While many of the most recent accusations against Israel stem from its annexations of land in the West Bank, the Amnesty report says the problems it sees stem from Israel’s creation.
The state of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is a crime against humanity and is illegal under international law, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
The rights group says Israel’s “oppression and domination” of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.
“The Israeli government is committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians and must be held accountable,” the organization said as it released its nearly 280-page report.
Language in the Amnesty report echoes sections of the International Criminal Court’s founding treaty, which took effect in 2002. Here’s how it defines apartheid:
“‘The crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts … committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
The “inhumane acts” referred to in that clause include crimes Israel has been repeatedly accused of, such as the deportation or forcible transfer of a population and the persecution of an “identifiable group or collectivity” on the grounds of their political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender identity.
While many of the most recent accusations against Israel stem from its annexations of land in the West Bank, the Amnesty report says the problems it sees stem from Israel’s creation.
“In the course of establishing Israel as a Jewish state in 1948, Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages, in what amounted to ethnic cleansing,” the report said.
In response to Amnesty, Israel’s embassy to the U.S. retweeted and amplified an editorial in The Wall Street Journal criticizing the findings, highlighting a line that states, “the report all but ignores that Israel is a democracy that accords more rights to Arabs and Palestinians than does any other state in the region.”
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/01/1077291879/israel-apartheid-state-amnesty-international