“No country is perfect,” said Australian PM on Amnesty’s Israeli apartheid report

Sydney (QNN)- The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, said on Wednesday that “no country is perfect” in response to a new Amnesty International report that concluded ‘Israel’ had “perpetrated the international wrong of apartheid, as a human rights violation and a violation of public international law”.

“Australia has been one of the closest and strongest friends of Israel of any nation in the world, other than the United States. And we continue to be a very strong friend of Israel,” Morrison told reporters in Sydney when asked if he would condemn ‘Israel’ and reassess the government’s relationship after the report.

“No country is perfect and there are criticisms made of all countries, but I can assure you that Australia and my government, in particular, will remain a staunch friend of Israel,” he added.

Morrison is a long-standing supporter of ‘Israel’ who early in his prime ministership flirted with relocating Australia’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, brushing off Amnesty’s findings.

Marise Payne, a spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, also told Guardian Australia: “We do not agree with the report’s characterisations of Israel, and we remain a firm supporter of the state of Israel.”

The Labor opposition also said the use of the term apartheid was “not helpful” – but it described Amnesty’s detailed report as “concerning” and urged the government to “stand up for human rights everywhere”.

Payne’s spokesperson said Australia was a strong supporter of a two-state solution “with Israel and a future Palestinian state establishing internationally recognised borders”.

“The conflict between the Palestinians and Israel must be resolved so that peace and security can become normalised,” Payne’s spokesperson said.

Greens foreign affairs spokesperson Janet Rice criticised Morrison’s comments as “feeble and absurd” and said she would be writing to Foreign Minister Payne to “urge a response to Amnesty’s powerful report”.

“The Australian Government should start by recognising Palestine,” Senator Rice said.

“The Australian Greens have called for a suspension of military trade with governments that are credibly alleged to have committed human rights violations, including Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia as well as Israel.”

“If we refuse to call out human rights abuses of allied countries, we have no standing in calling them out anywhere.”

The Australian Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong also urged the Morrison government to carefully review the report.

“The report’s findings are concerning, and we expect the government to review it closely, assess the situation on the ground, and make representations about Australia’s view,” Wong told the Australian broadcaster.

“Labor does not agree with the use of the term ‘apartheid’. It’s not a term that’s been found to apply by any international court and is not helpful in progressing the meaningful dialogue and negotiation necessary to achieve a just and enduring peace,” Wong added.

Nikita White, a campaigner with Amnesty International Australia, said the prime minister’s response to the report was “particularly disappointing”.

“While he’s right that no country is perfect, not all countries commit crimes against humanity, and when they do, Amnesty International believes that Australia has an obligation to condemn these crimes but also an obligation to act,” White said in an interview.

“The prime minister needs to consider whether remaining a staunch friend will contribute to this system of apartheid and the suffering of Palestinians who are living under that system.”

White said it was not good enough to raise concerns behind the scenes, because the Amnesty report “builds on a growing consensus that what Israel is doing amounts to apartheid”.

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.

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.