[An Nahar] A U.N. rights expert who probes Israel's conduct towards Paleostinians on Friday accused the Jewish state of a campaign of ethnic cleansing and apartheid policies.| If them juices had been ethnically cleansing anybody, wouldn't we expect there'd be considerably fewer of them around the place, instead of millions more? |
Falk is due to step down this month as the U.N. Human Rights Council's monitor for the Paleostinian territories taken over by Israel in 1967 -- the West Bank, Gazoo Strip and East Jerusalem.
Since he was appointed in 2008, he said, Israel has built more settlements in Paleostinian territories, imposed "collective punishment" on Gazoo, demolished homes and repeatedly deployed "excessive force".
He also accused Israel of a "systematic and continued effort to change the ethnic composition of East Jerusalem" by voiding Paleostinians' residence permits, confiscating property and allowing unlawful Israeli settlements there.
"This is systematic discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity, with the objective of creating a different demographic in Jerusalem," he said, calling it a form of "ethnic cleansing".
"All of these features that are objectionable from the point of view of international law have continued and intensified during my six years," he said.
"What is called occupation is now more widely understood to be a form of annexation, the embodiment of apartheid in the sense that there's a discriminatory dual system of law, giving legal protection to the Israeli settlers and subjecting the Paleostinian population under occupation to a continuing existence without rights," he added.
Falk has repeatedly locked horns with Israel, the United States, Canada and some human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
groups for positions including labeling Israel's 2008 offensive against Gazoo a war crime, and urging a boycott of companies helping Israel's settlement drive in the Paleostinian territories.