Jewish Groups Condemn Amnesty International Report Accusing Israel of Apartheid

Various Jewish groups have issued statements condemning Amnesty International UK’s upcoming February 1 report accusing Israel of being an apartheid state.

The 211-page report, which was obtained by the Journal, alleges that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians through segregation, military rule, seizing Palestinian land, and barring movement from the Palestinian territories, among other acts as part of an effort to cement its Jewish majority. It also calls for the right of return for Palestinian refugees. NGO Monitor argued that Amnesty’s report “is not meaningfully different from the discredited Human Rights Watch (HRW) and B’Tselem reports from 2021” that also accused the Jewish State of apartheid. NGO Monitor also accused Amnesty of invoking antisemitic tropes through their use of the term “Jewish domination” throughout the report as well as whitewashing Palestinian terrorism. 

“The 4000 rocket attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians in May 2021 receive only cursory mention, and there is no acknowledgment that these attacks constitute war crimes committed by Palestinian terrorist organizations,” the Israeli NGO stated. “Similarly, the NGO portrays the concurrent anti-Jewish riots as ‘peaceful protests,’ ignoring the murder and injury of Jewish civilians and the widespread vandalism of Jewish-owned property and synagogues.”

Alex Safian, Associate Director and Research Director of Committee of Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), noted that Amnesty selectively quoted a 2019 Instagram post from then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the beginning of the report. The report quotes as Netanyahu as saying, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens… [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them.” But Safian noted that the next line of Netanyahu’s post said, “There’s no problem with the Arab citizens of Israel––they have the same rights as us all and the Likud government has invested in the Arab sector more than any other government.”

“If – in the first line of their report – Amnesty International can’t even quote a short statement by Netanyahu correctly and in context, how can anyone trust them on more arcane or involved issues, turning on critical issues of fact or international law?” Safian wrote. “The short answer is that on Israel Amnesty International can’t be trusted, on issues large or small. And Amnesty’s entire report is like this – making up some new false charges, and recycling a huge number of old, already debunked propaganda.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry urged Amnesty not to release the report, accusing it of being “false, biased, and antisemitic.” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid elaborated in a video that Amnesty “isn’t a human rights organization, but just another radical organization which echoes propaganda without seriously checking the facts. Instead of seeking the truth, Amnesty echoes the same lies shared by terrorist organizations,” The Times of Israel reported. Lapid acknowledged that Israel has imperfections, “but we are a democracy committed to international law, open to criticism, with a free press and a strong and independent judicial system. Amnesty doesn’t call Syria––where the regime has murdered over half a million of its own citizens––an apartheid state. Nor Iran, or other murderous regimes around the world. Only Israel.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a statement that the report is part of “an effort to demonize Israel and undermine its legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. In an environment of rising anti-Jewish hate, this type of report is not only inaccurate but also irresponsible and likely will lead to intensified antisemitism around the world.” They added that the “report goes beyond criticizing Israeli policies and actions to painting Israel’s very creation as illegitimate, immoral, and faulted. Amnesty International’s allegations that Israel’s crimes go back to the sin of its creation in 1948, serve to present the Jewish and democratic state as singularly illegitimate at its foundational roots. Such a hateful characterization not only delegitimizes the Israeli state enterprise and the Jewish right to self-determination in its historic homeland, but also undermines the vision of a mutually negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will provide security, dignity, and self-determination to both peoples.” The ADL also argued that the Palestinian right of return would cause Israel to cease to exist as a Jewish state.

The ADL also joined the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), B’nai Brith International and the Jewish Federations of North America in a joint statement that read: “This libelous document resorts to baseless ‘apartheid’ accusations against Israel, among other distortions. In so doing, the report commits a double injustice: It fuels those antisemites around the world who seek to undermine the only Jewish country on earth, while simultaneously cheapening and downplaying the horrific suffering that was a result of apartheid in South Africa. The apartheid system practiced by South Africa was characterized by tyranny, segregation and dehumanization established both in law and practice; this has no equivalence to a vibrant democracy where all citizens have rights and representation in the national legislature.” They added that the report “disregards the fact that Israel’s robust democracy grants its Arab citizens full rights and equality, includes an Arab Muslim nationalist party in Israel’s governing coalition, as well as a history of senior Israeli Arab governmental officials, including Supreme Court justices, government ministers, high-level diplomats, military officers, and members of Knesset.”

Human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky, Chair and CEO of The International Legal Forum, similarly said in a statement that the report “blatantly calls for the dismantlement of the Jewish state, is replete with malicious lies, gross distortions of truth and fabrications of law, while peddling unhinged hate, incitement and racism. In short, this report is tantamount to a ‘blood libel’ against the Jewish state and deserves to be placed in the dustbin of antisemitic history.”

Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl and Jewish Leadership Chair Keith Black also said in a joint statement that the report is “completely biased” and that the apartheid charge is a “preposterous slur.” “Israel is a vibrant democracy and a state for all its citizens, as exemplified by its diverse government and robust civil society,” they said.

Van der Zyl and Black acknowledged that disparities exist in Israel, as they do in every democracy, but the report “fails to offer anything worthwhile to that cause. The lack of democracy in the West Bank and [the] Gaza [Strip], as well as the conflict between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the terrorist Hamas control is a fundamental and not a peripheral cause of tension. This issue is not once referenced in the report.” They concluded by accusing the “bad faith” report of holding Israel to a double-standard.

We have seen a copy of a report due to be released by @AmnestyUK tomorrow. We are shocked but not surprised by the content given the history of AI UK’s one-sided positioning on Israel. @bodpres and @JLC_uk Chair Keith Black have issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/0X7NHzBxNd

— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) January 31, 2022

The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted that Amnesty “is committed to the “Big Lie” of @Israel apartheid regardless of these daily facts in the Jewish state.” They quote-tweeted a tweet from Israel’s official Twitter account touting the fact that Osalia Abu Assad recently became the first Arab woman to serve on an Israeli district court.

.@amnesty is committed to the "Big Lie" of @Israel apartheid regardless of these daily facts in the Jewish state. https://t.co/Cz3aWZcOiQ

— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) January 31, 2022

British journalist David Collier argued in a post on his website that “Amnesty deliberately finds and employs people with a solid history of anti-Israel activism and then gets them to write the reports. The product of their work is as predictable and inevitable as it is biased and nonsensical. Israel is an Apartheid state? Come on––an Islamist political party brought about the downfall of Bibi Netanyahu. Go spin your ridiculous Amnesty lies somewhere else!”

A spokesperson for Amnesty International UK said in a statement to the Journal, “Amnesty’s report is part of our commitment to exposing and ending human rights violations wherever they occur. No government is above criticism, and that includes the Israeli government. Our research shows that the Israeli authorities are enforcing a system of apartheid against the Palestinian people in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Palestinian refugees. The report documents how Israel treats Palestinians as an inferior racial group, segregating and oppressing them wherever it has control over their rights. We also found that, in this context, certain unlawful acts committed by Israel constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid.

“All Amnesty’s criticism of the Israeli government is based on international law, and evidence of the great harm and suffering Israel’s policies cause to Palestinians. Amnesty criticizes the Israeli government, not the Israeli or Jewish people.”