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Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and UN Special Rapporteur said that Israel has carried out a “systematic and continued effort to change the ethnic composition of East Jerusalem”.
82-year-old Falk said that in the past few years, Israel has made it difficult for Palestinians to live in Jerusalem and has encouraged the construction of new Israeli settlements, illegal under international law. He added that since 1996, over 11,000 Palestinians have been unable to live in Jerusalem.
“The 11,000 is just the tip of the iceberg because many more are faced with possible challenges to their residency rights”, he said.
He also described Israel’s policies as bearing “unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing”.
“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 Palestinian population under occupation to a continuing existence without rights”, Falk said.
He added that the “realities on the ground” for Palestinian people have become a lot worse since he was appointed as UN Special Rapporteur in 2008. He is expected to step down later in the month.
Falk also said that Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem and occupied West Bank have hampered the outcome of the peace talks between Palestine and Israel.
“Every increment of enlarging the settlements or every incident of house demolition is a way of worsening the situation confronting the Palestinian people and reducing what prospects they might have as the outcome of supposed peace negotiations. There are other reasons for encouraging the idea that it’s still possible to negotiate a settlement based on the two-state model, even though most informed observers regard it as highly implausible given the changes that have taken place during the period of occupation and given the outlook of the Netanyahu government”, he said.
