Amnesty International’s Report on Israel

Amnesty International has released a report accusing Israel of committing apartheid. The report contains a plethora of false and deceptive claims and even promotes extreme and antisemitic positions. Given Amnesty’s history of false and incendiary allegations against Israel, the organization cannot be considered a fair arbiter or neutral source on the subject. To improve upcoming coverage, here is some vital background below for your convenience.

 
Amnesty International’s Extremist Content Includes:  

• Falsifying a quote in the very first line of the report, as detailed by Alex Safian, PhD, in CAMERA’s written rebuttal to Amnesty.  

• Openly calling for the Jewish State to be destroyed, claiming “this system of apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in May 1948…” while recommending “dismantling this appalling system of apartheid….”

• Ignoring terror attacks while legitimizing terror organizations by, for example, claiming support for Hezbollah is “expressing support for popular resistance to the Israeli occupation and other political views that challenge the established narrative of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” while referring to Hamas members as “opponents of Israel’s occupation and its policies.” 

• Falsely insisting that international law requires the West Bank be cleansed of any Jewish population, a blatantly antisemitic position unsupported by international law and which would create an actual apartheid policy that discriminates against the Jewish people.

• Cynically and nefariously describing efforts and statements supporting the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in a Jewish and democratic state as attempts at “Jewish domination,” evoking old and contemporary antisemitic tropes of “Jewish control” and “Jewish supremacy.”

• Creating its own unique definition of the “crime of apartheid,” ignoring the existing controversies and conflicts between varying treaty definitions and the lack of clarity of the basic elements of the supposed crime.

Amnesty International’s History of Bias
 
Although Amnesty International (AI) was established 60 years ago as an organization demanding “human rights for all people – no matter who they are or where they are” with core values that included a commitment to “impartiality,” the organization has shifted. Given the anti-Zionist ideology that underpins AI’s pre-existing bias, it should not be treated as an authoritative source but qualified as an anti-Zionist source whose agenda is to delegitimize the Jewish state.
 
AI has been far from impartial regarding not just Israel, but also the issue of antisemitism. For example, Amnesty held leadership roles in the notorious antisemitic Durban NGO Conference in 2001 in which Jewish participants were harassed and excluded, and which produced an outcome document rife with antisemitism. Irene Khan, Amnesty’s then Secretary-General, personally refused a request from the Jewish caucus to include on the outcome document that the Jewish caucus did not agree to consensus adoption. As U.S. representative to the Durban process Tom Lantos recalled: “The leaders of the great Western human rights NGOs like…Amnesty International…did almost nothing to denounce the activities of the radicals in their midst.”
 
Today, Amnesty is quick to accuse Israel of crimes with little or no evidence, demonstrating little if any actual standards in its research, methodology, and reports on Israel’s alleged wrongdoings. For example, in 2019, Amnesty claimed “an Israeli missile” hit a human rights office in Gaza when, in fact, a U.S. journalist was across the street when it happened and saw that it was actually hit by a misfired Palestinian terrorist rocket. 
 
AI’s public vilification of Israel with false charges is often based on biased testimony from “research consultants” it employs, many of whom are anti-Israel activists, BDS proponents and supporters of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists. The ideology of the consultants informs their reports which underlie AI’s condemnatory reports. Here are just a few examples:
 
Saleh Hijazi – previously worked as a PR officer for the Palestinian Authority’s Office of the Ministry of Planning in Ramallah, and with the International Solidarity Movement that used to encourage Palestinian “legitimate armed struggle” against Israel. He is a promoter of anti-Israel boycotts and has lauded and featured photos of notorious Palestinian terrorists on his Facebook page. He now serves as head of the Jerusalem office and Deputy Regional Director of the Middle East and North Africa branch, continuing his anti-Israel activism through AI under the guise of human rights advocacy.
 
Deborah Hyams—an anti-Israel activist whose credentials included working for various radical organizations before AI, believes the Jewish state was “founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land” and that it is guilty of “ethnic cleansing.” She volunteered to be a human shield in Beit Jalah to protect terrorists who were attacking Israel.  Hyams served as a research consultant at the time AI released its 2014 report entitled “Trigger-happy: Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank” which charged Israel with “callous disregard for human life” by carrying out military operation (Cast Lead campaign) to defend its citizens from Hamas rocketing.
 
Hind Khoudary – a Gazan activist/journalist who contributes to Electronic Intifada, Middle East Eye,  Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, and similarly partisan sites.  She has tweeted support for Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists and retweeted posts calling for Israel’s destruction. In a filmed interview about life in Gaza, she responded to the question “Do you want the State of Israel gone?” by emphatically affirming, “Of course, yes. This is our land.” Opposing peace dialogue with Israeli Jews, Khoudary tagged Hamas officials in a Facebook post that denounced a Palestinian peace activist for meeting with Israeli peace activists, upon which he was arrested by Hamas authorities.