Amnesty report has to pretend that Arab Israelis live under "apartheid" - so it has to lie. A lot.

In our last post, we discussed how an upcoming Amnesty International report is trying to copy other NGOs and declare Israel to be guilty of "apartheid." 

In order to do that, it realizes that concentrating on different laws for Palestinians in the territories is quite obviously not apartheid since they are not citizens. Amnesty must find - or manufacture - evidence of discrimination against Arabs in Israel that rise to the level of the definition of "apartheid" that it made up.

Like HRW, Amnesty realizes that it must trump up the idea that discrimination against Arabs in Israel rise to the level of oppression and persecution. So, like HRW, it has to cherry pick examples that would seem to indicate that level of discrimination, without mentioning counterexamples that disprove it.

Some examples:

Israel maintains Jewish domination over the Palestinian economy through the exclusion and intentional neglect of Palestinian communities inside Israel...

Yet Israel's largest Arab-majority city, Nazareth, is a high tech hub, hosting R&D centers from Amdocs, Microsoft, Broadcom and Salesforce. Nazareth hosts over 70 startups. Thousands of Arabs work in technology and the number is skyrocketing. 

If Israel intends to have Jewish dominance over the Arab economy by neglecting Arab communities, then why does it allow so many major companies to open up in Nazareth? 

Amnesty is lying. And they know it.

Whilst Palestinians largely refuse to join the Israeli army for national and political reasons, the exemption of Palestinian citizens of Israel from military service has resulted in their discriminatory exclusion from substantial economic benefits and opportunities guaranteed under Israeli law to those who have completed military service. 

And Haredi Jews who also choose not to join the army? Since they have the exact same social obstacles to joining the workforce, that proves that this has nothing to do with "Jewish domination."

Also, an increasing number of Arabs are volunteering for the army. Meaning that Israeli Arabs have the opportunity to gain the same social advantages that Israel's military-centric society provides. The discrimination is based on army service, not religion or national origins. It isn't apartheid.

Amnesty is lying. And they know it. 

In 2014, the Knesset raised the electoral threshold from 2% to 3.25%, primarily affecting parliamentary representation of Palestinians and other minority groups in Israel. Adalah and ACRI argued that raising the electoral threshold for parties to gain seats at the Knesset violated Palestinian citizens’ voting rights and enabled the disqualification of their candidates and parties. CERD also noted that raising the electoral threshold in Israel considerably weakens “the right to political participation of non-Jewish minorities”. 

Yet in the 2021 elections, not one Arab party fell below the 3.25% threshold - and about 25 "Jewish parties did. Which means the Arabs did not lose a single seat with the 3.25% threshold law.

The current government includes an Arab party in the ruling coalition,. Amnesty doesn't mention that because it contradicts its thesis of Israeli Arabs living under apartheid.

Amnesty is lying. And they know it. 

[T]he Ministry of Interior also requires children under the age of 12 of these “mixed couples” to be registered, with proof that Israel is their “centre of life”.397 According to the Society of St Yves, a legal support centre in East Jerusalem, from January 2004 to July 2013 the ministry received 17,616 applications for registering children of “mixed marriages”. Of these, 12,247 were approved and 3,933 were rejected. As a result, nearly 4,000 children live separated from at least one of their parents for bureaucratic reasons.

But if Israel approved 69% of those applications, doesn't it mean that those "bureaucratic reasons" have nothing to do with racism?

For Palestinian Bedouins living in the Negev/Naqab, accessibility of health services is even worse, as there are no medical clinics in most Bedouin villages.Israel does not provide healthcare facilities or medical services in unrecognized villages. These villages are not connected to public transport, forcing families to travel long distances to receive basic healthcare.

Name one country that provides medical clinics where residents build entire illegal communities on public land. 

In these and countless other cases in this long report, Amnesty is going out of its way to twist the facts to make Israel appear guilty. The decision that Israel is guilty of "apartheid" was made by HRW, B'Tselem and HRW way before they gathered any evidence. It was a pre-ordained conclusion and any facts that prove they have been dishonest in their information gathering is simply ignored or buried. 

It isn't an honest report about Israel. It is a hatchet job. And Amnesty knows that very few people will read it critically, because they assume that Amnesty is an honest broker. So later this week we will see Ap and Reuters and the New York Times give fawning coverage of this report, and not one mainstream reporter will take the time and effort to look at it critically.

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