One can read the interview of Amnesty's Philip Luther at Times of Israel over and over and keep seeing new levels of hypocrisy from the organization.
TOI: I still can’t understand why Israel gets the apartheid investigation, and you haven’t found any other country besides Myanmar within four years that deserves it. It seems not to bother you – maybe it does bother you – that the UN, which is not your organization, that every year there are permanent and recurring condemnations automatically, and not [against] other countries in the same way, not even close. That would seem to me to be…Luther: How many other countries have a fifty-year occupation?TOI: Is that the only human rights violation?Luther: No, I’m saying that it’s a metric. You’re saying, is there not something very specific about the Israeli and Palestinian situation? If people ask about the singularity of the situation, that is singular.
This year will mark 48 years of Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus. True, it is not quite fifty, but if occupation is a metric that merits Israel being singled out for opprobrium, certainly we should be seeing Amnesty take at least a passing interest in Turkey's occupation of Northern Cyprus?
All the horrible things that Amnesty and other "human rights" groups are warning will happen with Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank - that hasn't happened over 54 years - already happened under Turkish occupation in Cyprus.
Here's a summary from Cyprus' Foreign Ministry:
On July 20, 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus, violating all rules of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. Turkey ... illegally occupies over 36% of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus ever since.As a result of the Turkish military invasion and occupation, 162,000 Greek-Cypriots fled their homes becoming refugees in their own country. To this day the occupying forces impede the return of refugees to their homes and property. By the end of 1975, the vast majority of Turkish-Cypriots living in areas controlled by the legitimate government were forced to leave their homes and move, owing to Turkey's coercive policy, to the Turkish-occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus.20,000 Greek-Cypriots and Maronites chose not to leave their homes despite the Turkish occupation. Most of those who remained, mainly on the Karpasia Peninsula, were gradually forced to abandon the area. The number of Greek-Cypriots and Maronites currently living in the area has plummeted to 300 persons. This dramatic decrease in the number of enclaved people is striking considering that based on the agreement reached in Vienna on 2 August 1975, the Turkish side would have to provide the enclaved population with "every help to lead a normal life, including facilities for education and the practice of their religion, as well as medical care by their doctors of preference and freedom of movement in the North". In breach of this agreement, on a practical level, the Turkish side subjected the enclaved to constant harassment, restrictions on movement, denial of access to adequate medical care, denial of adequate facilities for education, especially beyond elementary education, restrictions on the right to use their property and the free exercise of their religious rights. It was, thus, a deliberate policy of national cleansing, forcing the enclaved to flee their homes.At the same time, Turkey has implemented a systematic policy of settlement of the occupied part of Cyprus since 1974 with the mass transfer of more than 160,000 Turks from Turkey in order to change the demographic profile and alter the population balance on the island. This policy, together with driving the Greek -Cypriot inhabitants out of the region, the destruction of the cultural heritage, and the illegal change of geographical place names in the occupied part of Cyprus, aims at the elimination of every single, centuries-old Greek and Christian element, and eventually the "turkification" of the region. It also aims to change the balance of power and the social fabric in the occupied part of Cyprus, to ensure that the Turkish-Cypriot leadership conforms to the policies of the Turkish government. With the mass migration of Turkish-Cypriots from the occupied territories, the total number of Turkish soldiers and settlers is now greater than the remaining Turkish-Cypriots.
What does Amnesty have to say about this?
Essentially, nothing.
Amnesty's annual report on Turkey does not mention Cyprus or Northern Cyprus once! The term "Northern Cyprus" is barely mentioned in the entire Amnesty site. No calls to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees to return to their homes. Not a word about ethnic cleansing. Nothing about Turkey's current destruction of Christian and Greek cultural heritage in the area.
In 2020 and 2021, Turkey essentially stole the resort town of Varosha, while not allowing its actual residents to return to live there. There is not one word about Varosha on the Amnesty and HRW sites.
Everything Israel is accused of doing in the West Bank and Gaza actually happened in Northern Cyprus.
In two years, when the Turkish occupation reaches the five decade mark, Philip Luther will undoubtedly say that Israel is singular, because, "How many other countries have a fifty-five year occupation?"
The Encyclopedia of Human Rights says that settlers have human rights. But it isn't talking about Jewish settlers, whom everyone agrees would have to be forcibly removed from their homes. It is talking about the Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus.
The singling out of Israel has nothing to do with Israel's policies. It has everything to do with Israel being a Jewish state. All the other excuses (billions in US aid! Israel's claims to be a democracy!) are nothing but smokescreens for the truth: it is all about the desire by modern antisemites to say that Jews are the worst human rights violators on the planet.
Yes, Israel is singular - in the double standards applied to it.
