 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Over the past few weeks we have been talking a lot about Ukraine, about the war hysteria that is being built up, whether invasions are going to take place every week. This week we are going to shift a bit and talk about an issue that has also been in the news over the past few weeks, which is the amnesty report, which has declared that Israel has been practicing apartheid against the Palestinians. Now this report has a lot of important aspects to it which need to be discussed. We will be talking about all this on mapping fault lines. We are joined by Prabir Prakash. Prabir, so this is a very interesting report, both because of what it says and the responses to it. We will come to that of course. Now some of the key things of the report are one, it's not the first report of this kind. Palestinian activists have been saying this for decades if not generations. And we do know that even some human rights organizations over the past few years have increasingly come to adopt the paradigm of apartheid while talking about what Israel is doing. But nonetheless this report has sort of summarized the experiences of Palestinians from 1948 onwards, talking about those in the occupied territories, talking about Palestinians in Israel, Palestinians in the diaspora. So that way it's a very comprehensive report in some senses. But taking maybe a larger picture, what do you see as some of the more larger significances of this report coming out at this point of time specifically? I think the major importance of this report is amnesty which till date had been quite wishy-washy on this whole issue of Palestinians and what the Zionist racism is all about, settler colonialism. That it has shed a lot of that, not completely. We can discuss later what it hasn't or said. But it has addressed glaring issues which if it doesn't then it becomes at least can be targeted or identified as a group which really is partial to what maybe the Russians do, what maybe the Chinese do, but not what happens when it comes to a major western favorite which Israel is. So I think in that sense it is also credibility of amnesty at stake if it doesn't raise these issues, only talks about third world or countries which they don't like. So I think this is where it is a very important report because it comes from essentially the heartland of the United States, the West, the Europeans and so on. They have been using amnesty for a long time to talk about various human rights violations that now this is also to be addressed regarding what is happening in the West Bank and what's happening in Israel itself and also of course Gaza which remains a bleeding wound in that part of the world. So I think that is a very, very important landmark because it's happening within the heart of shall I say the Western liberal thought about what human rights is. That's also the reason why Israel is so worried about it, as it is also worried about United Nations which also is now coming around to criticizing it on various counts, particularly with what its handling of Gaza is. I think these in that sense are therefore coming to a head for Israel, that slowly it is coming to be recognized what should be considered a state which should be outside the pale of civilized behavior like apartheid South Africa was and if it reaches that state that that is how people view it then slowly the legitimacy it pretends to have particularly in Western media and within Western past that is slowly going to erode if it is not already eroding. So this is I think the bigger picture as you have rightly said it addresses issues which either to have not been so much focused on Gaza has been there that something that people can't deny but it has always been assumed that Palestinian citizens of what could be the historical Palestine who are in Israel they have full citizenship right this is the picture that's always been given to us now it seems that's not true it's also not true that they can acquire land easily it's not true that they can acquire buildings easily they are in fact slowly begin ease doubt of places where they used to be and slowly being also ghettoized which we know and what from reports that we have that for them to get land is almost impossible 93% of thing I think of land in Israel is vested with the state in a way that only Jewish citizens can act can have ownership of land there so they are restricted to about 7% though they are 18% of the population so if we leave all of that out the daily really the daily grind of this kind of exclusionary behavior that in order to go to school you need to cross gates of course it's much more the fate of the West Bank today Gaza I'll come to later but in West Bank going to school going to hospital going to your field all of this needs going to check posts and check posts are manned by 18 year 19 year kids who are taught to hate right from the beginning they are really non-citizens and we have to treat them as such so the power is exercised and this relationship of appetite as it is now being openly called is also through this kind of system where you teach the young how to treat an occupied territory and this is where it starts from and that gets internalized when you enter the Israeli military forces which is they're supposed to mandatory and of course colleges later on all of this starts with your duties on the check posts and for the Palestinian citizens from childhood it also starts at the check post so this is one part of it which is very clear the taking away land is an everyday occurrence settlements growing everyday occurrence and all of this is available treatment of Gaza which is what the original inhabitants of you