Amnesty International report accusing Israel of apartheid will cause attacks on Jews around the world — ADL claims
News that Amnesty International will issue a report declaring Israel an apartheid state has caused outrage among Israel lobbyists, who see it as part of the tsunami of delegitimization that Israel's own leaders said it would face by refusing to grant Palestinians rights.
The news is that Amnesty International is poised to issue a report tomorrow describing Israel as an apartheid state, thereby joining a list of other human rights organizations that reached the same conclusion in the last year, notably Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem — following Palestinian groups that documented the crime years ago.
Destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem goes to ICC Israel is taken to the International Criminal Court as it continues to demolish Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.
Beit Hanina, Occupied East Jerusalem – Nine people were injured and journalists were attacked by Israeli security forces this week as the Jerusalem Municipality demolished a two-story building and home of the Karameh family in the East Jerusalem suburb of Abu Tor on the pretext of being constructed without a building permit.
The family of 15 was forcibly evicted by Israeli police while six of those injured required hospitalisation, according to the Red Crescent. Hundreds of Palestinians are facing forced expulsion from homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want to be their future capital.
But one family, the Salhiyehs, is taking the Israeli authorities to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after they were evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem last week, and the subsequent destruction of their home by the Jerusalem Municipality.
“There is no justice, as an Israeli I don’t believe in my country any more. They have destroyed my life,” Lital Salhiyeh, 40, told Al Jazeera.
Last week Lital’s husband Mahmoud, 43, several of their sons and their friends staged a demonstration on the roof of their house in Sheikh Jarrah, threatening to blow themselves up with a gas canister after the Israeli authorities attempted to evict them from the home they have lived in for decades.
Several days later, during a cold and rainy night, Israeli special forces raided their home, arrested them at gunpoint, and beat them up. They were taken to prison for several days before their lawyer secured their release on bail.
While Mahmoud was in jail their home was destroyed by the municipality, leaving 18 people homeless.
“The police drove me past my destroyed home the next morning and showed me what they had done. We were not informed that the home would be destroyed,” Mahmoud told Al Jazeera.
“Mahmoud and I knew that the eviction order was against us personally but not the rest of the family and neither was there a demolition order against our home,” said Lital from the home they have temporarily rented in the East Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina.
“We lost everything and left with only the clothes on our back. I don’t even have pictures of my children,” Lital, who has been married to Mahmoud for 23 years, said. The couple has six children.
A family agricultural nursery, where Mahmoud worked, and ancient olive trees on their plot of land were also destroyed.
Lital, an animal lover, managed to rescue some of the family pets who were left stranded in the rain and cold after the family’s home was demolished.
It was the second time the Salhiyeh family has been made refugees. In 1948 they were expelled from their home in the village of Ein Karem during the Arab-Israeli war.
In 1984 Jerusalem Municipality’s district planning committee approved a building plan for the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and designated the plot on which the family home and nursery were built for public building – even though other public areas can be found for this purpose without requiring the eviction of a family home.
In July 2017, the municipality announced the expropriation of the plot of land, which Mahmoud’s parents purchased in 1958.
The landowners filed an objection to the expropriation, but the court approved the expropriation and dismissed the objection.
Critics argue the Israeli authorities are trying to Judaise East Jerusalem in favour of a higher Jewish demography.
However, the Salhiyeh family is defiant and plans to take the Israeli authorities to the ICC in addition to launching an international campaign highlighting the case and those of other Palestinians facing eviction and home demolitions in East Jerusalem.
“On Monday afternoon we held a Zoom meeting with our lawyers in London, Bindmans Solicitors, who are partnering with the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians [ICJP], in representing several other Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah,” family lawyer Walid Abu-Tayeh told Al Jazeera.
“They are studying the documents and looking at all the details before deciding the next step and have been working on the case since October after we first consulted them. We don’t know when the case will be brought before the ICC but it could take a long time,” he said.
“What made this all possible was an announcement in 2019 by the ICC prosecutor of the opening of an investigation into whether crimes committed in Palestine after June 2014 fell within the jurisdiction of the court,” said Abu-Tayeh.
Expectations from ICC In 2021 the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC concluded the court’s territorial jurisdiction extended to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967: Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
“The ICC can now pursue Israel for war crimes,” said Abu-Tayeh.
“The ICC could rule that Israel needs to rebuild the demolished house; that senior Israeli government officials involved in the demolition and eviction could be arrested if they travel abroad; and that all Israel’s actions in the West Bank such as land theft, the behaviour of the settlers, and other human rights abuses could also fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction so that individual settlers can be sued as well as collectively.”
The Salhiyehs are taking other legal action as well.
