report: – This must have consequences

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The 280 pages The long Amnesty report documents what the Palestinian and other international human rights organizations have been pointing out for decades: The policies pursued by the state of Israel are apartheid. The conclusion is reached by examining and documenting the sum of the targeted and inhumane treatment of the Palestinian population from 1948 until today.

A breath from the past

The report further states that almost all parts of the Israeli administration contribute to enforcing the illegal apartheid regime which, according to the UN Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statutes, is considered a crime against humanity. The well-documented report, with perhaps the world’s most recognized human rights organization as the sender, is so clear that it would be a scandal if its findings did not also have consequences for Norwegian politics.

The conclusion from Amnesty should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the situation in Palestine and Israel closely in recent years. As early as 2007, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that if the talks on a peace agreement between Palestine and Israel did not lead to an independent Palestinian state, would this result in an apartheid-like system in Israel.

Olmert believed that Israel’s international supporters would not be able to support an apartheid state, and quite rightly predicted that the first among those who would oppose would be the American Jewish organizations. Today, the American Jewish Voice for Peace is one of the clearest international voices for a boycott of the Israeli apartheid regime.

No Olympic gold without community

In 2010, few years after Olmert’s statement, the then Israeli defense minister and former prime minister, Ehud Barak, also the concept of apartheid in his mouth. Barak has served in the Israeli military for 35 years, is one of Israel’s most highly decorated professional soldiers, and is not a dove of peace. The motivation behind his analysis was hardly primarily to secure the rights of the Palestinian people, but rather to ensure Israel’s national security.

These and other similar statements have been part of the public debate in Israel for a long time. It therefore seems strange that the Israeli ambassador to Norway, Alon Roth, and other government officials in Israel are completely incomprehensible about the content of the report. Roth’s standard reactionin which he accuses Amnesty of anti-Semitism and of keeping Israel to a higher standard than other alleged democracies, therefore appears to be arrogant, undocumented left-wing work.

The paradox is that the international community’s total lack of will to act in the face of Israel’s repeated violations of international law has led senior Israeli officials for a long time to get away with this kind of frivolous argument without root in reality. The result is served in the form of embarrassingly bad arguments and what in practice is impunity for an Israel that does not comply with the international rules of the game.

Has long since become personal

Now the ball is in Anniken Huitfeldt and the rest of the government’s half of the field. Both the UN, Norway and the majority of the world’s countries agree that Palestine is under occupation, and that the occupation must end. This has been stated by the UN Security Council 22 times since 1967. We agree that Israel’s aggressive colonization (settlement policy) of Palestinian land must be stopped. Foreign Minister Huitfeldt has emphasized this on repeated occasions, most recently as President of the UN Security Council in January.

Furthermore, we agree that international law and relevant UN resolutions must form the basis for a future peace solution. When the government also allows the documentation that Amnesty, among others, has helped to produce to sink in, we will hopefully also agree that we can not maintain normal economic and diplomatic relations with an apartheid regime until this regime – whose policy is a crime against humanity – is abolished. .

The battle is not over

At present, not following up on the recommendations of the Amnesty Report and the repeated condemnations of the international community with concrete action will be a passive contribution to the brutal occupation. And then we have not even mentioned the active contributions Norway makes in the form of the Petroleum Fund’s investments in companies that contribute to the occupation of Palestine, and the extensive trade cooperation with the Israeli occupation economy.

By holding on by the line Norwegian politicians have taken since the 1990s, without taking on board the enormous changes that have taken place on the ground over the past 30 years, international diplomacy is defending today’s unsustainable practices. In reality, we are making a guarantor of Israel’s illegal apartheid policy, contrary to our own values, with the government platform and with other political governing documents.

The involuntary euroboys

It should not be too much to demand of the government that it follow up its own policy and its obligations under international law in this matter. We demand an answer from the Foreign Minister on how the government will meet apartheid in 2022.

With continued impunity for Israel, or condemnations that are followed up with real political and economic pressure?

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