‘The report is biased and riddled with lies and inaccuracies,’ says Israel’s ambassador to Washington
The United States has condemned Amnesty International’s claims that Israel pursues a policy of apartheid against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.
“In reports published by the State Department itself, we have never used such terminology. (We) believe it is important, as the only Jewish state in the world, that the Jewish people not be not deprived of its right to self-determination, and we must ensure that there is no double standard,” said US Foreign Ministry spokesman Ned Price.
For his part, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, denounced the Amnesty report, saying that it “belongs to the category of ideological delegitimization of Israel’s right to exist as a nation-state of the Jewish people”.
“The report is biased and riddled with lies and inaccuracies, twisting the true meaning of the term apartheid to suit its political purposes,” he said.
Amnesty International on Tuesday called Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians “apartheid”, treated as an “inferior racial group” according to the organization.
“Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across these territories clearly smack of apartheid,” Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Callamard told a news conference in Jerusalem shortly. after the publication of a report on this subject.
“Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank or Israel, Palestinians are treated as a racially inferior group and systematically disenfranchised,” she added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid strongly rejected the NGO’s allegations, saying that it “reported the lies spread by terrorist organizations”.
–
