 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello. Welcome to People's Dispatch in Globetrotter. I was actually surprised this week to read a report from Amnesty International with the title that said, Israel's apartheid against Palestinians. Well, the word that surprised me was apartheid. This is a 280-page report, multi-year investigation to get here. It's not that Amnesty is the first out of the gate here, one should say that. I mean, two years ago, I read the report that came from Yes Dean, which is an Israeli organization. Yes Dean said, it's a difficult statement to make, but the conclusion of this opinion, and this is two years ago, is that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank, specifically West Bank, but they use the word apartheid. So did Al Haq, so did Adamir, the Palestinian group, so did Human Rights Watch, so did Beth Salim, so did the United Nations in an important paper by Richard Fork, Virginia Tilley in 2017. Nonetheless, Amnesty International has said apartheid, a word that is very sensitive because it has implications which we'll get to. So happy to be joined today by Philip Luther, 20-plus-year veteran of Amnesty International. Well done Philip, that's amazing. He's a Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty. Philip, congratulations on the report. Tell us about the report, the implications of it and so on. Thank you very much Vijay. This is a report that has been four years in the making. It's involved extensive research, it's involved extensive digging into our own archives as well as reviewing the work that others have done, whether it would be UN agencies or whether it would be the work that you alluded to a moment ago, which is you're right, we are not the first to say this. Palestinian human rights organizations have been using the apartheid framework for some time and more recently as you rightly say Israeli human rights organizations, some Israeli human rights organizations have adopted the framework either as you say with respect only to the West Bank or in a couple of cases with respect to the entire region of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. And we thought it was important for us to come to our own conclusions, so we've done the work independently. This is a very big issue and there's a big debate out there and the reason we have taken longer is partly because we ourselves wanted to ensure that we had a solid basis that we felt was impartial before embarking on the research and amnesty is it's a big organization, it's a complicated organization, so the big strategic decisions are taken by the representatives of our membership, so we first of all worked on guidelines for how to apply the apartheid framework. That was in 2017, we have since applied the framework to Myanmar with respect to the Rehingya and we've been working on the situation in Israel Palestine and our conclusion is that there is indeed both a system of apartheid and I can explain that further, but also that crimes against humanity of apartheid and you know we've really gone into the definition here and made sure that we understand exactly how to present both because they're interlinked but separate crimes against humanity of apartheid being committed in the whole of the region of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and and this is another part of analysis and with respect to Palestinian refugees in the Diaspora in so far as Israel controls as in denies their right to return to their to their family's homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. So that's an interesting place to begin, this is actually one of the first reports that's that brought the three aspects of the Palestinian experience to bear. In other words, Palestinians inside what is called 1948 Israel, Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Palestinians in the Diaspora. This is a little bit I think unusual in terms of the comprehensiveness but I think this brings us to the question what is this system of apartheid can you explain that that seems to be the core of the challenge here? Absolutely I mean that is the first question we try to answer in the report. And just to break it down a system of apartheid is an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination by one racial group over another and that manifests itself in the laws policies and practices of the state that is has created and maintained that system of apartheid. To be a bit more concrete to explain what I mean by that I mean we looked at what we call four strategies that Israel has used and is currently using and this is the important thing they being used and have been used across these territorial remains even though the exact the laws and the practices may differ in when you look at the detail what we find is that there is territorial fragmentation and that is a deliberate strategy territorial fragmentation of Palestinians between Israel, East Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian refugee diaspora and that fragmentation is key to understanding why even though and it's acknowledged because some detractors say ah you're not you're ignoring the fact that Palestinians inside Israel Palestinian citizens of Israel have the right to vote it is true of course it is but the fragmentation means the Palestinians as a whole have not to date been meaningfully able to influence the laws the policies and the practices that influence not only affect their lives but actually ensure that they are either second-class citizens or third or fourth so that's the first thing then then we look very carefully at the question of segregation and what we mean by segregation is the fact that in each of those territories and but across those territories Palestinians have different statuses they may be citizens they have but they're second-class citizens and we describe why because of an institutionalized regime of discrimination inside Israel there is in in East Jerusalem Palestinians have residency rights