Amnesty International charges Israel with a “cruel system” of apartheid in dealing with Palestinians. In a report presented in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the London-based human rights organization speaks of a systematic “oppression and domination” to which all Palestinians are subjected – regardless of whether they live in the areas occupied by Israel since 1967 or whether they are Israeli citizens in Arab countries minority in Israel itself or whether they live in other states as Palestinian refugees.
Amnesty derives far-reaching demands for sanctions from the accusation of apartheid. Israel’s government reacted with outrage. She sees the report as a “collection of lies” and “pure anti-Semitism”.
The accusation of apartheid against Israel is not new. The Palestinians have been raising it for decades. In recent years it has increasingly become a battlefield term in the international debate. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch published a similar report last April accusing Israel of apartheid. The left-wing Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has also joined in.
Now Amnesty follows with its reputation as a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1977. A few years ago, the organization also used the term in connection with the Persecution of the Rohingya by the Myanmar government. When defining apartheid, she does not refer to the historical comparison to the apartheid regime in South Africa, but to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998, which included apartheid crimes in general as a racist system of oppression in international criminal law.
Amnesty: “Crimes against humanity”
The 200-page report presented by Amnesty is entitled: “Israel’s apartheid against the Palestinians. A cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity.” Among other things, targeted expulsions of Palestinians and Israeli land grabs with the aim of “Judaizing” areas in Israel and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are denounced.
Drastic restrictions on the Palestinians’ freedom of movement due to the Israeli border wall or military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank are also cited. Thousands of Palestinians have been victims of “unlawful killings” by the Israeli army during the conflict, the report said. Millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants are being denied the right to return.
Presenting the report in Jerusalem, Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said: “The international community has an obligation to act.” Specifically, the International Criminal Court should include the facts of apartheid in the investigations against Israel that began last year. Amnesty calls for a “comprehensive arms embargo against Israel” and “targeted sanctions” against Israeli officials from the United Nations.
Even before it was officially published, Amnesty’s report had triggered a storm of indignation in Israel and among Jewish representatives worldwide. Israel’s Foreign Minister Jair Lapid said Amnesty was once a “highly respected organization”. Today she is “the opposite. Instead of looking for facts, she cites lies spread by terrorist organizations.” Israel is “not perfect,” said the foreign minister. “But it is bound by international law and open to scrutiny.”
The Central Council of Jews in Germany also criticized the report
In a statement from the Foreign Ministry, Amnesty was asked on Monday not to publish the report. With the accusation of apartheid since the founding of the state in 1948, Israel would be “effectively denied its right to exist”. Amnesty uses a double standard in condemning Israel, relying on “demonization to delegitimize Israel. These are the very ingredients that make up modern anti-Semitism.”
Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, spoke of a “unilateral and patently politicized report that ignores both Palestinian acts of terror and Israel’s obligation to protect its citizens from such terror.”
The President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, also criticized Amnesty. “I also consider publishing such a report to be negligent because it will fuel the already widespread Israel-related anti-Semitism in Europe,” he said. Schuster urged the German section of Amnesty “to distance itself from the anti-Semitic report”.