13 Israeli rights groups condemn vicious attacks on Amnesty International

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- 13 Israeli human rights groups condemned the “vicious attacks” on Amnesty International, following the publication of its report on Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians, rejecting the idea that the report is “baseless, singles out Israel or displays antisemitic animus.”

In a statement issued on Thursday, 13 leading human rights organizations expressed their “grave concern about the vicious attacks on Amnesty International, following the publication of its report Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against
Humanity.”

“Through our work, we document, verify and confront the ongoing injustice, inequality and
violations of human rights and international law that Israel perpetrates against the Palestinians,” the 13 rights groups said in the statement.

The groups noted that many of them have used the term and/or have made “the legal designation of ‘apartheid’ in relation to various aspects of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”

The debate around the crime of apartheid of which Israel is accused, and its geographical scope, is not only legitimate, but absolutely necessary, the leading rights groups stated.

The groups said they “wholeheartedly” reject the idea that Amnesty International’s report is “baseless, singles out Israel or displays antisemitic animus,” noting they are “particularly concerned by the Israeli government’s extremely irresponsible allegation of antisemitism.”

“Many of the most pre-eminent scholars of Jewish life, history and persecution have warned that the struggle against antisemitism in the world is being weakened by the unbearable, inaccurate and instrumentalized use to which the antisemitism accusation is lodged for political ends, in order to avoid debate about Israel’s oppressive policies towards the Palestinians.”

The groups added, “Attempts to distract from Israeli violations and to avoid substantive debate by hurling spurious accusations is the standard and ongoing practice of successive Israeli governments and their echo chambers overseas.”

We are especially concerned about this approach in an international climate, in which antisemitism and racism are on the rise and human rights defenders are under assault.”

The groups pointed out that while their work is focused on the Palestine/ Israel domain, “Amnesty works internationally without prejudice, researching and documenting the harshest incidents to address violations of human rights wherever they occur.”

‘Israel’ is not being held to a different standard, they said, but the “Israeli government apparently wants to be held to no standard at all. It is no coincidence that the most respected international human rights organizations, also including Human Rights Watch, have turned their attention to the systematic and structural regime of discrimination and inequality
here.”

The 13 leading rights groups called on the Israeli occupation government to stop its “oppressive and discriminatory practices and its dangerous game of defamation and disinformation.”

The 13 signatories are Adalah, Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Combatants for Peace, Gisha, HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, Haqel: In Defence of Human Rights, Human Rights
Defenders Fund, Ofek: The Israeli Center for Public Affairs, Parents Against Child Detention, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, The Public Committee Against Torture In Israel and Yesh Din.

Amnesty International said in a new report that Israel’ is carrying out “the crime of apartheid against Palestinians” and must be held accountable for treating them as “an inferior racial group”.

Released on Tuesday, the 278-page report by the leading rights group details how Israeli occupation authorities enforce a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinians.

The damning investigation sets out how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system “which amounts to apartheid under international law.”

Amnesty said that this system is maintained by violations which the rights group found to “constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.”

Amnesty International has also called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider the “crime of apartheid in its current investigation in the OPT” and called on all states to “exercise universal jurisdiction to bring perpetrators of apartheid crimes to justice.”

On Monday, one day before Amnesty International issued its report, ‘Israel’ called on the group not to publish the report, saying the conclusions of the London-based international human rights group are “false, biased and antisemitic.”

In a statement issued that day, Israeli occupation Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that Amnesty “is just another radical organization which echoes propaganda, without seriously checking the facts,” and that it “echoes the same lies shared by terrorist organizations.”

“Israel isn’t perfect, but we are a democracy committed to international law, open to criticism, with a free press and a strong and independent judicial system,” Lapid claimed.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also said in a statement that Amnesty’s report “denies the state of Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people.”

“Its extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism,” it added.

Other Jewish and Israeli organizations also blasted the new report.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder called it a “one-sided and blatantly politicized report which totally ignores both Palestinian acts of terrorism and Israel’s obligation to defend its citizens against such terrorism.”

The International Legal Forum, a pro-Israel group, said the report is “tantamount to a ‘blood libel’ against the Jewish state and deserves to be placed in the dustbin of antisemitic history.”

“A lie told a thousand times is still a lie,” the ILF statement continued. “Perhaps Amnesty International, which has been beleaguered by charges of institutionalized racism, would be better served getting its own house in order first, before lecturing Israel.”

A year ago, B’Tselem drew criticism from Israeli politicians when it asserted that Israeli policies had been designed to enforce “Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch in April last year became the first significant international rights group to publicly level the allegation of apartheid.