know the southern part of what is now Israel they have been really displaced made refugees that have been stuck into this little small ghetto of Gaza where they don't have access to see they don't have access to any other country for importing goods they don't have access to agricultural land which has been taken over by the settlers in that part of the land of Israel it is originally their land this from where they have all been squeezed into Gaza and then Gaza is looked on as a case where Israel claims they have to periodically mow the grass except mowing of the grass means taking out active population who can resist them is becoming increasingly more and more difficult so this is the bleeding wound at the heart of Israel Gaza and of course the West Bank which is not in the same state of Gaza as it has a little more resemblance of Palestinian authority in pockets some amount of funds coming in from outside but Gaza has no viable way of sustaining so if you look at that it is a essentially has been made completely dependent for from food to any necessity including water and electricity on Israel so this is the total dependency that's been built in so this is the structural appetite of course the violence of the settler communities violence of Israeli forces violence of Israeli police all of that is of the larger in the part of the larger picture but the structural regime of appetite where people have very different rights depending on which part you are from as a Palestine Palestinian in Israel you have partial citizenship rights not full partial if we're in West Bank it's occupied territory but you don't face the kind of brutality that Gaza faces Gaza of course is the worst and you have Jordan Valley next to the river so it's really in that sense a part of the West Bank and there of course they're not allowed so you can see the way this whole squeezing of the Palestinian population is going on and Israeli are very frank about it they think that if we squeeze them enough they will leave and this land will become totally ours that's the that's what they're looking for and that's the argument they give so designating them as an appetite state is the fear that the loose legitimacy in the Western population and it's the Western countries particularly the United States which really props up the state of Israel and I think that the amnesty report therefore is a huge blow to their credibility and the credibility of the story that they are somehow oppressed by the Palestinians by the Arabs we don't know by who but they are somehow oppressed and therefore the legitimacy of Israel is a legitimate legitimacy of the Jewish people having a homeland the whole what shall we say the settler colonial myth of Israel that that is endangered and if that is endangered there is a huge risk that the isolation of Israel will continue to grow and under such conditions that it's a long-term viability of Israel younger people may leave the long-term viability of Israel based on funds from United States and others they slowly dry off then how does Israel survive lowly outpost of the Zionist state or it's outpost of the Western powers in that region which is what it has been from the beginning. Praveen in this context of course some criticisms have also been raised against the amnesty report while they have gone they have moved like you said from their earlier position much ahead perhaps but some aspects still missing from their larger understanding or conceptualization of Israel as a state and how it functions so could you take us to some of these as well. Well you know the whole issue is the settler colonial state the issue of the settler colonial state which is what Israel is that is not addressed in the amnesty report is what has been the criticism of it that it really stems from what was started by Christian Zionists at that time a land without people and the people without land so it's an ideal fit the whole idea that this is empty land now this is the central picture of settler colonialism as you know that effectively the entire settlement in the Americas was because it was empty we know that it was it we know it was genocide all that is known but the myth of settler colonialism or settler colonial states whether it's the Americas or in Australia has been that so this was the same myth which was first started by Christian Zionists we don't really like the Jews let's send them somewhere else okay so let's really espouse their cause by saying you guys should have a state of your own because you speak some of you speak German some of you speak English some of you speak French you should all have one state one nation and that nation should be your historical homeland which is what Israel finally became so this was the Palestine issue that there are no Palestinians this is what Goldemire said I think 1969 that this there are no Palestinians so it is theoretically or physically empty it started by claiming that it was physically empty that they discovered there is a large Arab population over there they said well you know the Arab lands are very large these people can go to other Arab countries places where Arabic people are there why can't they leave this little part of it to us so they were willing to talk them of Israeli Arabs but not Palestinians so the Palestine identity was not available to the Palestinians though they have of course called it the historical Palestine they identified it was a part of the time of a larger Ottoman empires what would be called the before the British took it over what would be called this basically Damascus governance really part of that but all of that is forgotten and if you see the founding myth of Israel that's that land without