Germany rejects the use of terms such as "apartheid" in connection with Israel, Berlin's Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday in the wake of a report by Amnesty International accusing Israel of such policies in the Palestinian territories.
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"We reject expressions like apartheid or a one-sided focusing of criticism on Israel. That is not helpful to solving the conflict in the Middle East," Christopher Burger told a regular government news conference.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to a system of apartheid founded on policies of "segregation, dispossession, and exclusion" that it said amounted to crimes against humanity.
The London-based group said its findings were based on research and legal analysis in a 211-page report into supposed Israeli seizure of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer of people, and denial of citizenship.
Israel rejected the report, saying it "consolidates and recycles lies" from hate groups and was designed to "pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism," and accused Amnesty of using "double standards and demonization in order to delegitimize Israel".
The United States also denounced the report.
"We reject the view that Israel's actions constitute apartheid," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. We "think that it is important, as the world's only Jewish state, that the Jewish people must not be denied their right to self-determination, and we must ensure there isn't a double standard being applied."
The Jewish Federations of North America also rejected the report, describing it as one that "irresponsibly distorts international law, and advances hateful and disparaging rhetoric associated with age-old antisemitic tropes, while ignoring or whitewashing violence, terror, and incitement committed by Palestinians."
The Central Council of Jews in Germany echoed those remarks and called on Amnesty International's German section to distance itself from the report, which it called antisemitic.
In the wake of the report, right-wing organization Btsalmo called on Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman to drop Amnesty International's tax-exempt status in Israel.
According to the advocacy group, the goal of the tax exemption is to allow Israelis to donate to worthy public causes in lieu of their owed taxes. "Does the finance minister believe that defaming and boycotting Israel is a worthy public cause that Israelis should fund," the organization wrote in a public letter to Lieberman through its lawyer Michael Litvak.
Litvak further claimed that Amnesty has repeatedly called for boycotting Israel and even for an arms embargo on the Jewish state, as well as helped the UN in formulating blacklisted entities beyond the Green Line.
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