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Israeli Arabs launch scathing attack on Amnesty’s ‘apartheid’ report
Feb 4, 2022 | News
Israeli Arabs have reacted in disgust following Amnesty International’s notorious report accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’.
It didn’t take long for the Palestinian Authority to call upon the United Nations to impose sanctions on the Jewish state, but they certainly don’t represent the voice of many Arabs in the region, including Israeli and Palestinian, who disagree with the shameful anti-Israel narrative.
Among them was Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist, who tweeted, “Amnesty International is lying about Israel. As a Palestinian peace activist and the founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, I’m here to set the record straight: Israel is not an apartheid state.”
"Israel is not an apartheid state.”
In an accompanying video, Eid says, “Just a few days after Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Emirati leader Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed to make peace and normalise relations, Amnesty International released a report full of misinformation and lies about Israel. Amnesty International and other Israel haters can’t seem to live with the fact that the world is embracing Israel with open arms. They want to continue demonising Israel and denying it the right to exist as the one and only Jewish State.”
In comments for Jerusalem Post, Yoseph Haddad said, “As an Israeli Arab who grew up in Nazareth, Amnesty International’s recent report tries to distort my identity.”
He was referring to the fact that the 211-page report constantly refers to an “apartheid” against “Palestinian citizens of Israel,” making no differentiation between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Palestinians live under the control of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or under the control of the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
“What about Israeli Arabs like me? We live under the democratically elected government of Israel with equal rights like any Jewish citizen. No matter how many times Amnesty International tries to erase my identity for trying to advance their political agenda, that doesn’t make it the truth.
“I was born an Israeli, and I will remain an Israeli. I am entitled to all the same rights as any citizen of Israel. I was a soldier in Israel’s Defense Forces protecting the north of Israel, where most of the Israeli-Arab community lives, from terrorist rockets attacks by Hezbollah.
“Not only that, but I was also a commander of dozens of Jewish soldiers. What kind of an “apartheid” would let Arabs give orders to Jews? The non-existent kind.
“A recent report by the NGO Israel Democracy Institute showed that the majority of Israeli Arabs do not, in fact, identify as Palestinian but as Arab or Israeli Arab. Only 7% of those surveyed even identify as Palestinian. A subsequent poll showed that 81% of Israeli Arabs prefer to live in Israel over living in the US or in any other Western country. I guess life isn’t that bad under ‘Israeli domination,’ contrary to the lies Amnesty spreads about our lives in the only democracy in the Middle East. “
Lorena Khateeb, an Israeli-Druze, tweeted a photo saying, “As an Israeli Arab citizen, I condemn amnesty report. I grew up studying and working with Muslim Christians, Druze and Jews, we all put together the Israeli puzzle, despite the challenges, we enjoy equal rights and even work to fix what is not. This is what apartheid looks like?”
‘We do not agree’: UK rejects Amnesty report against Israel
Feb 4, 2022 | News
The United Kingdom on Thursday rejected an Amnesty International report accusing Israel of apartheid.
“We do not agree with the use of this terminology,” a spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office told The Times of Israel.
“Any judgment on whether serious crimes under international law have occurred is a matter for judicial decision, rather than for governments or non-judicial bodies,” they said.
The spokesperson added: “As a friend of Israel, we have a regular dialogue on human rights. This includes encouraging the government of Israel to abide by its obligations under international law and do all it can to uphold the values of equality for all.”
The UK has joined other countries who spoke out against the biased Amnesty report, including Germany, the USA, Australia, and, of course, Israel.
Israel called the report “false, biased, and antisemitic” and accused the organisation of endangering the safety of Jews around the world.
“Amnesty’s report effectively serves as a green light… to harm not only Israel, but Jews around the world,” read a statement Monday from the Foreign Ministry spokesman’s office.
The statement said that the organization “uses double standards and demonization in order to delegitimize Israel. These are the exact components from which modern antisemitism is made.
“Its extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism,” it said.
The Israeli foreign ministry also said that Amnesty UK was “notorious for being corrupted by racism and xenophobia, and the organization’s secretary-general has previously accused Israel – with no basis or evidence – of murdering Arafat. It is not surprising that it took Amnesty eight years to back down from this serious and baseless accusation.”
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Monday that the rights group was no longer “a respected organization,”
“Today, it is precisely the opposite,” Lapid said in a video statement. “It 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.”
He said the report’s claims are “delusional and disconnected from reality.”
“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,” he said. “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.”
Lapid said there was “simply no other explanation” for the organization’s inconsistency other than the fact that Israel is a Jewish state — apparently arguing the bias was of an antisemitic nature.
Antisemitism has no place in so-called human rights organisations and we hope Amnesty International withdraws its report which is filled with lies, distortions and covers up true crimes against humanity carried out by Palestinian groups such as Hamas.
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