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Former Irish Justice Minister: Apartheid Claims over Palestinians a "Big Lie"
(Irish Times) Cormac McQuinn - Former Irish Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has branded Amnesty International's use of the term "apartheid" to describe Israel's treatment of Palestinians as a "headline-catching big lie" at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday. He said the Amnesty report misrepresents a territorial and political conflict relating to Israeli and Palestinian nationhood and identity as a racial conflict. Shatter said the committee - which has been holding meetings on the report - is "on the wrong side of history." He argued that the committee has had nothing positive to say on recent peace deals between Israel and some Arab countries and "nothing also is ever said about Palestinian political parties, terrorist and civil groups celebrating in Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank murderous terrorist atrocities." He said the obstacle to peace was "the incapacity of people on the Palestinian side to constructively engage." Yousef Haddad, an Arab-Israeli citizen, told the committee, "It is true that Israel is a Jewish state but it is also a democratic state. While Israel is imperfect and racism exists, it is not systematic but individual. Every day, Arabs and Jews are standing side-by-side working to resolve the problems in our society. You know what doesn't help our society? White Europeans and Amnesty International telling our sovereign nation of Arabs and Jews how to run our country."