“We have also been in contact with several American senators in both the Senate and the Congress in regards to taking up our case to kick off an international campaign against the home demolitions and the evictions, and my brothers in the US are in contact with several law firms there too,” Abu-Tayeh said.
East Jerusalem is illegally occupied under international law. The “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” amounts to a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is considered a war crime, according to the 1998 Rome Statute of the ICC.
Tensions have been building elsewhere in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians are either in the process of being displaced or have already been made homeless.
Last week Israeli and Palestinian peace activists were attacked by Israeli security forces as they protested the pending eviction and destruction of the Salem family home.
An Israeli settler who pulled a gun on the protesters was arrested.
Hatem Abdel Khader, the Palestinian Authority’s former minister for Jerusalem, and who now coordinates Muslim and Christian efforts on behalf of the PA to prevent the Judaisation of East Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera the home demolitions and evictions were inflammatory and dangerous.
“These are raising tensions and could provoke severe consequences. The international community needs to take action and the international courts have to get involved in the fight,” said Khader.
Mahmoud Salhiyeh said he knows the battle ahead is going to be long and hard “but we won’t give up without a fight”.
Crispin Blunt, UK member of parliament and director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, said the Sheikh Jarrah case was already notorious.
“ICJP is proud and privileged to stand alongside this family as they represent not just their own interests, but the century of historic injustice meted out to the Palestinian people individually and collectively,” he said.
“For Israel’s sake, for all Palestinians and for humanity’s sake, the Sheikh Jarrah case needs to be a turning point where justice and our common humanity starts to count for more than people’s insecurities driven by fear.”
Al-Jazeera
I just came to realize why the US and the UK blindly support Israel.
Ones upon a time there was a big time British politician Arthur J Balfour.
Associated with the infamous Balfour declaration.
He was a hater of Jewish people.
He did not want the Jewish people in UK and Europe.
So what to do?
Settle the Jewish people in Palestine.
That is what the Balfour declaration was all about.
And then the US took over from there.
I used to think that the UK and then the US have such a blind support for Zionist actions in Palestine because of the hold and grip of the Jewish people on these countries.
"Lord" Balfour literally handed over to someone else that which did not belong to him
You should listen to Geoge Galloway on this - not that any politician can be totally trusted
The US considers Amnesty International a credible organization when they report on human rights conditions around the globe—so long as their reporting does not criticize Israel.
The US’s denial of the consensus among human rights organizations—that Israel is practicing apartheid against Palestinians—points to a glaring hypocrisy: the US refuses to hear criticism of Israel, no matter how thorough it is, even when it comes from sources the US government itself otherwise deems credible.
Whether they acknowledge it or not, Israel is practicing apartheid against Palestinians right now with the full support of the United States. It is time they are both held accountable.
The United States said that it rejects the view that Israel’s actions towards Palesinians constitute apartheid, after Amnesty International stated that Israel’s actions against Palestinians amount to the international definition of “apartheid”
Australia
Quote:
After Amnesty International said Israel is imposing ‘apartheid’ on Palestinians, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to condemn 'Israel', saying "no country is perfect" .
Germany
Quote:
The German ambassador to the Israeli occupation confirmed that her country rejects Amnesty International's report about the Israeli apartheid regime, claiming that calling out the occupation's oppression of the Palestinian people is "anti-Semitic."
To all those denying ‘Israel’ is an apartheid state, take a look at this picture!
This is what the ‘normal life’ of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank looks like.
In an interview about Amnesty International’s new report on Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said:
Quote:
We call it apartheid because it is apartheid under international law.
"The African Union has suspended the decision to grant #Israel observer status following a report from Amnesty International which described the country as an "Apartheid State"
"There must be an urgent effort from world leaders and governments to hold the Israeli government to account for their despicable treatment of Palestinians, to end the apartheid and bring peace to the region."
This video documents the Israeli ethnic cleansing policy against Palestinians in Massafer Yatta, where an entire family, including little kids, were forcefully displaced at an Israeli municipality order, which claimed residents jas built without a permit.
Roughly 98 percent of Palestinian applications for a building permit in areas under full Israeli control in the occupied West Bank are rejected.
More than 80 bullets penetrated the car and bodies of the three Palestinians who were assassinated by the IOF
Former Israeli war minister Avigdor Liberman said he praised the Israeli forces' assassination of three Palestinian young men who practiced their right in defending themselves and their occupied land.
www.instagram.com/qudsnen/
Over 150 Israeli settlers broke into the land of Um Nmailah village in Al Naqab and built tents over the lands of the residents under the protection of occupation forces.Via @alnaqab_official
BUT ALHAMDULILLAH...
The residents of Um Nmailah village forced the Israeli occupation police to demolish the tents which were built by Israeli settlers over the lands of Um Nmailah village in Al Naqab, this morning.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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