilians on the grounds that the occupation has pushed the Palestinians who have "no army and no power" to embrace suicide bombing.
There is no doubt that with such credentials Peled-Elhanan makes a perfect "witness" for the Tribunal.
We invite our readers to write back and counter the arguments of anti-Israel Israeli academics.
Reprints of anti-Israel articles do not represent the position of IAM, and they are being reproduced as a public service.
Peled-Elhanan's post on the Breaking the Silence Facebook page:
"On the 2nd of November I am traveling to Capetown for a meeting of Russell Tribunal on Palestine and the discussion this time is about the apartheid in Israel. May be you can send me material that I can disseminate there??? Leah Tzemel is also traveling as a witness"
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179957528753835
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
ב-2 לנובמבר אני נוסעת לקייפ טאון לישיבה של טריבונל ראסל על פלסטין והדיון הפעם הוא על אפרטהייד בישראל. אולי תשלחו לי חומר שאוכל להפיץ שם??? גם לאה צמל נוסעת כעדה
October 23 at 2:45am
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/1595/the-third-international-session-of-the-russell-tribunal-on-palestine-is-to-be-held-in-south-africa-next-month
The Third International Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is to be held in South Africa next month.
On October 5, 2011, in News
The gathering will examine “Are Israel’s practices against the Palestinian People in breach of the prohibition on Apartheid under International Law?”
World renowned experts and witnesses are to participate in the event, to be held in Cape Town from 5-7 November 2011.
Among the high profile delegates attending are Stéphane Hessel, Alice Walker, Ronald Kasrils, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, to name a few.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine is a public awareness tribunal set up by international civil society to investigate violations of international law perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
The Third International Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine
Date: 5-7 November 2011
Venue: District Six Museum, Cape Town
Media accreditation for the third international session is now open. See attachments for further details (Programme, Media Invite, Media Registration).
** For further media information contact:
Claude Colart – media manager RToP Cape Town
+27 82 3706731
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa/agenda
Saturday 5 November – Day One
09.15
Doors open.
10.00
Introduction: Pierre Galand and Stéphane Hessel.
10.30
Opening Remarks: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Setting the Legal Context:
The Palestinian Right to Self-Determination
10.45
Raji Sourani will explain the content of the right, the nature of its denial in the Palestinian context, and its relation to apartheid and persecution.
Apartheid
Apartheid in South Africa, and the Prohibition of Apartheid in International
Law
11.15
Max du Plessis will detail the treaty and customary international law status of the prohibition on apartheid in international law.
11.45 Coffee Break
The Law and Practice of Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine
12.15
John Dugard will give a reminder of how the apartheid regime operated in law and policy in South Africa, and provide an overview of Israeli law and policy with respect to the prohibition on apartheid.
Elements of the Definition of Apartheid: Racial Groups under International
Law
12.45
David Keane will explain the broad construction given to the term ‘racial’ in the context of ‘racial discrimination’ in International Law.
13.05 Lunch
14.35
Ingrid Jaradat will discuss Palestinian identity and Palestinians as a distinct racial group for the purposes of the definition of apartheid.
Ran Greenstein will discuss the extent to which the legal definition of apartheid, based on the notion of racial domination, applies to the practices of the oppressing group in Israel/Palestine.
Elements of the Definition of Apartheid:
an institutionalized regime of systematic domination
15.05
Joseph Schechla and Emily Schaeffer will go over discriminatory elements of the Israeli legal system and the separate legal systems and courts for Jewish-Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Acts of apartheid
15.45
Marianne Blume will discuss whether there is a case of deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part.
16.00 Coffee Break
16.30
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Mahmoud Hassan will give testimonies about extra-judicial killing, torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment during Apartheid South Africa, and in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in Israel.
Acts of apartheid: Exploitation of labour of members of a racial group or
groups
17.00
Rafeef Ziadah will discuss this topic in relation to the facts that Israel has raised barriers to Palestinian employment inside Israel since the 1990s, and that Palestinian labour is now used extensively only in the construction and services sectors of Jewish-Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories whileZwelinzima Vavi will remind people of the conditions of employment under Apartheid South Africa.
17.30
Closing remarks
End of Day One
Sunday 6 November – Day Two
09.30
Doors open.
10.30
Opening remarks.
Acts of apartheid (continued)
10.45
Luciana Coconi, Shawan Jabarin and Lea Tsemel will give testimonies over the denial of the right to freedom of movement, of residence, to leave and return to one’s country, to a nationality, to work, to form recognised trade unions, to education, to freedom of opinion and expression, and to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
11.30 Coffee Break
Acts of apartheid: Measures designed to divide the population along racial
lines
12.00
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Jeff Halper and Jamal Juma’a will speak of the creation of separate reserves and ghettoes, the prohibition of mixed marriages, and the expropriation of landed property in Israel/Palestine as well as in former Apartheid South Africa.
Acts of apartheid: Persecution of organizations and persons,
by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,
because they oppose apartheid
12.45
Haneen Zoabi and Shawqi Issa will testify about the arrest, imprisonment, travel bans and the targeting of Palestinian parliamentarians, national political leaders and human rights defenders, the closing down of related organisations, and the current legislation being enacted to punish those who initiate or promote boycott measures for opposition to Israeli domination.
13.15 Lunch
Persecution
14.45
Rafaelle Maison will set out and explain the status of persecution as a crime against humanity and Raji Surani, Mohammed Khatib and Jazi Abu Kaf will present evidence pursuant to the above with regard to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
16.10 Coffee Break
Presentation by Israeli Government
16.40
Speaker to be confirmed by the Israeli Government.
Third Party Responsibility and Remedies
17.00
François Dubuisson will elaborate on the third party responsibility and remedies if Israel were to be proved guilty of apartheid.
17.30
Closing remarks.
17.45
Jury Retires to Deliberate.
End of Day Two
Monday 7 November – Day Three
Press Conference
Cape Town
The Homecoming Centre
11.00
The Jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will set out its conclusions for the Third Session of the Tribunal at an International press conference.
גירסת הדפסה
סגן המנהל
מפקח
עיתונאי מקוון
צל"ש
