I will watch it. I’ve seen it in my feed before but never clicked it. My education on this comes from two influential professors, one I had for constitutional law, who was an expert on constitutional history and theory and had been an envoy to South Africa to help write their new Constitution, and the other was unofficial liason between certain folks in the US government and Arafat and the PLO, which had no official relations. To me, the lack of popular consent of the governed is the sine qua non of Apartheid, that means the victims are a political but popular majority citizens of the country. Those are the things that make it so evil and so abhorrent, to me anyway, and it’s how I’ve come to understand it, both in terms of how it came to be and the reforms that ended it.
Apartheid is said to be an “aggravated form of racial discrimination.” Racial discrimination is against international law on its own, by itself. Apartheid, in which the minority political bloc purported to rule over the unconsenting majority, based solely on race, is something way, way more dastardly and offensive to humanity, mainly because it is antithetical to democratic governance, which the the only think that even leads toward peak humanity, if not the greatest human achievement.
Meanwhile, although a suspect class for which heightened scrutiny of potential racial discrimination is warranted, nationality and citizenship status are sometimes perfectly just grounds for policies that are facially neutral but discriminatory as applied. For example, how many suicide bombers have to cross the border from the same place before you restrict certain people’s rights based on national origin or immigration status, how many rockets do they have to import and launch at your people before you start inspecting their deliveries?
Still not ready to feed a democracy to Iran. Israel isn’t going to let it happen without a fight, and that will be a bloodbath that makes the entirety of the hostilities from 1948 to date look like a pleasant afternoon.
You are mistaken that minority rule is fundamental to Apartheid. It’s not simply ‘a system of oppression’, it is the establishment and maintaining of systematic oppression and domination of one racial group over another. Let’s look at Article II of the Apartheid Convention for one. We can also look into the definition from the Rome Statute or the ICERD.
Under every international definition of Apartheid, Israel is an Apartheid State.
Article II then lists specific inhuman acts that committed in this context amount to the crime under international law of apartheid, ranging from violent ones such as murder and torture to legislative, administrative and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participating in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and deny them basic human rights and freedoms. The specific inhuman acts enumerated are:
a. Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person:
(i) By murder of members of a racial group or groups;
(ii) By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(iii) By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
b. Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
c. Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
d. Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
e. Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;
f. Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.
Apartheid, in which the minority political bloc purported to rule over the unconsenting majority, based solely on race
We spoke about this. We looked at the definition. The minority/majority aspect is simply not in there. In fact it says it can be done to “any other racial group,” explicitly rejecting that framework. Why are you still saying the same thing? It is totally unjustified
"in which the minority political bloc purported to rule over the unconsenting majority, "
to all the nice folks reading this gibberish, please know that this is flat out misinformation. @[email protected] had never been able to support this with any kind of source and it is not in the legal definition of apartheid. The crime of apartheid definition is very clear and says this applies to any racial group with absolutely NOTHING about it having to be a racial minority over a majority (and by miniority here, JustZ also just means less population).
Here is the definition of apartheid according to the ICC:
The ‘crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by ONE RACIAL GROUP OVER ANY OTHER RACIAL GROUP OR GROUPS and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
@[email protected] do you know why you can never respond to this? Because your lame argument rests entirely now on your false definition of Apartheid. Once that is gone, you are forced to admit that ISRAEL IS A RACIST COLONIAL APARTHEID STATE and very little about its founding and practices is actually legal.
Don’t be the kind of law expert that enables evil by saying BS like this…
It hurts, I get it. It’s okay. You can cross that bridge.
Nah, even though no nation or individual has ever been indicted, let alone convicted, for apartheid crimes, outside of South Africa, I’m coming around to the idea that my understanding of the definition of apartheid is ill-founded. It doesn’t hurt at all but it is difficult to recognize. I’m only informed by my own education and experience, which on this were pretty on point, primary sources. I read a nice law review article this morning about the modern South African indictments under modern positive international law, but it focuses on jurisdictional and procedural rather than substantive law, since obviously they ere South Africans and thus it wasn’t a new application of the substantive law.
