Anti-Israel report ranks as top Human Rights Watch story this year

The report ranked above the Uyghur crisis in China, and violence against women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

By World Israel News staff

A report on “Israeli apartheid” topped the Human Rights Watch (HRW) most read stories this year, the NGO announced this week.

The report, called A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, was released in April this year. It ranked above reports on the Uyghur crisis in China, and violence against women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Others on the list included ex-judicial killings in the Philippines, sexual violence toward women in India, and Ethiopia’s massacres in the Tigray region.

While other reports on the list covered current events, the report on Israel summarized Israel’s long conflict with the Palestinians, which was given labels such as “crimes against humanity” and “Systematic Oppression and Institutional Discrimination.” It outlined what it described as persecution against Palestinians and the areas which are “illegally occupied.”

“Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land,” the HRW report read.

“In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity.”

Fifteen points of recommendation were given to Israel, including a recommendation to cease building Jewish settlements in Judaea and Samaria, and to allow free travel to-and-from Gaza, which was listed despite overlooking the terror implications that would impose on Israel and the Middle East region

In comparison however, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was given only one recommendation: to “adopt an advocacy strategy centered on the immediate attainment of the full human rights of Palestinians.”

In addition, the Palestinian Authority was given only two, merely asking them to “cease all security coordination with the Israeli army” and “incorporate crimes against humanity, including the crimes of persecution and apartheid, into national criminal law.”

It should be noted that the PLO was recognized as a terrorist organization until 1993 and has written that ″Palestine… is an indivisible territorial unit″ in its charter.

arab-israeli conflictHRWHuman Rights WatchJudea and SamariaPLO