EMET Harshly Condemns Amnesty International’s Libelous Report on Israel

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Naomi Grant
Director of Communications
ngrant@emetonline.org
301-893-4644

EMET condemns in the harshest of terms Amnesty International’s newest report on Israel, entitled ‘ISRAEL’S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS: CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.’ Based on this report, it is clear that Israel’s biggest sin is simply its existence, a horribly antisemitic double standard that Amnesty International would surely not apply to any other state.

Amnesty International’s report bears little resemblance to reality and ignores the high quality of life that Arabs enjoy in Israel. A December 2021 poll found that a whopping 93% of Arab residents of Jerusalem prefer Israeli government to the Palestinian authority. 

The report’s executive summary begins by discussing the May 2021 war launched by Hamas. It ignores Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to violence and falsely claims that Israel “arbitrarily arrested peaceful demonstrators.” These “peaceful demonstrators” were in fact throwing rocks, destroying property and attacking Jews in the streets. EMET demands that they be held accountable for the tragic consequences of their actions.

Since 1948, the Arab population has seen its health, life expectancy, education and income increase, while infant mortality and illiteracy have declined dramatically. In 1948, 80% of Israeli Arabs were illiterate, as opposed to 15%, just 40 years later in 1988 (Divine, Essential Israel, 2017). Israeli Arabs serve in the Knesset, Israeli parliament, and on the Supreme Court, as well as in other prestigious professions such as doctors, lawyers, high-ranking posts in the military and department heads at universities

Said EMET Founder and President Sarah Stern, “Anyone familiar with the history understands that this conflict was due to the initial failure of the Arab world to accept a Jewish presence in any part of the land of Israel. The conflict has continued to this day because the Palestinians have insisted on the ‘right of return’ to all of Israel, and do not want a two-state solution or a Jewish presence anywhere in the land of Israel. Otherwise, they would have accepted any of the multiple offers made in 1937, 1947, 2000, 2008 and 2020.

“Israel is a vibrant democracy that gives equal opportunities to all of its citizens. To call Israel an apartheid state is an absurd, litigious fallacy. In apartheid South Africa, it was considered a crime for a white person to stop to assist a wounded black person in a car accident. Anyone who has lived through apartheid in South Africa knows this outrageous screed is also an insult to what the word ‘apartheid’ actually means.”