Israel falsely accused of Apartheid by Amnesty International
Amnesty International issued a report calling Israel an Apartheid state and accusing it of ‘institutionalised and systematic discrimination’. By joining the ranks of numerous anti-Israel organisations, Amnesty has now completely lost its credibility as an organisation that stands up for discriminated minorities.
Apartheid is a system in which one group is systematically subordinated to another, solely on the basis of ethnicity. This includes exclusion from schools, voting rights, restaurants, toilets and so on. Those who know Israel are well aware of the fact that Jews, Arabs and Druze live together. The Israeli government includes Jews, Arabs, Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, and a black Ethiopian (female) immigrant. An Arab-Muslim party is even part of the government. Furthermore, there is no country in the Middle East, nor in the Palestinian territories, where minorities have the same equal rights as in Israel. There are many Christian, Muslim and Hindu countries in the world, but the only Jewish state is apparently not allowed. In a recent survey by Harvard University, a large majority of Arabs in Israel indicated that they would rather live in Israel than in any other country.
This Amnesty report is not an isolated case, but it is part of a broader global development in which organisations such as the UN Human Rights Council and many others are continually demonising Israel and challenging its legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state. A development that will eventually lead to Jews no longer having a legitimate and historical connection to the land of Israel. It is all the more tragic to notice how the media pass on the report uncritically without checking the findings themselves. The Wall Street Journal, on the contrary, writes: “Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran want to destroy Israel … but who would have thought they’d find allies in Amnesty International?”
Israel is not a perfect country, but the Amnesty report has an obvious anti-Israel tendency, rather than offering a reflection of the real situation on the ground. The international definition of antisemitism, adopted by numerous countries including the European Union, describes antisemitism as “the denial of the right to self-determination of the Jewish people, for example by stating that the existence of the State of Israel is based on racism.” It is clear, that Amnesty’s moral state has once again fallen to a new low, and that it has lost any credibility to report on the conflict in a balanced way. It is the old hatred in a new format.
