Israel deprives Palestinian residents of the West Bank of basic necessities while Jewish settlements flourish, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
The 166-page report, “Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” released Dec. 19, is based on case studies comparing Israel’s treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in the same areas.
The main umbrella settlers’ group called the report “Goebbels-like propaganda.”
The report called on the United States to withhold aid to Israel in an amount equal to what Israel spends on the settlements, or about $1.4 billion. It also recommended that the U.S. study and withhold tax-exempt status from charitable organizations that support “supporting discriminatory and other illegal aspects of the settlements.”
Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based think tank, said in a statement that “This is the latest Human Rights Watch report that strips away the context of Arab terror and substitutes inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations, falsely turning a political conflict into one of racial hostility by using the ‘separate but unequal’ language from the American civil rights movement.” — jta