ADC urges UN conference to examine racism against Palestinians
Palestine-USA, Politics, 9/1/2001

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) on Friday urged delegates to the United Nations World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, to carefully examine Israel's discrimination against Palestinians during its deliberations.

ADC strongly suggests that the issue not be framed in a discussion of the nature of Zionism, but focus instead on a specific analysis of the extraordinary systems of discrimination which the Israeli state practices against the Palestinian people.

ADC is the largest Arab-American grassroots organization in the United States. It was founded in 1980 by former Senator James Abourezk.

ADC President Ziad Asali said "we are disappointed that US Secretary of State Powell is not attending this important meeting simply because the international community is determined to discuss Israel's abuses against the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians are deserving of the protection and attention of the international community, and Israel cannot continue to be allowed to flout international standards and norms in its treatment of them, especially in the Palestinian territories under Israeli occupation. We urge all delegates to the conference not to be deterred from discussing Israeli abuses. This matter is too urgent and important to be ignored."

In the run-up to the Conference, and in its efforts to convince the Bush Administration to participate fully in it, ADC has pointed out that Israeli Jews have been unwilling to grant any group of Palestinians, whether they are citizens of Israel, the three million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation or refugees, equal legal rights.

ADC has emphasized that every aspect of life in the occupied territories--East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza--depends on one's ethnicity: Where one can live, the roads on which one may drive, freedom of movement, access to education, the right to bear arms in self-defense, land and water use, and the entire range of social services all are administered in favor of Jews by Israel in a manner at least as discriminatory as that of apartheid-era South Africa.

Given that these realities are without parallel in any other part of the world, ADC strongly feels that the Conference must honestly and openly address them. The international community has a heightened obligation to do so given that Israeli abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are taking place, not within the borders of a member state of the United Nations, but under conditions of military occupation.

ADC has also pointed out that Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated as second-class citizens and that Israel also practices racial discrimination against the Palestinian refugees who have been prevented from returning to their homes since 1948 simply because they are not Jewish.

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