Israel 'apartheid' claims hurt Amnesty's moral standing

The list goes on, but you won't find any of these people featured in Amnesty International's latest report, released on Tuesday, which claims that Israel practises apartheid.

It's a slur calculated to conjure up images of Apartheid South Africa , where non-white citizens were denied the vote. Mixed-race marriages - and even relationships - were illegal, and public toilets, buses and beaches were segregated.

Amnesty's claims of Israeli apartheid are based on misinformation, out-of-context facts and figures, deliberate omissions and blatant falsehoods.

Pull on any of these threads and the report unravels, as does Amnesty's moral standing.

Take the status of Palestinian-Israeli citizens. Yes, there is discrimination in Israel, sadly as there is in every democracy. But at a time when there is an Arab (and Islamist, no less) party in Israel's governing coalition, when there is a senior Arab minister, when the most recent Israeli budget included $13 billion allocated with the specific purpose of improving Palestinian-Israeli wellbeing, where Israel's vaunted response to COVID has seen Arab and Jewish doctors treat Arab and Jewish patients in Israel's world-leading hospitals, the idea that Israel is anything akin to an apartheid regime is perverse.

In order to sell the lie, Amnesty claims that Palestinian-Israelis - citizens with full voting franchise - are denied equal political participation. Its report even suggests that Israel is imposing apartheid over Palestinians living in neighbouring countries.

And this is where the central tenet of the report is clear for all to see. It's not about the occupation. It's not about Palestinian rights. It's about Israel's very existence. A negotiated two-state solution and an end to the occupation would not suffice. Israel must cease to exist as a Jewish state because, according to Amnesty International, there is nothing Israel can do to gain legitimacy other than to commit national suicide.

This position is entirely in line with that of Hamas - a terrorist organisation that won't be satisfied until Israel is wiped off the map. The Australian government accurately describes the overarching objectives of Hamas as genocidal, yet the outcome Amnesty is promoting is virtually identical.

The report strips all context from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The five wars and decades of terrorism launched against Israel are all but ignored. Where mentioned at all, they are mere historical markers, distorted to suit Amnesty's narrative.

Take the issue of checkpoints. According to Amnesty, the entire raison d'être of establishing checkpoints is to restrict the movement of Palestinians. No consideration is given to the fact that they are there to curtail the movement of terrorists.

The report notes that Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza used to move freely throughout Israel until checkpoints started being introduced from 1993. Amnesty doesn't explain that during the seven years of the 1990s peace process - which began in 1993 - more Israelis died as a result of Palestinian terrorism than in any other preceding seven-year period.

Sadly, Palestinian terrorism only increased from 2000 after the Palestinian leadership rejected an offer of statehood before walking away from the peace talks altogether. They rejected three other offers of statehood in the subsequent 14 years, before refusing to engage in peace talks at all since 2014.

In reality, Amnesty's choice to blame Israel for every bad outcome serves to deny agency to the Palestinian people. Casting Palestinians as powerless victims of Israel infantilises them. It is inaccurate and, frankly, racist.

Israelis and Palestinians both have legitimate grievances, and both sides have made decisions that have profoundly affected the other side. Palestinians weren't forced to reject statehood in 1936, 1948, 2000, 2001, 2008 or 2014. Palestinians weren't forced to call for Arab states to invade and destroy Israel. Palestinians weren't forced to add violent incitement against Jews in their schoolbooks. They weren't forced to pass a law that pays a pension to every Palestinian who murders a Jew.

These were all choices and, naturally, they impacted the way Israelis interact with Palestinians. Israelis don't see Palestinians as inferior, as Amnesty alleges. But, sadly, many Israelis now distrust Palestinian intentions.

In 1975, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring that Zionism was akin to racism. It was Australia that led the international campaign to have the UN revoke this outrageous resolution. In 1991, it eventually was.

Every Australian should be proud that our government leads the way in calling for the rejection of all those who put their obsessive anti-Israel ideology above truth. This Amnesty report should be rejected out of hand, not because it criticises Israel, but because it is nothing more than ideologically driven propaganda that insults the ideals of the organisation's many well-meaning supporters.