Now is the time for Canadian churches to speak up in regard to Israel’s apartheid crimes

Canadian churches played a pivotal role in standing up to the apartheid regime in South Africa and the time is ripe to do the same to the apartheid regime in historical Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1973, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) which declared apartheid to be a crime against humanity; and the convention came into force in 1976 and so far, 110 countries have ratified the Convention, but a number of nations, including Canada, have neither signed nor ratified the Convention.

Apartheid is a system of institutionalised discrimination and segregation based on racial, religious or ethnic grounds that was implemented both in South Africa in 1948 and when the state of Israel was created in 1948.

Most Western states, including Canada, have since 1948 implicitly supported, or at least tolerated, the legalized apartheid system of white supremacy in South Africa and have glossed over and fully supported the apartheid system of Jewish supremacy in Israel.

However, following the adoption of the Apartheid Convention, Canadian churches were among the first to publicly protest against apartheid South Africa, and they provided such forceful and determined international support for the struggle against apartheid.

Activists in Canadian churches established the Taskforce on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility (TCCR) in January 1975. TCCR argued no Canadian firms should invest in South Africa until the apartheid system was abolished.

In 1977, business executives and senior church leaders established the Confederation of Church and Business People to serve as apologists for apartheid South Africa and to counter and neutralize the activities of TCCR.

In spite of facing sustained pressure from powerful corporate interests and senior clergy, and reluctant and weak responses from the Canadian government, church activists persisted for more than a decade in pressuring the government to take action against apartheid South African until the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney agreed to implement trade sanctions in 1986.

Tens of thousands of indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian villagers became internally displaced within Israel following the destruction of their communities during the establishment of the State of Israel from 1947-1949.

The internally displaced – including their descendants – now represent nearly one quarter of the nearly two million Palestinian citizens of Israel. Many of them still hope to return to their original homes but are denied that right because they do not belong to the “correct” religious-ethnic group.

Meanwhile, since the creation of Israel in 1948, more than 900 Jewish-only towns have been established, administered by admissions committees that determine who can reside in them, which effectively have barred Muslim and Christian Palestinian citizens from living in them because they do not belong to the “correct” religious-ethnic group.

93% of the land in Israel proper is administered exclusively for people of the “correct” religious-ethnic category, thus excluding two million Muslim and Christian Palestinian citizens who comprise 22% of Israel’s citizens.

Israel has been occupying East Jerusalem the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1967 while denying 5 million indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian Semites basic civil and human rights because they do not belong to the “correct” religious-ethnic category. During that period it has illegally transferred around 700,000 Israeli Jews who enjoy full rights and fundamental freedoms into those occupied territories.

Furthermore, 5.9 million Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugees have been denied for 75 years the right to return to their homes and properties, and be compensated for the income derived therefrom, in violation of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Resolution 194 adopted by the UN in December 1948, because they do not belong to the “correct” religious-ethnic category..

In 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed the Basic Nation-State Law which enshrines Jewish supremacy, that had been practiced through dozens of laws since 1948, by stating that Israel’s land is the historic homeland only of Jewish people; the state is the nation-state of only Jewish people; only Jewish people have the right to self-determination; the state shall be open only for Jewish immigration; and the state shall promote and strengthen only Jewish settlement. This racist law completely ignores the indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian citizens of Israel who make up 22% of Israel’s population.

Israel’s racist policies and actions since 1948 against its indigenous Muslim and Christian Palestinian citizens, its illegal 55-year-old occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, its illegal colonies and its violation of international law have contributed to important developments in the last two years:

• Since January 2021, well-documented reports, referencing the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, by reputable human rights organizations and UN institutions – including Israel’s B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council, Canadian Professor Michael Lynk – have found Israel guilty of war crimes and the crime against humanity of apartheid, since people who do not belong to the “correct” religious-ethnic category in areas ruled and controlled by Israel are denied equal fundamental rights and freedoms.
• An April 2021 Israeli poll found a quarter of Israeli Jews believe ‘apartheid’ is a fitting or very fitting description of the Israeli regime.
• A July 2021 poll conducted by the Jewish Electoral Institute on Jewish American attitudes, found that 25% of Jewish voters said they believed Israel is an apartheid state, and 38% of Jews under 40 think Israel is an apartheid state, 33% think the country is carrying out genocide against Palestinian people, and 20% say Israel has no right to exist!
• In March 2022, Independent Jewish Voices Canada launched a campaign against Israeli apartheid aimed at “educating and empowering people across the country” that a consensus is building among human rights experts about the nature of Israel’s actions.

In addition, several US churches have found Israel guilty of imposing apartheid, which under international law is a crime against humanity, on the indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian Semites:

• In July 2021, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in the USA passed a resolution that described Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as “a matter of theological urgency and represents a sin in violation of the message of the biblical prophets and the Gospels.” The resolution cited “Israel’s apartheid system of laws and legal procedures.”

• In November 2021, Chicago’s Episcopalian Church approved a resolution to describe Israel as meeting the legal definition of apartheid and to condemn that as “antithetical” to the church’s values.

• In November 2021, the Episcopalian Church of Vermont at its annual convention condemned Israel’s apartheid policies.

• In February 2022, the Episcopalian Church of Washington D.C. adopted a resolution to “oppose Israel’s apartheid.” 

• In June 2022, The New England Conference of the United Methodist Church condemned Israel’s apartheid system and “affirmed that apartheid is antithetical to the Gospel message.”

• In July 2022, the general assembly of the USA Presbyterian Church endorsed a resolution that stated “Israel’s laws, policies, and practices constitute apartheid against the Palestinian people.” 

On December 28, 2022 Israel’s new government published a list of policy guidelines that re-affirm Jewish supremacy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. A clause in the document states “The Jewish people has an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel—in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria.”

Jews now are a minority since they make up less than 47% of all those living in the area controlled and ruled by Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel needs a Jewish demographic majority to maintain its system of Jewish supremacy and tyranny and is resorting to increased terrorist attacks by soldiers and settlers against indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinians and their properties, displacing and expelling them, confiscating their land, demolishing their homes,  greater restriction of their movement, increased imprisonment, and more surveillance and censorship.

Canadian churches cannot continue to ignore apartheid Israel’s systemic discrimination and persecution of the indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian Semites following all the findings of human rights organizations, polls and the growing condemnation of US churches.

The time has come for Canadian churches to support freedom, equality and justice in the Holy Land by providing the same forceful and determined support for the struggle against Israeli apartheid that they displayed against apartheid South Africa.