BySimon Rocker, Simon Rocker
Amnesty International's UK branch is continuing to highlight Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with an exhibition in London next month directed against its security barrier.
The event follows a meeting last week hosted by Amnesty International UK entitled "Capital Murder: Inside the Israeli authorities' regime of discrimination and control in Occupied East Jerusalem".
Journalist Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide, described what was happening as "a microcosm of Israeli apartheid".
Mr White told the audience of 70 that a "shocking finding" of a United Nations study last year was that 87 per cent of east Jerusalem was unavailable for Palestinian construction.
Referring to a report that the Israeli authorities planned to surround the area with nine national parks, he said it would enable them to "market apartheid as being a tourist attraction".
Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty campaign manager, said the human rights organisation also raised violations by Palestinians, pointing out that it had posted a "new action" on captured soldier Gilad Shalit, on its website.
But asked whether Amnesty might hold a meeting on Mr Shalit too, he replied: "Could do, why not? We will also talk about the thousands of Palestinian prisoners as well. We will have to do that if we want to be consistent."