General Discussion

U.S. State Department Rejects Amnesty's Apartheid Claim Against Israel

'The Jewish people must not be denied their right to self-determination, and we must ensure there isn't a double standard being applied,' says U.S. State Department spokesman following Amnesty International report

The United States dismissed the view that Israel's actions towards the Palestinians constitute apartheid, the State Department said on Tuesday after Amnesty International accused Israeli authorities of enforcing such policies.
"I reject the view that Israel's actions constitute apartheid. The department's own reports have never used such terminology," State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
Price added: "I 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."

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U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides called the report "absurd," adding "that is not language that we have used and will not use."
Other senior U.S. politicians also chimed in. Nine staunchly pro-Israel Jewish Democrats — Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Brad Schneider, Lois Frankel, Elaine Luria, Kathy Manning, Josh Gottheimer, Dean Phillips, Brad Sherman and Jake Auchincloss — issued a joint statement wholly rejecting Amnesty's report, claiming the report is "steeped in antisemitism and is part of Amnesty’s broad, decades-long campaign to criminalize and delegitimize the world’s only Jewish state."