Press Releases
BADIL calls on the Human Rights Council to take all measures available within international law to obligate third states to impose diplomatic sanctions, as well as economic, military and cultural sanctions, to hold Israel accountable for its policies and practices of colonization and apartheid.
For the 52nd regular session of the UNHRC (27 February – 4 April), BADIL submitted a written and an oral statement under Item 7, denouncing Israel’s colonial -apartheid regime that is entrenched in policies and practices that deny the Palestinian people’s self-determination and perpetuate their forcible displacement.
For the past 75 years, the Palestinian people have continued to seek self-determination and liberation from the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime that maintains a system of domination over them. In order to achieve this, Palestinians engage in various acts and forms of resistance against the oppressive colonial power.
Palestinian resistance aims to advance Palestinian rights and dignity, whether undertaken to achieve national rights of self-determination and return or other human rights, be they political, civil, social, economic or cultural. These goals are perceived as contradictory to Israel’s raison d'état to create an exclusively Israeli-Jewish ‘homeland’ in the whole of Mandatory Palestine. As such, Israel suppresses Palestinian resistance with the ultimate aim to erase the Palestinian people’s national unity, fragment their identity, and perpetuate its denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination -- all which are seen as irreconcilable with Israeli-Jewish domination.
Within this context, and because refugee camps are seen as a stronghold of Palestinian resistance, Palestinians in refugee camps are often on the receiving end of Israel’s policies and practices of suppression of resistance. This is consistent with the Ongoing Nakba, whereby displaced Palestinians have been primary targets of Israel's international crimes since its creation in 1948, and continue to be so through Israel's active denial of their right to reparations, including their return to their homes.
For more on this issue, see BADIL's working paper on Suppression of Resistance