Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Israel of committing “crimes of apartheid” and “crimes of persecution” against Palestinians, and has condemned what it referenced as “Israel’s effort to ‘ensure Israeli Jewish domination.’”
The report called on the international community to punish Israel, stating:
The finding of crimes against humanity should prompt the international community to reevaluate its approach to Israel and Palestine. The US, which for decades has largely failed to press the Israeli government to end its systematic repression of Palestinians.
The lead researcher and author of the HRW report is Omar Shakir. He serves as the “Israel and Palestine Director” of Human Rights Watch, and his reputation precedes him. He was deported from Israel in November 2019 for promoting anti-Israel boycotts. According to Canary Mission: “Shakir has defended terrorists, whitewashed violent protests and demonized Israel.” He was also the “2011-2012 co-president of Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER), a forerunner to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Stanford University (Stanford),” so he’s hardly neutral. Canary Mission also states that as “a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement,” Shakir “promoted and advocated for divestment bills while a student at Stanford.”
Even Hamas is impressed with Human Rights Watch. The jihad group welcomed a statement by the organization last year about the alleged “racism of the occupation against the Palestinians.” The Trump administration even considered declaring Human Rights Watch an anti-Semitic organization.
Omar Shakir’s HRW report is well timed for his own purposes. It comes at a time when Israel has refused to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s plan to investigate it for “possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories.” Not only does the ICC not have any jurisdiction over Israel, but Palestinian Media Watch has exposed collusion between the Palestinian Authority and the International Criminal Court.
It is also ironic that the Palestinians’ frequent chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” (which means that Israel must be obliterated from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea), was echoed by HRW in a scathing context. HRW describes a range of alleged abuses by Israeli authorities “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” in the first paragraph of its report summary:
About 6.8 million Jewish Israelis and 6.8 million Palestinians live today between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, an area encompassing Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the latter made up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Throughout most of this area, Israel is the sole governing power; in the remainder, it exercises primary authority alongside limited Palestinian self-rule. Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution…..(continued)
“Human Rights Watch demonizes Israel via propaganda of apartheid,” by Gerald M. Steinberg, Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2021:
The effort to demonize Israel through comparison to the heinous legacy of the South African apartheid regime has deep roots, going back to the Soviet and Arab campaigns of the 1970s, including the infamous UN resolution declaring that Zionism is a form of racism.
Although Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that its latest contribution, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, is based on new material, a quick read reveals the same mix of shrill propaganda, false allegations, and legal distortions marketed by the NGO network for decades.
Omar Shakir, HRW’s “Israel and Palestine director,” is listed as the main author of the 217-page publication, which includes high-quality graphics and layout (with its $90 million budget, money is no object).
Shakir was hired in 2016, after a number of years as a campus activist under headings like ”Apartheid Is Real.” He led HRW’s (failed) effort to press Airbnb and the FIFA soccer association to join the anti-Israel boycott, and repeatedly invokes “apartheid” and “racism” when discussing Israel. For Shakir, who left Israel after his work visa was not renewed and a lengthy court battle, this is revenge propaganda.
In releasing this publication now, Shakir and HRW join numerous NGOs in amplifying the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s recent decision to open investigations of Israel for war crimes, including post-1967 settlements and occupation policies.
The text reiterates the main claims of a 700-page 2017 submission to the ICC from a group of NGOs (Al-Haq, PCHR, Al-Mezan, Al-Dameer) linked to the PFLP terror organization, alleging that “Israel persecutes the occupied Palestinian population and subjects them to the crimes of persecution and apartheid” and condemning what they call Israel’s effort to “ensure Israeli Jewish domination…….
JCA Reid says
How are the Jews getting on in Algeria & other Muslim Majority Countries? Any Jewish MP’s in their so-called Parliaments? how about any other non-Muslims? Simply pathetic.
gravenimage says
Damn good questions, JCA Reid.
commonsense says
According to the State Department’s estimate, about 200 Jews remain in Algeria. Officially, there are essentially zero Jews left in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Libya. And none in Afghanistan, either. All of the aforementioned had significant Jewish populations through the 1960s. Yemen still has a small remnant Jewish population, living in miserable poverty, reviled as dhimmis.
gravenimage says
Most of these Muslims countries expelled the largest part of their Jewish populations after 1948 when Israel was founded–even though many of these nations had had Jewish populations dating back for many centuries. Most of them were expelled with jus tthe clothes on their backs.
This was done to almost a million people–yet it is seldom mentioned.
https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Issues/Pages/Jewish-refugees-expelled-from-Arab-lands-and-from-Iran-29-November-2016.aspx
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Is HRW a division of the SPLC? I axe cuz they seem to be using the same logic.
Infidel says
Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn ???????????????????
gravenimage says
Human Right Watch accuses Israel of ‘crimes of apartheid’ and persecution of Palestinians
…………….
Just grotesque. Israel does not have apartheid–there are Muslims in the Knesset.
His page at Human Rights Watch features a shot of the wall–no mention that it is there to keep Jihadists out. How *dare* the ‘filthy Jews’ defend against Muslims murdering them?
On Twitter he excoriates Israel for vetting potential “Palestinian” Jihadists at checkpoints:
https://twitter.com/OmarSShakir/status/1387850525396320265?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Omar Shakir has also condemned other Western nations defending against Jihad, including the United States.