BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany rejects the use of terms such as “apartheid” in connection with Israel, a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
“We reject expressions like apartheid or a one-sided focusing of criticism on Israel. That is not helpful to solving the conflict in the Middle East,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christopher Burger told a regular government news conference.
Amnesty International accused Israel on Tuesday of subjecting Palestinians to a system of apartheid founded on policies of “segregation, dispossession and exclusion” that it said amounted to crimes against humanity.
(This story corrects to attribute statement to Foreign Ministry spokesperson, not government spokesperson)
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt and Andreas Rinke; Writing by Miranda Murray, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Kevin Liffey)