“Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, which includes mass killing, arbitrary detention, torture, and the imposition of a legal regime that provides far less due process than that provided to Israelis living in the same territory, meets the legal definition of apartheid.”

So say four American human rights lawyers and scholars, in a report released on May 15, entitled “An Analysis of Israel’s Laws and Policies and the Responsibilities of US Academic and Other Institutions.”

Sandra Babcock is director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School. Thomas Becker is the legal and policy director at the University Network for Human Rights, and teaches human rights at Columbia Law School. James Cavallaro is the executive director of the University Network for Human Rights, and a visiting professor at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Susan M Akram is director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law.

The GPM spoke about the report with Susan Akram.

Listen to our conversation with Susan Akram in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Flag Woman in Rotterdam, October 2023 (David Kattenburg)

We’ve been playing extracts from a People’s Tribunal on the Gaza Genocide, that took place in Sarajevo, at the end of May. Inspired by the 1966 Russell Tribunal on the US war on Vietnam, and the 2003-2005 World Tribunal on the US war on Iraq, the Gaza Tribunal was launched in London in November 2024.

Faced with a “total failure of the organized international community to implement international law in the most severe, visible case of genocide in real time,” the Gaza Tribunal’s website states, it “aims to legitimize “an alternative paradigm of international law, one that derives its authority from people and their sense of justice rather than relying solely on governments and their institutions.”

The Gaza Tribunal is governed by an eight-member Steering Committee headed by Richard Falk, Emeritus Professor of International Law and former UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine, assisted by a 29-member Advisory Policy Council of civil society leaders and public intellectuals from Palestine, Europe and North America.

Among these: Diana Buttu, Susan Abulhawa, Mouin Rabbani, Raja Shehadeh, Ghassan Abu Sittah, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Cornel West, Judith Butler, Yanis Varoufakis, Tariq Ali, Mary Kaldor, Naomi Klein, and Jeremy Corbyn.

The Tribunal’s final judgement will be rendered by a ‘Jury of Conscience’ composed of a half dozen judges, following closing hearings in Istanbul in late October.

That judgement, together with personal testimony, civil society submissions, and closing reports from each of the Tribunal’s three Chambers, will be incorporated into a set of public archives that will remain open for continuing submissions.

Here’s a presentation from the third day of the Gaza Tribunal, in Sarajevo.

Saree Makdisi is an American literary critic and professor, of Palestinian and Lebanese descent. He also writes on contemporary Arab politics and culture. Makdisi is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Listen to Saree Makdisi in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.