Responses To the Amnesty International Report
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
April 2022
The Amnesty International (AI) report accusing Israel of “apartheid” has come
under criticism from the Israeli government and supporters of Israel in the U.S.
The AI report comes a year after Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, the Israeli
human rights group, issued reports also accusing Israel of “apartheid.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, while not pointing to any inaccuracies in
the 280-page AI report, called AI “just another radical organization which echoes
propaganda without checking facts.” He also accused AI of anti-Semitism: “I hate
to use the argument that if Israel were not a Jewish state, nobody in Amnesty
would dare argue against it, but in this case, there is no other possibility.”
Rabbi Eliot Cosgrove of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York told his
congregation that he didn’t want to respond from the pulpit to the AI report, but
he couldn’t help himself because he has committed his synagogue to supporting
Israel. Mondoweiss (Feb. 14, 2022) reports that, “Cosgrove spent 15 minutes
trashing a report he admits he hasn’t read—but that’s what you do ‘when a family
member is attacked from the outside.’…He said, ‘I do so because for me, Israel is
part and parcel of my Jewish identity, it’s central to my vision of the
rabbinate…It will remain central to the mission of this synagogue…For me, to be
Jewish today means to be actively engaged with Israel.’ He said that apartheid is
‘clickbait’ for the ‘feeding frenzy of Israel’s detractors.’ Rabbi Cosgrove
admitted that even he had ‘all sorts of criticism of Israel, its systemic and
ongoing restrictions of Palestinian rights, its repeated actions impeding
Palestinian sovereignty…Israel’s inability to house liberal expressions of Jewish
life, most recently the collapse of the Kotel.’ But, he said, when Israel is
being criticized ‘from the outside,’ it must be defended as ‘family.’”
Jewish Voice for Peace welcomed the report “documenting the brutal reality of
Israel’s apartheid regime.” AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-
Defamation League and other groups echoed the Israeli government’s criticism of
the AI report. Columnist Liat Collins wrote in The Jerusalem Post that, “While it
(AI) pretends to promote peace, it excels in promoting the tropes and stereotypes
that encourage terrorism and violence. Amnesty’s study is not so much a damning
report as a report in which truth be damned.” Those who called the report “anti-
Semitic” were criticized editorially in Washington Jewish Week (Feb. 20, 2022):
“It is not anti-Semitic to point out, as AI does, that Israel weakened its
argument for equality when it passed the Nation State law in 2018. Not only did
that law denigrate Israel’s Arab citizens and their culture, it also ignored the
national aspirations of the Palestinian people.”
Other responses to the AI report were more nuanced. Matt Nosanchuck, president of
the New York Jewish Agenda, provided this assessment: (Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
Feb. 10, 2022): “We must look beyond this report’s controversial legal
conclusions and examine the difficult realities of Israel’s 55-year occupation of
the West Bank, its control of the Gaza border and the unfulfilled promise of full
equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. It’s not just AI that has
documented this in detail. Numerous Israeli NGOs and the U.S. State Department
have warned about the many costs of occupation. These realities cannot be
ignored—not by those who live in Israel nor by those of us who support Israel
here in America.”
Speaking in personal terms, Nosanchuck writes: “I have traveled to Israel
numerous times over the past 46 years, including spending a year there during
college. I have seen first-hand the harsh realities of the occupation and felt
the dream of a peacefully shared society for Palestinian and Jewish citizens of
Israel slipping away. I have also observed how the lack of Palestinian equality
corrodes Jewish ideals of a just, democratic and secure state. Like many others,
especially many younger American Jews, I find it increasingly difficult to see
those ideals in the current state of Israel.”
Concerning the AI report, he concludes: “The categoric condemnation of the AI
report by many in our community avoids grappling with the ongoing control and
denial of rights that Palestinians in the occupied territories and to a lesser
degree in Israel experience day in and day out. This unsupportable reality—with
no moral, logical, or politically feasible endgame—must change…Imagine if those
of us who care deeply about safeguarding a democratic homeland for Jews in Israel
expended as much effort fighting for greater justice in Israel and an end to the
occupation as we spend responding each time someone condemns Israel; we could
make a real difference in transforming the situation…We remain committed to
standing up for our values. This requires acknowledging that there are difficult
realities on both sides.”
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