Omar Shakir, a US citizen representing New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Israel and the Palestinian territories, stands next to Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW, while speaking before departing Israel at Ben-Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Nov. 25, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Ammar Awad.

i24 News – The United States on Wednesday rejected a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report accusing Israel of “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” against Palestinians under control of the Israeli government.

“It is not the view of this administration that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The New York-based advocacy group on Tuesday released the 213-page report, titled “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” which specifically calls out Israel for what it claims is a policy of Jewish Israeli “domination” over Palestinians.

In response, Israel’s foreign ministry on Tuesday dismissed the report as “propaganda” and said that HRW has an “anti-Israel agenda” that promotes boycotts against the Jewish state.

“The fictional claims that HRW concocted are both preposterous and false,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The HRW report calls on countries to condition military and security assistance on Israel “taking concrete and verifiable steps toward ending their commission of these crimes.”

Progressive lawmakers in the US Congress are targeting financial assistance to Israel. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) earlier this month introduced a bill that would condition aid to Israel based on alleged abuses of Palestinians.

Pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), slammed the bill, labeling it both “unnecessary and redundant.”