Israel on Monday called on Amnesty International not to publish an upcoming report accusing it of apartheid, saying the conclusions of the London-based international human rights group are "false, biased and antisemitic."
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Amnesty is expected to join the New York-based Human Rights Watch and the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Israel dismissed the other reports as biased but is adopting a much more adversarial stance this time around. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has said Israel expects intensified efforts this year to brand it as an apartheid state in international bodies and hopes to head them off.
In a statement issued Monday, he said Amnesty "is just another radical organization which echoes propaganda, without seriously checking the facts," and that it "echoes the same lies shared by terrorist organizations."
"Israel isn't perfect, but we are a democracy committed to international law, open to criticism, with a free press and a strong and independent judicial system," Lapid said. Amnesty did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Amnesty's report "denies the state of Israel's right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people." It further added that the organization's
extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism."
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