Israel’s regime of apartheid is rooted in the racial oppression of the Palestinian people, and enacts a wide-reaching policy of dehumanisation and destruction towards all aspects of Palestinian life. Palestinians are discriminated against, stigmatised, and targeted due to their group membership, which in all likelihood is based on an understanding of their lesser value and racial inferiority that is supported in the Zionist ideology and settler-colonial agenda, advanced by successive Israeli governments. The core principle of Jewish supremacy over non-Jews, namely, indigenous Palestinians, which entails privileges only enjoyed by the former, resulted in Zionism qualifying as a form of racial discrimination according to UN General Assembly resolution 3379 (10 November 1975).

The manifestation of Israel’s Zionist and racist policy is not isolated to apartheid, however, but interdependent with its policy of expansionist settler-colonialism. It is important to recognise that Zionist ideology was expounded and institutionalised before the ‘proclamation’ of the State of Israel in 1948. Therefore, an approach to Israeli apartheid that does not recognise Israel’s ongoing policy of settler colonialism and thus the need for decolonisation, fails to account for the underlying rationale and context in which apartheid occurs. In order to dismantle Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime, end systematic racial discrimination, and realise the Palestinian people’s fundamental rights, all the structures of domination, exploitation, and oppression that have existed for decades must be eradicated.

Settler-colonialism is premised on the logic of elimination, which is pursued through a range of violent policies and practices, such as: killing the indigenous population, along with the infliction of serious bodily and mental harm; mass forced displacement; unlawful detention; and dispossession. Such policies and practices may amount to genocide where there is a specific intent to destroy the indigenous population.

In Palestine, companies have driven and enabled the process of displacement and replacement of the Palestinian population, foundational to the logic of racist settler-colonial erasure. The corporate sector has enabled and profited from Israel’s actions against Palestinians by supplying the weapons and machinery used to destroy infrastructure, control communities, and restrict resources. By helping to militarise and incentivise illegal Israeli presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the physical and mental destruction of the indigenous Palestinian population, the corporate sector has contributed to the creation of the conditions necessary for the mass forcible displacement, dispossession, and erasure of Palestinians. This is why it is necessary for corporations to recognise their involvement in Israel’s crimes and how it is legally untenable to continue business as usual. It is all corporations' obligation to end all material support and trade supporting Israel’s occupation.

Despite the vast body of evidence on the mass atrocities which underpin Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime and numerous authoritative findings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the UN, the international community has failed to act. Public representatives play a critical role in enforcing policy that will allow their states to adhere to international law and end their complicity in Israel’s campaign of widespread settler colonialist apartheid.

1. Recognising, condemning and calling for an end to Israel’s unlawful occupation and all discriminatory laws, policies, and practices that have cumulatively established and continue to maintain an apartheid regime of systemic racial oppression and domination over the Palestinian people on both sides of the Green Line;
2. Rejecting UN Security Council resolution 2803, and the ‘20-Point Plan’, as legally invalid due to its flagrant violation of the UN Charter and peremptory norms of international law that reward Israel with continued impunity for its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and increasing annexation of Palestinian territory, while providing for perpetual foreign occupation;
3. Taking positive action to ensure the full realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and cooperating toward bringing the unlawful situation to an end;
4. Adopting motions and resolutions recognising the illegality of the situation created by Israel’s breach of peremptory norms of international law, including its apartheid policies and practices on both sides of the Green Line;
5. Refraining from contributing to the unlawful situation in any way, including by imposing a full arms embargo and adopting legislation to prohibit trade, diplomatic and economic support with Israel’s genocidal, settler-colonial apartheid regime;
6. Imposing sanctions, asset freezes, travel bans and other measures to pressure Israel to cease all measures and policies and practices that contribute to the fragmentation of the Palestinian people, including the denial of the rights of return and self-determination.