Amnesty, rights groups accuse Israel of apartheid

(1 Feb 2022) Amnesty International said Tuesday that Israel has maintained "a system of oppression and domination" over the Palestinians going all the way back to its establishment in 1948, one that meets the international definition of apartheid. With the release of a 278-page report compiled over a period of four years, the London-based rights group joins Human Rights Watch and the Israeli rights group B'Tselem in accusing Israel of apartheid — both within its borders and in the occupied territories. Their findings are part of a growing international movement to redefine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a struggle for equal rights rather than a territorial dispute. Those efforts have gained strength in the decade since the peace process ground to a halt, as Israel has consolidated its control over the occupied territories and soured on the idea of a Palestinian state. Israel rejects any allegation of apartheid, saying its own Arab citizens enjoy equal rights. It granted limited autonomy to the Palestinian Authority at the height of the peace process in the 1990s and withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said "our conclusions may shock and disturb, and they should". She added that Amnesty recognises the state of Israel and denounces antisemitism but at the same time, maintains the right to be critical of "Israel's treatment of the Palestinian". Amnesty and the other groups say the very fragmentation of the territories in which Palestinians live is part of an overall regime of control designed to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. They point to discriminatory policies within Israel and in annexed east Jerusalem, Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by the Hamas militant group since 2007, and its de facto annexation of the West Bank, where it exerts overall control and is actively building and expanding Jewish settlements that most of the international community considers illegal. "This is my first visit to Israel Palestine and I have to tell you it has shocked me, to my core," Callamard said. Amnesty traces such policies back to the establishment of Israel in 1948. Around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the Arab-Israeli war surrounding Israel's creation. They accounted for some 80% of the Palestinian population in what is now Israel. Israel barred the refugees from returning in order to maintain its Jewish majority. Palestinians make up about 20% of Israel’s 9.4 million population. But the Jewish and Arab populations are roughly equal when including the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians have accused Israel of apartheid for decades. The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security, welcomed the report. Israel dismissed previous reports as biased, but has adopted a far more adversarial stance toward Amnesty, accusing it of antisemitism and of delegitimizing Israel's very existence even before the report was published. “Its extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism,” the Foreign Ministry said Monday. Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty, rejected those accusations as “baseless attacks” and “bare-faced lies.” Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...