Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 20 October 2008
"In 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). This convention defines racial discrimination as "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life." It states that the conviction that any doctrine of superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere. Israel voluntarily accepted the obligation to work toward achieving these goals with the ratification of the CERD in 1979. Yet, Palestinians have still not seen the benefits of convention......
The United States, Canada and Israel have withdrawn from the global process to eliminate racial discrimination. They will likely be joined by countries from the European Union if the case of racial discrimination against Palestinians is put clearly on the agenda. Yet, the calls by Nobel Peace Prize winners Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to fight racial discrimination haven't lost their power and are still valid. At a press conference after the UN Human Rights Council meeting in September 2008, Tutu said: "I think the West, quite rightly, is feeling contrite, penitent, for its awful connivance with the Holocaust. The penance is being paid by the Palestinians. I just hope again that ordinary citizens in the West will wake up and say 'we refuse to be part of this.'" The silence and indifference of the world community to Israel's racial discrimination against Palestinians is a blow to all people who cannot accept injustice and unjust behavior, either from individuals or states. Moreover, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said about racial discrimination against African-Americans in the US, "injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere." "
"In 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). This convention defines racial discrimination as "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life." It states that the conviction that any doctrine of superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere. Israel voluntarily accepted the obligation to work toward achieving these goals with the ratification of the CERD in 1979. Yet, Palestinians have still not seen the benefits of convention......
The United States, Canada and Israel have withdrawn from the global process to eliminate racial discrimination. They will likely be joined by countries from the European Union if the case of racial discrimination against Palestinians is put clearly on the agenda. Yet, the calls by Nobel Peace Prize winners Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to fight racial discrimination haven't lost their power and are still valid. At a press conference after the UN Human Rights Council meeting in September 2008, Tutu said: "I think the West, quite rightly, is feeling contrite, penitent, for its awful connivance with the Holocaust. The penance is being paid by the Palestinians. I just hope again that ordinary citizens in the West will wake up and say 'we refuse to be part of this.'" The silence and indifference of the world community to Israel's racial discrimination against Palestinians is a blow to all people who cannot accept injustice and unjust behavior, either from individuals or states. Moreover, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said about racial discrimination against African-Americans in the US, "injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere." "
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