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NGO Monitor Statement and Analysis on the upcoming Amnesty Apartheid Report

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL / AGILITYPR.NEWS / January 31, 2022 /

NGO Monitor received advanced copies of a forthcoming Amnesty International publication, “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity,” scheduled to be published on February 1, 2022.


Our attached exclusive analysis highlights the salient flaws in Amnesty’s publication, which largely repeats the claims made by Human Rights Watch and other NGOs in 2021. We demonstrate that this NGO campaign is not merely a critique of Israeli policies, but amplifies attacks on the legitimacy of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, regardless of its borders, through the abuse of international law. Furthermore, throughout the report, Amnesty vilifies Jews and spreads antisemitic tropes, such as “Jewish domination.” 


As shown in NGO Monitor analysis, over the past two years, the NGO network has systematically exploited the term “apartheid” in discourse on Israel. Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, and others promote manufactured definitions of apartheid that have no legal foundations in order to lobby for International Criminal Court cases against Israel. The NGO apartheid campaign is also directed at the Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, initiated after the May 2021 violence in Israel and Gaza.


In December 2021, NGO Monitor published a unique analysis of the definition of apartheid, addressing the international legal vacuum surrounding the term. This, and a follow-up analysis is scheduled to be published in February, disprove the claims of those, such as Amnesty, who use distorted and invented legal definitions.


Professor Gerald Steinberg, President of NGO Monitor: “For 20 years, Amnesty International has been a leader in NGO campaigns to demonize Israel, based on twisting and exploiting the evils of the South African apartheid regime in order to promote hatred. This false and immoral agenda singling out the nation-state of the Jewish people is a major cause of 21st century antisemitism, and is the polar opposite of the universal principles embodied in real human rights. This campaign is also a betrayal of everything that Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty, stood for.”


Anne Herzberg, NGO Monitor's Legal Advisor added: "Amnesty's report offers nothing new to the discussion. It is simply part of the discriminatory and offensive campaign launched in 2021, by NGOs like HRW and B’Tselem, which is based on invented law and discriminatory tropes from a century's worth of antisemitic propaganda. It is clearly timed to exploit lawfare initiatives at the dictator-run UN Human Rights Council such as the Commission of Inquiry on the 2021 conflict."


NGO Monitor is providing the following materials: 

  1. Analysis of Amnesty’s “Apartheid” publication
  2. Basic information on Amnesty
  3. Report: False Knowledge as Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State
  4. Report: “NGOs Intensify Apartheid Demonization Campaign



About Us

Founded in 2002, NGO Monitor is a globally recognized research institute promoting democratic values and good governance. We work to ensure that decision makers and civil society operate in accordance with the principles of accountability, transparency, and universal human rights. We publish fact-based research and independent analysis about non-governmental organizations (NGOs), their funders, and other stakeholders, primarily in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. NGO Monitor is a project of The Institute for NGO Research, a recognized organization in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council (since 2013).

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