UNITED NATIONS: A new United Nations report has accused Israel of having established “an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole”.

The report released on Wednesday comes amid renewed debate about whether, through its settlement policy and rejection of Palestinian self-determination, the Israeli government is creating — or even has already created — a de facto “one-state”, which critics warn would constitute a form of apartheid.

It urged governments to “support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives”.

The report — Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid — was commissioned and published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

The report written by Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, and Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.

John Reynolds, a lecturer in law at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, told correspondents that the report “breaks new ground in the context of the UN’s analysis of the situation in Palestine”.

Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon issued a statement condemning the report late on Wednesday.

“The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie,” he told reporters.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, when asked about the report, said it was published without any prior consultations with the UN Secretariat and its views do not reflect those of the secretary-general. Noting how “the expert consensus [is] that the prohibition of apartheid is universally applicable and was not rendered moot by the collapse of apartheid in South Africa”, the report argues that Israel is “guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid”, a “crime against humanity under customary international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”.

The report is a “detailed analysis of Israeli legislation, policies and practices” that highlights how Israel “operates an apartheid regime”, including through “demographic engineering”.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are described as “subjected to oppression on the basis of not being Jewish”, it said.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem similarly experience “discrimination in access to education, healthcare, employment, residency and building rights”, as well as “expulsions and home demolitions”.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2017