Despite early criticism from the Israeli government, which asked it not to publish it, Amnesty International released a shocking 211-page report on Tuesday February 1. According to the human rights NGO, the State of Israel is pursuing a policy “apartheid” for Palestinians in the territories occupied since 1967, namely the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. But for the first time, she also speaks of a “apartheid” within the State of Israel founded in 1948, against the Israeli Arabs, these Palestinians who have become Israeli citizens, who are about 20% of the population.
The report is based on a study of the laws in force in Israel, and the “Nation-State” law passed in 2018 where Arabic is no longer an official language; the de facto impossibility for Israeli Arabs to rent 80% of the land because it belongs to the State, which favors housing programs for Jews. Or even the law of return reserved for Jews, specifies to franceinfo Solomon Frank Sacco, chief legal officer of Amnesty International. “Israel encourages Jews from all over the world to emigrate to Israel, it is perfectly its right. However, Israel absolutely refuses to allow the Palestinians forced to flee in 1948 to return to Israel. This is to maintain an Israeli Jewish majority in the interior of Israel. And a hegemony throughout the territory.”
While denouncing the choice of the word “apartheid” the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman uses an equally strong one. Without answering on the merits, he told franceinfo: “Anti-Semitism is not a question of the past but of the present, says Lior Haiat. In effect, this report says that the creation of Israel as the home of the Jewish state, where Jews are the majority, is a crime.”
The Minister himself, Yair Lapid, adds that Amnesty “is not a human rights organization but just another radical organization, which echoes propaganda without serious examination.” It develops : “Instead of looking for facts, Amnesty cites the lies propagated by terrorist organizations. Amnesty does not call Syria an ‘apartheid’ state or Iran or any other corrupt and murderous regime in Africa or Latin America. I hate to use the argument that if Israel weren’t a Jewish state, no one at Amnesty would dare to confront it. But then there’s no other way.”
At the microphone of franceinfo in Jerusalem, the secretary general of Amnesty, Agnès Callamard, defends herself from these accusations: “Whenever there is criticism of Israel, the authorities attack the people rather than the message. I want to remind that Amnesty recognizes the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, we recognize the existence of a State Jewish, we only ask that this Jewish state recognize the rights of the peoples within it, including the Palestinian peoples.”
Amnesty calls on the UN, Israel’s close allies such as the United States and France to denounce the legal system in place in Israel.