Maybe you can help by describing the feature or features of “apartheid” under the statutory or customary international law definition of your choice that distinguishes apartheid from mere racial discrimination? What makes apartheid “aggravated” discrimination instead of regular discriminstion?Something that really gets to the meat of whether the international custom against apartheid, which led to the Rome Statute (which says in Article II “as practiced by South Africa”).
I fundamentally disagree that discrimination based on national origin and immigration status is on the same level as discrimination based on race. Every country discriminates based on national origin and immigration status; while doing so is always suspect, it is often perfectly acceptable and uncontroversial.
I also fundamentally believe that an evil policy duly enacted into law by a popular majority is less evil than the same policy forced onto the majority without consent. The latter is obviously a crime against humanity. Again, racial discrimination is already against international law.
So I’m still not ready to feed Israel to Iran and write off the only country in the middle east that is even has the potential to grant legitimate human rights, and that’s the one that elects it’s leaders. I am hopeful for the Israeli people that they can and will strive toward democracy, and that is hope for humanity, since caliphates and imamates cannot grant legitimate, lasting human rights.
I’m coming around to the idea that my understanding of the definition of apartheid is ill-founded. It doesn’t hurt at all but it is difficult to recognize.
Congrats dude! It is hard to recognize but it’s better than having the wrong idea about something so important
I will acknowledge that when I describe the Israeli system as Apartheid, I’m using it in a colloquial sense, not a legal sense. Which I think is appropriate, because my purpose is to characterize the severity and urgency of the situation rather than prosecute the case in international court. But I can accept that it might fall short based on legal definitions (in part because Israel is familiar enough with international law that they usually take care in developing policy to try to avoid when possible making their violations easy to prosecute).
It’s a bit long, but the feature I think is useful is summed up here:
“If the Holocaust is the paradigmatic case for the crime of genocide and South Africa for that of apartheid, then the crime against the Palestinian people must be called the Nakba.”
The thesis, at least in my understanding, is that the situation is unique enough to fit poorly into the major categories we use for describing atrocities, and that it requires that we recognize it as the primary case for a novel form of ethnic oppression that incorporates elements of genocide and apartheid, but operates in a way that is ultimately unique to the specifics of this situation. I’m curious what you might think of that argument.
I will watch it. I’ve seen it in my feed before but never clicked it. My education on this comes from two influential professors, one I had for constitutional law, who was an expert on constitutional history and theory and had been an envoy to South Africa to help write their new Constitution, and the other was unofficial liason between certain folks in the US government and Arafat and the PLO, which had no official relations. To me, the lack of popular consent of the governed is the sine qua non of Apartheid, that means the victims are a political but popular majority citizens of the country. Those are the things that make it so evil and so abhorrent, to me anyway, and it’s how I’ve come to understand it, both in terms of how it came to be and the reforms that ended it.
Apartheid is said to be an “aggravated form of racial discrimination.” Racial discrimination is against international law on its own, by itself. Apartheid, in which the minority political bloc purported to rule over the unconsenting majority, based solely on race, is something way, way more dastardly and offensive to humanity, mainly because it is antithetical to democratic governance, which the the only think that even leads toward peak humanity, if not the greatest human achievement.
Meanwhile, although a suspect class for which heightened scrutiny of potential racial discrimination is warranted, nationality and citizenship status are sometimes perfectly just grounds for policies that are facially neutral but discriminatory as applied. For example, how many suicide bombers have to cross the border from the same place before you restrict certain people’s rights based on national origin or immigration status, how many rockets do they have to import and launch at your people before you start inspecting their deliveries?
Still not ready to feed a democracy to Iran. Israel isn’t going to let it happen without a fight, and that will be a bloodbath that makes the entirety of the hostilities from 1948 to date look like a pleasant afternoon.
You are mistaken that minority rule is fundamental to Apartheid. It’s not simply ‘a system of oppression’, it is the establishment and maintaining of systematic oppression and domination of one racial group over another. Let’s look at Article II of the Apartheid Convention for one. We can also look into the definition from the Rome Statute or the ICERD.
