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US rejects Human Rights Watch’s ‘Israeli apartheid’ claim

04/29/2021

State Department spokesperson says Israel’s actions are not apartheid

The United States on Wednesday rejected a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report accusing Israel of “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” against Palestinians under control of the Israeli government.

“It is not the view of this administration that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The New York-based advocacy group on Tuesday released the 213-page report, titled “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” which specifically calls out Israel for what it claims is a policy of Jewish Israeli “domination” over Palestinians.

In response, Israel’s foreign ministry on Tuesday dismissed the report as “propaganda” and said that HRW has an “anti-Israel agenda” that promotes boycotts against the Jewish state.

“The fictional claims that HRW concocted are both preposterous and false,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The HRW report calls on countries to condition military and security assistance based on Israel “taking concrete and verifiable steps toward ending their commission of these crimes.”

Read More: I24