By Kit Roberts
INTERNATIONAL human rights group Human Rights Watch has welcomed the findings of a new report published by Amnesty International.
In the report, Amnesty International accuses Israel of being an apartheid state, accusations which have been dismissed as ‘antisemitic’ by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Amnesty International joins a growing list of human rights groups which have roundly condemned the actions of Israel against Palestinians.
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the conclusion of the report, telling Redaction Report: “Today’s Amnesty report lays bare how Israeli policy seeks at core to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians.
“Echoing findings of leading Palestinian and Israeli rights groups, Human Rights Watch and many others, there is today wall-to-wall consensus in the global human rights movement that Israeli authorities are committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against millions of Palestinians.
“As more and more recognize reality of what it is, the international community should end complicity in these grave abuses and hold perpetrators to account.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry branded the report as ‘antisemitic’ before its publication, saying in a statement: “In publishing this false report, Amnesty UK uses double standards and demonisation in order to delegitimise Israel.
“These are the exact components from which modern antisemitism is made.”
Other groups have come out in support of the report, condemning the Foreign Ministry’s reaction to it as being dismissive of the suffering which has been inflicted on Palestinians for decades.
Na’amod, an organisation of British Jews who oppose occupation, said: “It is shameful that the Board of Deputies & JLC are again reacting to a human rights organisation concluding that Israel is an apartheid state by dismissing it as a “slur”.
“Their distorted framing reflects their consistent refusal to engage with the occupation and the oppressive reality it creates.”
Amnesty International takes its analysis through the entire history of Israel since its existence as a modern nation state, drawing particular attention to the idea of a state created for a specific group of people to the exclusion of others.
The report highlights general policy as well as specific incidents such as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writing things such as “Israel is not a state of all its citizens”, arguing that this “crystallised policy that had been 70 years in the making.”
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