"The dismissal of Amnesty International’s report on the Israeli military occupation and apartheid regime as “dangerous mistruths” fails to account for the overwhelming evidence that has been documented by UN experts, Human Rights Watch, Israeli NGOs and Palestinian civil society. Benlolo and Kopel’s efforts to warp both history and reality does not detract from the obvious and growing evidence of Israeli apartheid and settler-colonial policies."
Re: “Opinion: Amnesty International's bigoted claim that Israel is an 'apartheid state'”
June 27, 2023
Avi Benlolo and Henry Kopel’s article unabashedly whitewashes the alarming reality of Israeli military occupation and settler violence. Labelling the shooting of four illegal Israeli settlers as a “massacre” is ironic considering the recent brutal military raid in the Jenin refugee camp and the series of settler rampages in Turmusayya, Huwara and other cities in the occupied West Bank. Rife with racist characterizations of Palestinians as “terrorists” who go on “homicidal rages,” Benlolo and Kopel engage in false and derogatory stereotypes that seek to absolve Israel’s human rights abuses and racist policies that led former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to recently say that Israel’s actions may constitute apartheid.
Defining Israel as a free and democratic country is a stance not taken seriously by much of the international community, for good reason. Palestinian citizens in Israel and those in the occupied territories are subjected to a variety of discriminatory laws that restrict their access to healthcare, employment, housing, immigration, freedom of movement – not to mention forced expulsion, administrative detention, and military raids – overwhelming evidence of the many injustices Palestinians endure. The dismissal of Amnesty International’s report on the Israeli military occupation and apartheid regime as “dangerous mistruths” fails to account for the overwhelming evidence that has been documented by UN experts, Human Rights Watch, Israeli NGOs and Palestinian civil society. Benlolo and Kopel’s efforts to warp both history and reality does not detract from the obvious and growing evidence of Israeli apartheid and settler-colonial policies.
Tayla Shair
Montreal, QC, H4H 1V7
438-380-5410