Over 600 Scholars and Artists Call For Dismantling
"Apartheid Regime" in Israel
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
August 2021
Over 600 scholars, artists and intellectuals from more than 45 countries
signed a declaration made public on July 5, 2021 calling for the dismantling
of the “apartheid regime” set up “on the territory of historic Palestine”
and “the establishment of a democratic constitutional arrangement that
grants all its inhabitants equal rights and duties.”
The signatories include Nobel Peace Prize laureates Adolfo Perez Esquivel of
Argentina and Mairead Maguire of Ireland, legal experts Monique Chemallier-
Gendreau and Richard Falk, economist and former Assistant Secretary General
of the United Nations Sir Richard Jolly, South African politician and
veteran anti-apartheid leader Ronnie Kasrils, and Canadian peace activist
and former Green Party leader Joan Russow.
Among the academics signing this declaration are Daniel Boyarin, professor
of Talmudic Culture at the University of California, Berkeley; Neve Gordon
of Queen Mary University, London; Adi Ophir, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv
University, and Alice Rothchild, professor emeritus at the Harvard Medical
School.
The statement declares: “Israel has established an apartheid regime on the
entire territory of historic Palestine..Israel itself no longer seeks to
hide its apartheid character, claiming Jewish supremacy and exclusive Jewish
rights of self-determination in all of historic Palestine through the
adoption in 2018 by the Knesset of a new Basic Law.”
It concludes: “The endorsers of this document call for the immediate
dismantling of this apartheid regime and the establishment of a democratic
constitutional arrangement that grants and implements on all the inhabitants
of this land equal rights and duties, without any discrimination relative to
race, ethnicity or gender… We call for the establishment of a national
commission of Peace, Reconciliation and Accountability to accompany the
transition from apartheid Israel to a governing process sensitive to human
rights and democratic principles and practices. In the interim, until such
a process is under way, we issue a call for the International Criminal Court
to launch a formal investigation of Israeli political leaders and security
personnel guilty of perpetuating the crime of apartheid.” **
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