but no citizenship which mean and it's supposed to be permanent but actually it's permanent name only there in the last in the last in the last 40 years or so 14 000 Palestinian refugees have had their residency rights revoked by the Israeli authority so and then of course west rest of the West Bank and Gaza it's ID cards which means you're completely restricted and the important thing about that is it breaks up families you maybe you have family members in Gaza and you live in the West Bank you have no right to see them I mean you we you meet people every day who are saying well I haven't seen my mother for four years she's in Gaza I'm in the West Bank I mean it's just that every day experience which it's obviously it dominates people's lives because it's all about their home it's about their family it's about a dignified life we talk about this I mean this is a big issue dispossession of land and property and and you see the same strategies have been used over decades to to dispossess Palestinians of their land and property and allocate it in a discriminatory fashion to Jewish Israelis either within Israel itself or indeed the of course the illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and finally in a way it complements all of that the fourth strategy is the deprivation of economic social rights the fact that there is a chronic and discriminatory underinvestment in Palestinian communities in in Israel and the reality that Palestinians are deprived of access to their own resources their own resources the most fertile farmland their own oil the coastal fishing waters of Gaza because of a deliberate policy by the Israeli state so that is why to sum up we talk about a holistic system and while well we acknowledge that there may be of course very different lived experiences for Palestinians the system is one because there's one state there's one people who are impacted by the policies of that state the Palestinian people and it's and in the apartheid definition it's about a racial group and there's one supreme court that is at the end of the day is the highest court in the land whether you're in Israeli or Palestinian across all of those territories and it is the intent which we also examined in the report to ensure a Jewish demographic hegemony across that whole area which is where the refugees come in because the reason that Israel and it's open about this I mean this is it's not even a secret the reason that Israel does not want to give the the Palestinian refugees the right to return is because it disrupts the Jewish demographic hegemony so that is why we don't think you can ignore or leave out the Palestinian refugee issue when examining the system that is in place it's very important that you said that I want to switch to the other point but I want to come at it from March 2021 you know I've been covering the well shall we call it the confusing aspect of the international criminal court where a special prosecutor Fatih Ben-Suda eventually in March 2021 said that well she is going to open an investigation she used very strong language Philip she said that it's going to look into crimes regarding the Rome statutes now we know that that includes genocide allegations crimes against humanity there's four different things that it brings up when I was reading your report I saw that you said amnesty said these acts amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid again under both the apartheid convention that's you know and the Rome statute I was struck by that because seems to me this brings evidence 280 pages of evidence that should be logged into the the international criminal court what do you feel do you feel that this is going to advance the cause of the investigation in the ICC or what do you feel well we certainly hope so I mean the international criminal court currently has jurisdiction over crimes committed within the occupied Palestinian territories and that's an important point because at the moment it does not have jurisdiction over Israel 48 Israel and that is because the reason it has jurisdiction is because of the state of Palestine that invited it to have that jurisdiction and it of course Israel rejects that jurisdiction over its territory and it would require therefore a UN security council resolution to enable it to have jurisdiction over the whole of Israel nevertheless nevertheless it's a very important investigation and we've moved over the last few years from the prosecutor conducting a preliminary examination which means that the office of the prosecutor examines whether there is a prima facia case whether there is at least enough evidence to move to what is it called a formal investigation and that is where we are now there is a formal investigation into crimes that fall within the jurisdiction of the international criminal court and that is crimes such as crimes against humanity war crimes the most serious crimes at the end of the day for the international community has has has laid down in documents as you say like the Rome statue and the we have of course submitted material to the international criminal court before on work that we've done over the years such as the war crimes or at least our allegations of war crimes by Israel in some cases by Palestinian armed groups during conflicts but there's an opportunity that the officer the prosecutor has to to look examine whether the crime against the apartheid applies now our material clearly is about puts the responsibility at the level of the state we're not a judicial institution obviously when we talk about crimes and just what we mean here is that these are acts and they may be acts of torture they may be acts of arbitrary detention locking Palestinians up in prisons in some cases they are we were talking to the father today of a of a 17 year old who's in administrative detention held without charge or trial by the Israelis he's just had his detention order extended by another six months he's ill we're really worried about about