The Spanish parliament of Catalonia, in a historic vote, on Thursday, June 16, recognized Israel’s perpetration of the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
The Catalan parliament becomes the first parliament on the European continent to publicly recognize that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
The resolution called on the Catalan government and the Madrid government to use all diplomatic efforts to compel the Israeli authorities to implement the recommendations issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
He also called for ensuring that human rights are at the heart of all bilateral and multilateral agreements with official Israeli institutions, by exercising extreme due diligence to avoid any support for the apartheid regime.
The Palestinian National Committee for the Boycott of Israel warmly welcomed this decision and considered it a preliminary decision against the Israeli colonial regime.
In a tweet celebrating the recognition, the left-wing En Comu Podem party wrote, “Parliament, the first European institution to recognise that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, as noted in Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”
It quoted MP Susana Segovia Sanchez as saying, “This is a historic moment. Today we call by name the violation of human rights in Palestine.”
In March, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories asserted that the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied territories amount to the crime of apartheid.
The report said that the human rights situation of Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza has been marked by a significant deterioration, noting that the amount of violence used by Israel in order to continue its occupation is constantly increasing and affecting the lives of Palestinians.
The report sheds light on the increase in the phenomenon of settler violence towards Palestinian cities and towns with the support of the Israeli security forces, and the negativity of the Tel Aviv government towards combating this phenomenon, which led to deepening the atmosphere of fear and coercion throughout the West Bank.
