Five final year International Studies students from the University of Adelaide - two of whom are also studying Law – undertook internships with the Australian Friends of Palestine Association. Their task was to prepare a five-part report analysing the US-based Human Rights Watch 2021 report entitled “A Threshold Crossed”, in which HRW, for the first time in its history, deemed Israel an “apartheid state”. The project expanded focus, to take in consideration of the HRW and a recent Amnesty International report, and to include references to other organisations that had reached and reported their conclusion that Israel was an apartheid state.

AFOPA’s Patron, Paul Heywood-Smith, writes a response and challenge to the editorial in The Australian newspaper of 21 October 2022

Australian Friends of Palestine welcome Penny Wong’s Jerusalem decision but express disappointment in terrorist link.

Australian Friends of Palestine Association Chair, Edie Bransbury has welcomed the Australian Government’s decision to rescind the former Coalition government’s decision to recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The decision aligns Australia with the great majority of countries in the international community.

“The definition proposed for adoption by the South Australian parliament is one devised by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (or IHRA). It is a flawed definition because it singles out one group of people for special treatment. This motion is specific to Israel and to Israel only. The motion moved by One Nation’s Sarah Game gives Israel a ‘get out of jail free’ card.

The motion itself determines the ways in which we might be allowed to criticise Israel without finding ourselves labelled as antisemitic.”