Both these cases quote the Genocide Convention. Harvard's Clinic is saying that one can apply the definitions of racial group in the Genocide Convention to define what "racial group" means in the context of apartheid. They further say that since the ICTR and ICTY noted that the definition of all of these groups are fuzzy, a subjective definition of racial group - twisted against Israel - is justified.
This argument falls apart, though, because the Genocide Convention says, "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." The Genocide Convention is saying very clearly that national and religious groups are distinct from racial groups! Harvard is hand-waving to say that since the definitions of those groups can be somewhat subjective in the ICTR and ICTY, then all definitions can go out the window and anyone can define Palestinian Arab non-citizens of Israel as a racial group with zero evidence. Yet the Genocide Convention treats those groups as different from each other; if those four categories were all the same there would be some sort of textual indication.
In footnote 32, the Harvard team adds another fallacious argument:
ICERD, art. 1. General Recommendation VIII (1990) of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination further clarifies that the identification of individuals as members of a particular social or ethnic group or groups shall be based upon self-identification.
This would mean that as long as Palestinians identify as members of a social or ethnic group, and that social/ethnic groups can be considered racial groups, then discrimination against them would be racism.
But the
actual text quoted includes an important clause that the Harvard team doesn't want readers to know:
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,
Having considered reports from States parties concerning information about the ways in which individuals are identified as being members of a particular racial or ethnic group or groups,
Is of the opinion that such identification shall, if no justification exists to the contrary, be based upon self-identification by the individual concerned.
Why would they leave that bolded part out? Because every single example of discrimination that they list in their submission by Israel is more easily explained by the fact that Palestinians aren't citizens of Israel than by them being part of a racial group! Of course justification exists to the contrary of the "self-identification" criterion!
And of course Palestinians will define themselves by whatever criteria is needed to damn and ultimately destroy Israel, which is the entire point of Palestinian nationalism. After all, Palestinians were never distinct from other Arabs, nationally or ethnically, until (at the very earliest) the mid-20th century. This is another justification to the contrary of allowing self-identification to determine what would normally be objective criteria. Are Palestinians named "al-Masry" or "al-Kurd" not ethnically Egyptian or Kurdish?
In this case, as with Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, legal teams deliberately twist and ignore the parts of the proof texts (as well as historical fact and all other counter-evidence) that disprove their case. Which proves yet again that these are not serious legal analyses of apartheid, but attempts to use legal obfuscation to make tendentious and ultimately false legal arguments.
All to try to prove "Jewish supremacism."
This is antisemitism dressed up in legalese. And this is what Harvard Law School is teaching.
(full article online)
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