I mean but these these these things are these these acts are potentially crimes war for civil transfer what I mean by that I mean when people are pushed out of their homes and you know take the the Negev region the Bedouin community in the south of Israel I mean the 7 000 homes and other buildings have been have been demolished in the six year period between 2013 and 2018 I mean this it's East Jerusalem you can talk about Sheikh Jarrah and you can talk about the Palestinian communities in the West Bank who like Khen el-Ahmar who have the threat of home demolition every day these these acts are potential crimes and but find a crime there is a criminal I mean and it is to identify who is responsible you need investigation that's exactly what the international criminal course of the prosecutor is not and they need to look at well okay if you take if you take the pattern of these crimes unlawful killings the killings of protesters in unarmed protesters in demonstrations in Gaza in the West Bank some to a lesser extent in Israel who ordered that who carried it out but particularly who ordered at a high level look at the command the chain of command and that that is that's not work that we do that's work that the officer the prosecutor needs to do and importantly then maybe able then to move to something like prosecution these take a long time but it's it's absolutely important that the impunity that currently reigns because Israel does not bring these people to account that there's there's some hope for justice well hope for justice meanwhile let's look at what has happened your report came out 280 pages I for my sins spent an entire night reading it printed the whole thing out my printer huffed and puffed as it came out in unfortunately color didn't want to stop it it's a beautiful report on the other hand before they finished reading it I feel Philip I'm not sure US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said it's absurd he basically dismissed the use of the word said it's absurd even more chilling Israel's foreign minister Yair Lapid immediately said that amnesty coated lies spread by terrorist organizations the Israeli government accused amnesty of anti-semitism let's set the last one aside because that's too big a discussion let's go directly to foreign minister Lapid's claim because I'd like you to answer that he has accused amnesty of quoting lies spread by terrorist organizations what would you say to the foreign minister well we'd say that actually his reference I mean we know we know exactly what he means when he refers to terrorist organizations is actually referring in this case to Palestinian human rights organizations and and and and this is this is the smoke screen that the Israeli authorities and in fact this is actually a part of the system about it because part of the system the apartheid is muscling voices that are critical of that system because it is acts that muzzle the criticism they're intended to maintain that system and that is what we would say actually what you're you're alluding to there and some people may not pick it up you're alluding to the fact that you as a government labeled designated six well respected I mean these are organizations that have been going for years they've been they've received over decades funding from you know from from the most respected foundations and UN sources and and and and EU funds in some cases I mean these people don't give out their funds likely and the their track record not only let's be clear not only of criticizing the Israeli authorities but they spend their time as well criticizing their own authorities so the idea that I mean it's just it's so ludicrous but it's so sinister at the same time because these labels they have the danger to stick I mean we were actually meeting and and and expressing our solidarity and how we were going to work with them to fight this label today is the some of those very organizations and yes we stand very very firm and proud to work with them and it's not only us it's Israeli human rights organizations as other international human rights organizations so yes we do work with them to obtain evidence of human rights violations by the Israeli state by the Palestinian authorities so that's just what is you're referring to but actually what he's revealing by making that comment actually is reveals something of the nature of of an estate that practices apartheid it cannot deal with it cannot deal with critical voices and it has such power to oppress and dominate Palestinian voices that it can use willy-nilly a label of terrorism to uh with and let's be clear without a shred of evidence without a shred of evidence that has been put in that in in the public domain so it's it's it's pitiful really and disappointing because actually at a repeat we wrote to him in october last year asked we asked our secretary general wrote to him like last october said can we can we talk about some of our findings and have a dialogue about this but as normal we had a complete lack of response and i mean the response back is an ideological one it's not a serious one i mean this is this is a response that shows zero engagement with the facts there's no disputing the home demolitions there's no disputing the unlawful killings we don't hear that there's no disputing the laws that have been put in place it's an ideological response well uh philip we'll be sure to take this clip of your last answer and send it to the ministry of foreign affairs in televieve and ask them what they feel now uh that's why i mentioned that it's a 280 page report detailed forensic report we've been talking to philip luther who's you know uh been there at amnesty for over 20 years speaks uh forensically almost legally but underneath that there's a lot of emotion when you talk about home demolitions about bedouins being pushed off their land and so on thanks a lot for joining us at people's dispatch in globetrotter thanks so much for having me vijay in a real pleasure thanks