O PINION
Condemning That Flawed Amnesty International Report
Doesn’t Bring Israel Any Closer to Peace
BY MATT NOSANCHUK
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
released a 280-page report on
Feb. 1 calling Israel an apart-
heid state and charging it
with crimes against humanity,
including atrocities against
Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Such claims have been made
before, usually over vociferous
objections from supporters of
Israel. Predictably, the report
unleashed harsh criticism
from the Israeli government
and from voices throughout
the American Jewish commu-
nity. Much of the criticism,
including the statement issued
from my organization, the New
York Jewish Agenda, focused
on the report’s language,
terminology, omissions and
conclusions, which called into
question Israel’s very legiti-
macy as a homeland for the
Jewish people.

For example, as we noted
in our statement, Amnesty
Internationa l ’s
report concludes that Israel has
employed a system of apart-
heid within its borders since
the nation was established in
1948. As an American Jewish
organization uniting liberal
Zionists who are passionate
about Israel and hold a deep
commitment to promoting
their Jewish values here at
home and in Israel, we share
the anger of many in the
Jewish community regarding
the excesses of the report,
especially during this time
of growing concerns about
the rise of antisemitism and
authoritarianism in the United
States and around the world.

At the same time, we believe
in the necessity of a more
nuanced response beyond that
anger. We must look beyond this
report’s controversial legal
conclusions and examine the
diffi cult realities of Israel’s
55-year occupation of the West
Bank, its control of the Gaza
border, and the unfulfi lled
promise of full equality for
Palestinian citizens of Israel. It’s
not just Amnesty International
that has documented this in
detail: Numerous Israeli NGOs
and the U.S. State Department
have warned about the many
costs of occupation. Th ese
realities cannot be ignored —
not by those who live in Israel,
nor by those of us who support
Israel here in America.

I have traveled to Israel
numerous times over the past
46 years, including spending
a year there during college.

I have seen fi rst-hand the
harsh realities of the occupa-
tion and felt the dream of a
peacefully shared society
for Palestinian and Jewish
citizens of Israel slipping
away. I have also observed
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how the lack of Palestinian
equality corrodes Jewish
Israeli ideals of a democratic,
just, and secure state. Like so
many others, especially many
younger American Jews, I fi nd
it increasingly diffi cult to see
those ideals in the current state
of Israel.

What matters most are the
realities of life on the ground
for Jews and Palestinians, not
the labels — however contro-
versial — that one puts on them.

Th e categoric condemnation
of the Amnesty International
report by many in our commu-
nity 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. It threatens to
bring about the end, one way
or another, of a democratic
homeland for Jews.

In just the past few
weeks, Palestinian families
were forcibly evicted from
their homes in the Sheikh
Jarrah neighborhood of East
Jerusalem. An 80-year-old
Palestinian-American man,
Omar Assad, died of a heart
attack aft er being detained,
handcuff ed, blindfolded and
abandoned in the cold by
soldiers who apparently had
no good reason to detain him.

Th is ongoing Israeli coalition
debate over the construction of
a yeshiva in Evyatar, an illegal
West Bank outpost, demon-
strates the continued push
by the settlement movement
to take over more land in the
West Bank and the apparent
unwillingness of the govern-
ment decision-makers to stop
them. For each one of these
examples, supporters of Israel
invoke others in which Israelis
JEWISH EXPONENT
were targeted by Palestinians.

They all become part of
competing and irreconcilable
narratives on both sides of the
confl ict. We can continue down
the rabbit hole of one-sided
recriminations — with no good
end in sight — that has defi ned
this decades-long confl ict. Or
we can focus our energies on
supporting eff orts to build a
better future for Palestinians
and Israelis alike.

Imagine if those of us who
care deeply about safeguarding
a democratic homeland for
Jews in Israel expended as
much eff ort fi ghting for greater
justice in Israel and an end to
the occupation as we spend
responding each time someone
condemns Israel: We could
help make a real diff erence in
transforming the situation.

We must stop allowing outside
critics to defi ne the conversa-
tion and limit our voices.

While a just, negotiated
two-state solution to the
confl ict feels remote at this
time, we don’t need to limit
our activism and voices to
defending Israel in the face
of harsh criticism. Many Jews
and Arabs, Palestinians and
Israelis — with support from
many American Jewish organi-
zations — work together every
day to build trust and seek
consensus around common
issues. In our increasingly polar-
ized and siloed world, we too
oft en hear only voices with
which we agree and ignore or
condemn the rest. It does not
have to be this way. We know
many in the New York and
American Jewish communities
share our feelings about the
confl ict.

Like them, we remain
committed to standing up
for our values. Th is requires
acknowledging that there are
diffi cult realities on both sides.

We can wait for the next report
and the ensuing round of
statements and recriminations,
or we can raise our voices in
support of building bridges of
understanding and a shared
society. Th e choice is ours to
make. ●
Matt Nosanchuk is a lawyer and
the president and co-founder of
the New York Jewish Agenda.

He served as the liaison to the
American Jewish community in the
White House during the Obama-
Biden Administration.

Be heard.

Email your letters
to the editor.

letters@jewishexponent.com FEBRUARY 17, 2022
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