people and people without land that's that's how the Jewish population came to be settled in Israel and the Arab population was somehow wished away so this picture of the settler colonial state which is what embodies the birth of Israel and you can see why therefore over the over a period of 30 40 years and you can see 48 what the United Nations had said what finally you know if you see before the United Nations mandate you can see the hardly some settlements over there then you have the next picture which you have whether what the United Nations mandate was large parts of Palestine were actually given to Palestinians though Israel was given a significant part of it and then the next 67 war in which Gaza is cut off from West Bank and of course they take over the large parts of the they take over the entire West Bank in fact and then cut West Bank areas also significantly so this progressive growth of the Israeli state is also something which is inherent in a settler colonial outlook then you have the even now large parts of the West Bank are now essentially outposts for further land grabs which is the settler large settler population over there who then will also now claim that we are here we're half a million we're not going anywhere so this whole picture of settler colonialism and the guy the ideology of settler colonialism is not something Amnesty really addresses and what it also doesn't address which is what has also caused a lot of the unhappiness is that there have been a luck for instance even in Israel there is Bethlehem groups which have been peace groups groups fighting against this kind of apartheid state all these groups are men are basically mentioned but in footnotes but that acknowledgement of their fight against apartheid Israel is really doesn't find the place for people like us who have been in Palestine solidarity movements for a long time across the world this is a little unusual that that history does does not somehow find place in Amnesty's report I can understand that for a Western audience you know this kind of things are very difficult I remember I was once in a conference it's an event conference on Palestine and it was interesting that only people who could speak on behalf of the Palestinians were European Jews or not American Jews other other ones who supported Palestine were keeping quiet so in fact I remember going and speaking I said look as an Asian I don't have any problems we are not a party to what happened the Jews in Europe and other Christian lands so we can speak that this is colonial expression that we see what's happening in Israel and the fact that others are not able to speak about it is because their complicity against anti you know against the Jews anti-semitic oppression particularly if for a German it became really much more of a problem to speak in favor of Palestine that's why I was saying Amnesty's breaking out of the shell is good but not acknowledging that all these things were there is one of the weaknesses of the report right and Prabir since you mentioned anti-semitism finally very quickly as expected the response from the Israeli government its allies all over was to cry anti-semitism yet again at what is a very factual well documented report so this is over the years increasingly become a standard increasingly become a familiar methodology by which any critic of Israel's policy is being taught so how do you see this sort of going about well as you've talked about this anti-defamation league has come out with a statement saying this anti-semitism and of course no explanation that why it should be considered anti-semitic what is anti-semitic in the Amnesty's report are any of the incidents wrong or any of the factual evidence wrong none of the is addressed it is dismissed saying this is anti-semitism period so essentially when you can't what shall we say when you can't confront the arguments or the facts then you try to shoot the messenger and that's that's really what they're trying to do saying this Amnesty is anti-semitic anybody who says Israel is doing any of these things by definition anti-semitic as you know criticism of the Jewish state criticism of Israel as a Jewish state not of Israel per se but Israel is a Jewish state is supposed to be anti-semitic so if you do not accept that the Jews are the first citizens in Israel everybody else second-class citizen if you don't accept that apparently that's anti-semitic the semitics actually Arabs are semitics as well but it's not about language are you speaking a semitic language or not it's about your Jewishness only that is that is apparently semitic today and anybody who does not accept Israel should be a state for the Jews period that itself is anti-semitic this is what the American Defamation League statement ADL statement was all about they have they are losing the debate they're not able to give arguments what they're giving therefore is basically what would be called name calling that tar you calling you anti-semitic I don't have to confront your arguments so the fact is this is a loss of arguments and they're also too very worried about what the United Nations reports are going to be because if United Nations characterizes any of the committees characterize Israel as an apartheid state this is the stamp of the United Nations on it and reports like Amnesty will really make it much more difficult for Israel to contest this naming that might come about in the human human rights reports and investigations I think that is what worries Israel and of course what worries the anti-defamation league which is really you know what it is all about thank you so much for being that's all we have time for today keep watching news click