Thread by @maureenclarem

A 🧵 of key takeaways from my @intifada analysis of the new @amnesty report on Israeli apartheid, with some additional thoughts sprinkled in electronicintifada.net/content/what-m…

Israel has reacted to it “hysterically” (as one @Haaretz headline put it) in a way that it didn’t to similar reports by @HRW and @BTselem

Palestinian groups like @alhaq_org, @AdalahEnglish and @AlMezanCenter have been discussing Israeli apartheid for years, as have Palestinian authors and #IsraeliApartheidWeek organizers

As @AliAbunimah told @Multipolarista, Western liberal NGOs are adopting the apartheid framework is because Palestinians have forced them to recognize this reality

But the studies by Amnesty, HRW and B’Tselem fall short of those of their Palestinian counterparts by failing to place Israeli apartheid in the context of settler-colonialism

Apartheid is a means towards the end of settler-colonialism in Palestine, not the end itself. The end is Palestinian land.

Amnesty also refrains from examining and discussing Zionism, Israel’s racist state ideology around which its settler-colonialism project is organized.

As @AdalahNY asks, “Is it possible to end apartheid without ending the Zionist settler colonial project?”

Despite these critical shortcomings, Amnesty’s study blasts away Israel’s foundational myths and makes forceful recommendations for holding Israel accountable within the flawed framework of international law

Amnesty calls on @IntlCrimCourt to investigate the crime of apartheid in Palestine and for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against officials most implicated

They also reiterate their longstanding call to suspend all forms of military assistance and weapons sales to Israel and for the PA to stop colluding with Israeli apartheid

Israel has lashed out against Amnesty, calling the world’s largest human rights organization anti-Semitic. They resort to baseless smears because they can’t refute reality.

Israel's clumsy attempts to “get ahead of the story,” reportedly spearheaded by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, only serve to reinforce the association of Israel with apartheid.

Amnesty’s belated acknowledgement of Israeli apartheid indicates that what Palestinians have been saying since forever is now widely accepted for the reality that it is, and that is what Israel is most afraid of

And unlike HRW and B’Tselem, Amnesty is a campaigning organization with millions of supporters. Israeli apartheid emblazoned on the Amnesty homepage would have been unthinkable until recently.

Israel is even more afraid of being branded an apartheid state at the UN Human Rights Council, which last year voted for an unprecedented commission of inquiry into Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights as a whole

Palestinian groups have long called on states “to address the root causes of Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid imposed over the Palestinian people as a whole,” as @alhaq_org said ahead of that vote.

The commission of inquiry’s report is expected in June; Israel is prioritizing attempts to delegitimize the commission in the meantime

Israel has rallied a bipartisan grouping of shameless members of US Congress to attack the commission on its behalf, but this may not be enough

Haaretz reports that senior Israeli officials are concerned that the UN accepting the apartheid narrative will deal a serious blow to its reputation

It could lead to Israel being banned from international sports competitions and cultural events — treated as a global pariah as was apartheid South Africa

Amnesty’s report doesn’t go far enough in its analysis of Israel’s genocidal settler-colonial regime in Palestine

But its very existence and the context in which it appears suggest that a new chapter in the global struggle for Palestinian freedom may have begun

Additional folks cited/tweets embedded in the article: @AdvocacyJlac @Lana_Tatour @SamerAbdelnour @PeterBeinart @BtSIsrael @adamjohnsonNYC @JoeJSaltarelli @simonerzim @abdallah_fayyad @joshruebner

And definitely watch/listen to @AliAbunimah connect genocidal settler-colonial violence in Palestine with that in North America multipolarista.com/2022/02/03/isr…

And read @AlMezanCenter's study of the particulars of Israeli apartheid in Gaza and show up for Gaza and demand an end to the life-crushing siege wherever and however you can: mezan.org/en/uploads/fil…