Under every international definition of Apartheid, Israel is an Apartheid State.
a. Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person:
(i) By murder of members of a racial group or groups;
(ii) By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(iii) By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
b. Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
c. Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
d. Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
e. Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;
f. Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.
Amnesty International Report
Human Rights Watch Report
B’TSelem Report, Explainer
We spoke about this. We looked at the definition. The minority/majority aspect is simply not in there. In fact it says it can be done to “any other racial group,” explicitly rejecting that framework. Why are you still saying the same thing? It is totally unjustified
to all the nice folks reading this gibberish, please know that this is flat out misinformation. @[email protected] had never been able to support this with any kind of source and it is not in the legal definition of apartheid. The crime of apartheid definition is very clear and says this applies to any racial group with absolutely NOTHING about it having to be a racial minority over a majority (and by miniority here, JustZ also just means less population).
Here is the definition of apartheid according to the ICC:
@[email protected] do you know why you can never respond to this? Because your lame argument rests entirely now on your false definition of Apartheid. Once that is gone, you are forced to admit that ISRAEL IS A RACIST COLONIAL APARTHEID STATE and very little about its founding and practices is actually legal.
Don’t be the kind of law expert that enables evil by saying BS like this…
It hurts, I get it. It’s okay. You can cross that bridge.
Nah, even though no nation or individual has ever been indicted, let alone convicted, for apartheid crimes, outside of South Africa, I’m coming around to the idea that my understanding of the definition of apartheid is ill-founded. It doesn’t hurt at all but it is difficult to recognize. I’m only informed by my own education and experience, which on this were pretty on point, primary sources. I read a nice law review article this morning about the modern South African indictments under modern positive international law, but it focuses on jurisdictional and procedural rather than substantive law, since obviously they ere South Africans and thus it wasn’t a new application of the substantive law.
Maybe you can help by describing the feature or features of “apartheid” under the statutory or customary international law definition of your choice that distinguishes apartheid from mere racial discrimination? What makes apartheid “aggravated” discrimination instead of regular discriminstion?Something that really gets to the meat of whether the international custom against apartheid, which led to the Rome Statute (which says in Article II “as practiced by South Africa”).
I fundamentally disagree that discrimination based on national origin and immigration status is on the same level as discrimination based on race. Every country discriminates based on national origin and immigration status; while doing so is always suspect, it is often perfectly acceptable and uncontroversial.
I also fundamentally believe that an evil policy duly enacted into law by a popular majority is less evil than the same policy forced onto the majority without consent. The latter is obviously a crime against humanity. Again, racial discrimination is already against international law.
So I’m still not ready to feed Israel to Iran and write off the only country in the middle east that is even has the potential to grant legitimate human rights, and that’s the one that elects it’s leaders. I am hopeful for the Israeli people that they can and will strive toward democracy, and that is hope for humanity, since caliphates and imamates cannot grant legitimate, lasting human rights.
Congrats dude! It is hard to recognize but it’s better than having the wrong idea about something so important
I actually think that all makes sense.
I will acknowledge that when I describe the Israeli system as Apartheid, I’m using it in a colloquial sense, not a legal sense. Which I think is appropriate, because my purpose is to characterize the severity and urgency of the situation rather than prosecute the case in international court. But I can accept that it might fall short based on legal definitions (in part because Israel is familiar enough with international law that they usually take care in developing policy to try to avoid when possible making their violations easy to prosecute).
I think if that’s the framework you’re applying, you might be interested in this law review (assuming you haven’t already read it): “The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine,” by Rabea Eghbariah
It’s a bit long, but the feature I think is useful is summed up here:
The thesis, at least in my understanding, is that the situation is unique enough to fit poorly into the major categories we use for describing atrocities, and that it requires that we recognize it as the primary case for a novel form of ethnic oppression that incorporates elements of genocide and apartheid, but operates in a way that is ultimately unique to the specifics of this situation. I’m curious what you might think of that argument.
You should use it in the legal sense :)