JERUSALEM, Israel – The Biden administration is rejecting a new report from Amnesty International that accuses Israel of committing crimes of apartheid against Palestinians and its Arab residents.
“We reject the view that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid. The department’s own reports have never used such terminology,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday.
He said the US supports peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians, upholds human rights, and condemns unilateral moves from either side of the conflict.
“I think that it is important, as the world’s only Jewish state, that the Jewish people must not be denied their right to self-determination, and we must ensure there isn’t a double standard being applied,” Price said.
US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides called the Amnesty report “absurd” in a tweet.
“That is not language that we have used and will not use,” he added.
In the 278 page report, the London-based human rights group said Israel “has established and maintained an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis – a system of apartheid – wherever it has exercised control over Palestinians’ lives since 1948.”
“Apartheid” is a word originally used to describe South Africa’s racist policies of segregation and discrimination against its Black majority. Amnesty said it was not directly comparing South Africa’s policies to Israel, but evaluating Israel’s actions based on international conventions.
Amnesty charges that Israeli “seizure of Palestinian land and property,” citizenship laws, “unlawful killings and serious injuries,” and “forcible transfer” of Palestinians meet the international legal standard for apartheid.
Israel rejected these claims and called the report “false, biased and anti-Semitic.”
“Instead of seeking the truth, Amnesty echoes the same lies spread by terrorist organizations,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. “Five minutes of serious examination would be enough to know that the so-called facts in the report published by Amnesty this week are delusion and disconnected from reality.”
Lapid charged that Amnesty doesn’t call Syria or Iran or other “corrupt and murderous” regimes apartheid states.
“I hate to use the argument that if Israel wasn’t a Jewish state, no one in Amnesty would dare argue against it, but in this case, there is simply no other explanation,” he said.
Palestinians praised the report.
“The United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly are obliged to heed the compelling evidence presented by Amnesty and other leading human rights organizations and hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people, including through sanctions,” the Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement.
American Jewish and pro-Israel groups also spoke out.
AIPAC said, “Amnesty’s true view is clear: Israel’s original sin is that it exists at all. This libelous report weaves a malicious web of lies and distortions with the contemptible objective to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state.”
The Democratic Majority for Israel said, “We don’t know who needs to hear this, but Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Jews and Arabs govern together.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus, called the amnesty report a “sham.”
“Amnesty baselessly charges that Israel has denied ‘basic rights and freedom’ against Palestinians. Israel is the only democracy in the region and has consistently suffered attacks on its right to exist since its founding in 1948,” he said.
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