FAQs
WHAT IS APARTHEID?
The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defines apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”
According to international law, apartheid is a crime against humanity that meets three conditions: 1) a system of separation or segregation for domination (based on race, creed, or ethnicity) that is 2) legally enforced and 3) entails the commission of human rights violations, or inhumane acts.
WHO SAYS APARTHEID?
For decades Palestinian human rights organizations and activists, as well as South Africans, have described the situation in Palestine as apartheid. Over the last two years, consensus emerged in the human rights community, as Israeli and international human rights organizations including Yesh Din, B’tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International all agreed with their Palestinian counterparts, declaring that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid.
WHY SHOULD MY BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION TAKE THIS PLEDGE?
Taking this pledge brings your organization into solidarity with people suffering oppression, and is in direct response to calls made by Palestinian Civil Society and Palestinian Christian leadership. They have asked for international support and action as they seek liberation.
Clearly naming the truth of apartheid and pledging to work for its end are powerful acts of nonviolent resistance that can help bring change. In addition, U.S. BUSINESSES, ORGANIZATIONS, and CULTURAL CENTERS have particular responsibilities to address Israeli apartheid because of the ways our tax dollars provide direct and unconditional support to Israel and our interests and needs have often been overshadowed to support Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by financially supporting military spending. Community organizations played a key role in naming South African apartheid in the 1980s, and they can play a similar role in naming the realities in Palestine/Israel today.
HOW CAN WE CLAIM TO BE APARTHEID-FREE?
The apartheid-free pledge is aspirational. It states our collective opposition to apartheid, settler colonialism, and military occupation, and clearly puts forth our commitment as a community to take action against these crimes. The term “apartheid-free” comes directly from Palestinian civil society. This call prioritizes the voices of those most impacted, invites solidarity, and responds by taking action.
No one will ever be fully free of apartheid until there is freedom and equality for all people everywhere. Most people do not know the full extent of their ties to apartheid in Palestine and elsewhere. This is particularly true in North America, where our histories are marked by colonialism and its own forms of apartheid. Yet we can work together to draw connections, unmask, and work to end apartheid everywhere.
IS IT ANTISEMITIC TO ACCUSE ISRAEL OF APARTHEID?
Definitely not. Labeling Israel an apartheid regime is a reflection of the actions and policies of the government of Israel. Israel is a political entity, like any other state, and its policies, actions, and history can be judged and criticized, even harshly. Such criticism is not, by itself, antisemitic. Further, many Jewish communities themselves have called out Israeli apartheid.
The apartheid-free pledge includes opposition to “all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression.” This includes antisemitism.
TESTIMONIALS
“As a Jewish resident and someone who has worked in service of individual and collective healing for years, I want to see my hometown take a stand for human rights near and far. While specific local action steps are yet to be determined, we need to start from a place of shared understanding: we collectively value human life, dignity and sovereignty. I believe that the Apartheid-Free Community Pledge takes us one step closer to where we need to be locally and globally.” -Kaia Jackson
Supporting a municipal resolution, “can improve the mental health of community members with an increased sense of empowerment to create the communities we want to live in. Having a public commitment to shared values for the physical, emotional, and material well-being of all people, can increase a sense of safety and belonging. These are foundational pillars needed for the health of any community.” It is also “a starting point for our community to create practices and procedures to ensure human rights are upheld in our community for issues related to: working conditions, affordable housing, access to aging resources, childcare, food security, education, etc.”
The material impacts of not supporting this resolution? “U.S. complicity in domestic and global human rights violations: genocide, apartheid systems, military occupations, colonization, illegal deportations, mass poverty, wage theft of the working class, environmental destruction, voting disenfranchisement,, etc.” -Maddox Sprengel
Apartheid free is not just about Palestine it’s really about our collective humanity.
-Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac
As we build a robust network of Apartheid-Free Zones, interlinked by hope and sustained grassroots organizing, we dismantle Israel’s apartheid just as we dismantled South Africa’s apartheid, and just as we dismantled America’s apartheid, when slavery was blatant and in plain view.
I think apartheid also gives us a step into a larger frame which is a decolonial frame. Apartheid is a relatively narrow focus of international law but when we view this issue from a decolonial frame, Israel as a settler colonial as well as apartheid society, then we can talk about what happens next after that dismantling. We can talk about reparations, we can talk about restoring refugees, we can talk about a host of issues that very specifically speak to the kind of society that we want to see and we want to build.
-Rabbi Brant Rosen
More and more Americans will exponentially wake up to the reality that our tax and municipal dollars are funding atrocities that do not align with our values, not only in Palestine but worldwide and right here at our doorstep -Sulheya Almatri community activist
Despair has to be earned, I personally have not done all I can to change things, I haven’t yet earned the right to despair.
-Mehmet Nedim Asla
