The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) reviewed Israel's policies of institutionalized discrimination and apartheid against the Palestinians in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and called upon Israel to ensure equality for Jews and Palestinians,  including in the implementation of the right of return to one's country and in the possession of property.

CERD repeatedly expresses concerns about Israeli policies inside Israel and in the OPT citing Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in which states particularly “condemn racial segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction.”

The Committee notes that implementation of the International Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is impeded by Israeli actions which change the demographic composition of the OPT, i.e. population transfer. In this context, the committee lists a number of concerns about segregation and apartheid practices in the OPT, such as the construction of the Wall and its associated regime, Jewish colonies, sever restriction on the freedom of movement, unequal distribution of water resources, and home demolition. The Committee also expresses concern at the Israeli affirmation that two separate legal regimes exist in the OPT; one applying to Israelis and one applying to Palestinians. CERD urges Israel to ensure that Palestinians in the OPT enjoy full rights under the Convention without discrimination based on citizenship.

CERD characterizes as segregation Israel's policy of maintaining separate “Arab and Jewish sectors” in the areas of education, health and housing, and the lack of access to public services and state land of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The Committee further calls for the right to equality of all citizens, which does not exist in Israel, to be enacted as a general norm of high status in domestic law.

The Committee also expresses its concern that the mandate of Israeli para-statal institutions such as the Jewish National Fund and the World Zionist Organization, and the Israeli Land Administration, are managing land, housing and services exclusively for the benefit of the Jewish population, and called upon Israel to ensure that these bodies are bound by the principle of non-discrimination in the exercise of their functions.

The Committee calls upon Israel to “guarantee the right of every person within its jurisdiction to an effective remedy... as well as the right to seek just and adequate reparation...” and to hold accountable the perpetrators of acts of racial discrimination or acts committed with racial motives, particularly settler violence.

To read the committee full report, please see:

http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/CERD.C.ISR.CO.13.pdf