AARDi is a non-governmental organization composed of human rights advocates, academics, and activists who firmly stand against apartheid and racial discrimination, and who believe that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is mainly an issue of human rights. They also believe that dismantling the apartheid regime Israel has imposed on all Palestinians is a necessary precondition for reaching a true, just and durable peace.
AARDi is registered in Geneva, Switzerland as ‘the Global Organization against Racial Discrimination and Segregation’, and its work is guided by International conventions and declarations, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
Our vision is a just world where all people are free and equal in dignity and rights.
Our mission is to expose any doctrine of superiority based on racial differentiation and to mobilize global action against all forms and acts of apartheid, focusing on the apartheid regime Israel has imposed on all Palestinians, wherever they live.
Our focus is on the most criminal form of racial discrimination and segregation, that of apartheid. Apartheid is a crime against humanity. International law, not only criminalizes it, but also requires states, international bodies, individuals, and private institutions, to take action in combating this crime wherever it occurs. Individuals, private enterprises and civil society organizations are prohibited from aiding a state in maintaining its apartheid regime and are morally bound to contribute to the dismantling of such a criminal enterprise. AARDi strives to live up to its legal and moral obligations of combating apartheid wherever it exists, including the apartheid regime imposed by Israel on all Palestinians.
Our focus was further informed by a seminal report prepared by two prominent experts, Professors Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley, for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in March 2017, titled: Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid. The Report reached two essential conclusions as one of the main authors, professor Falk, explains: “first, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid as a result of having deliberately established a distinctive structure of apartheid that is imposed on the Palestinian people as a whole; secondly, that the preferred, and likely necessary and principal path to a sustainable peace for both Israelis and Palestinians involves ending apartheid rather than merely ending the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip”. Under pressure from the USA and Israel, the UN Secretary General ordered the Executive Secretary of ESCWA, Rima Khalaf, to withdraw the Report. Unwilling to remove the report from the ESCWA website and “withdraw an honest testimony about an ongoing crime that is at the root of so much human suffering”, Khalaf submitted her resignation.
Our source of inspiration is the role played by civil society organizations in dismantling the apartheid regime of South Africa. Those organizations worked tirelessly to raise public awareness among South Africans of their internationally recognized rights, and to expose regime crimes globally. They formed alliances with international human rights organizations, and launched a widespread campaign for boycott, withdrawal of investments and sanctions. Ultimately, South African resistance and the cooperation among civil society, international organizations, and governments led to the eradication of the apartheid regime.