The Guardian's view on Amnesty’s "Israel" report
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The continued oppression of Palestinians degrades "Israel's" international standing and jeopardizes its so-called "democracy" in front of the international community.
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The Guardian's view on Amnesty’s "Israel" report
"Israel's" former Security Minister, Ehud Barak, warned in 2010 that "as long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."
In 2014, when John Kerry was the US Secretary of State, he repeated the aforementioned argument. Boris Johnson, when he was UK's Foreign Secretary, said something similar three years later.
Human rights violations
Following a four-year investigation, Amnesty International became the latest human rights organization to accuse "Israel" of operating a "system that amounts to apartheid under international law."
It demanded an arms embargo on "Israel" and said the UN Security Council should "impose targeted sanctions against Israeli officials implicated." Apartheid's perpetrators should also be "brought to justice" by the international criminal court, according to Amnesty International.
The conclusion of the world's largest human rights organization shows that the debate is becoming embedded in international forums.
The Israeli government attacked Amnesty International, but it was defended by more than a dozen domestic human rights organizations. It is worth stressing that the continued subjugation of Palestinians, on the other hand, degrades "Israel's" international standing and jeopardizes its democracy.
Apartheid in "Israel"
There is a growing consensus that the term apartheid can be applied to "Israel" in a way that differs from the old South African system. The charge has also been broadened – to the point of being heretical for some.
Palestinians are treated as a second-class non-Jewish racial group, according to Amnesty International, and are denied "fundamental human rights" to varying degrees depending on where they live.
Israeli illegal settlements
Neither the country's Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, nor his designated successor, Yair Lapid, will admit that they can't hold all of the lands, maintain the Jewish identity in "Israel", and be a "functioning democracy".
This could be due to Donald Trump's support for a right-wing expansionist agenda, as well as the normalization of diplomatic relations between "Israel" and several Arab states.
Despite this, land grabs and demolitions on both sides of the Israeli "green line", as well as the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, continue to dispossess and disenfranchise Palestinians.
Last year, protests about the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem escalated into a war waged by the Israeli army on Gaza that resulted in the killing of 250 Palestinians.
