The United Nations ignited a firestorm this week by acknowledging the reality of Israeli apartheid.

"The weight of the evidence supports beyond a reasonable doubt the proposition that Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity," wrote the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in a report it released on March 15.

"Effectively, Israeli law renders opposition to racial domination illegal," the report continued, noting that countries "have a legal obligation to act within the limits of their capabilities to prevent and punish instances of apartheid that are responsibly brought to their attention."

Citing a vast body of international law and forcefully condemning all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, the report recommended that "National Governments should support boycott, divestment and sanctions activities" against Israeli apartheid.

Immediately after the report was released, the United States and Israel went berserk, with both governments heavily leaning on the U.N. and its senior leadership.

Under intense pressure, U.N. Under-Secretary General Rima Khalaf, who headed the West Asia commission, was forced to resign from her posts. Khalaf nevertheless made it clear that she still stood by the accuracy of the report.

Following heavy lobbying from the U.S., the U.N. subsequently tried to scrub the report from the internet, removing it from the ESCWA website.

AlterNet has archived the Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid report in multiple locations, so the public can read the critical document the U.S. government wants censored.

The original post on the U.N. ESCWA website is archived here.

The executive summary of the report is archived here.

The release for the press conference on the report is archived here.

The cached webpage containing the full report is archived here, for posterity.

A PDF of the full report is archived here and can be downloaded below.

UN ESCWA report on Israeli apartheid by Ben Norton on Scribd