An honest report.
Good idea
Israel[edit]
Elliott Abrams, writing about the November 2012
Operation Pillar of Defense, says that Amnesty treats "
Hamas and other
terrorist groups […] with an 'evenhandedness' that bespeaks deep biases," citing
NGO Monitor's detailed research.
[14]
The
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised the May 2012 report on administrative detention saying it was "one sided," and "not particularly serious," and "that it seemed little more than a public relations gimmick."
Gerald Steinberg, of NGO Monitor, said that the report was tied to the recent Palestinian hunger strikes and that Amnesty "jumped on the bandwagon to help their Palestinian allies."
[15] Steinberg also said that one of the researchers, Deborah Hyams, was not a neutral party, saying that "Hyams has volunteered as a 'human shield' in
Beit Jala (near
Bethlehem) to deter Israeli military responses to gunfire and mortars targeting Jewish civilians in Jerusalem," and that in 2008 she signed a letter claiming Israel is "a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land."
[16]
The Israeli embassy in London called Amnesty "ridiculous". Amnesty said that this report "is not intended to address violations of detainees' rights by the Palestinian Authority, or the Hamas de facto administration. These violations have been and will continue to be addressed separately by the organisation."
[17]
In May 2012,
NGO Monitor criticized Amnesty's 2012 World Report in a few areas:
Amnesty criticized Israel's blockade on Gaza without mentioning that the blockade was in place "to stop the smuggling of weapons and rockets used to target Israeli citizens." NGO Monitor continued and said that "UN Secretary General’s Palmer Committee declared in September 2011 that the blockade is legal under international law."
Amnesty "failed to mention the thousands of tons of goods provided by Israel to Gaza each week."
NGO Monitor also pointed out that Amnesty's report "mentions Israel 137 times, while making only 74 mentions of the Syrian regime," during a year in which thousands of people have been killed by the Syrian government.
[18]
Amnesty allowed a speaking event to take place in London in May 2011, organized by the magazine
Middle East Monitor Online (MEMO) and the
Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Much controversy surrounded this event since one of the speakers included
Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based
al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. In the past, Atwan has said that "he would 'dance with delight' in
Trafalgar Square if
Iran attacked
Israel, and that the
terrorist attack on the
Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, in which eight students were killed, "was justified" as it was responsible for "hatching Israeli extremists and fundamentalists." Amnesty responded by saying that "while we did have concerns about the way the event had originally been organized, these have been resolved."
[19]
Amnesty also allowed a speaking event to take place in January 2012, which included a speaker who is viewed as anti-Israel. The UK's
Zionist Federation said that the speaker "goes beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior" and asked that the event either not take place or that a pro-Israel speaker be allowed to attend as well. In addition, NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg said that the speaker's "intense hatred directed at Israel, which is the embodiment of Jewish sovereign equality in the world, is entirely inconsistent with the universal values that Amnesty claims to promote. If Amnesty seeks to restore its tarnished moral credentials, it must end this cooperation, and join in denouncing White’s anti-Israel campaigns."
[20]
Some people have criticized Amnesty for promoting an unbalanced and excessive focus on Israel. The
American Jewish Congress asserts that Amnesty's
criticism of Israel distorts the law of war by "read[ing] the law of war as if it was a law banning war", and misinterprets the
Geneva Conventions with regard to the issue of proportionality in war.
[21] Yael Beck and Merav Fima of NGO Monitor, a Pro-Israel NGO, claim the Amnesty has an "obsession with Israel" and "persistently condemns Israel while ignoring suffering elsewhere."
[22]
Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at
Harvard University, in his book
The Case for Israel, is very critical of Amnesty and their comparison of Israel to nations such as
Sudan and other human rights offenders. Amnesty International has consistently called on Israel to bring any officer suspected of human rights violations to justice and to remove its settlements in the West Bank. It has also opposed "discrimination" against
Arab citizens of Israel, and says that the
Law of Return and
Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law are discriminatory, as they grant automatic citizenship to Jews worldwide, while denying
Palestinian refugees the
right of return. It has also opposed the blockade of the
Gaza Strip, calling it "collective punishment".[
citation needed]
In 2010 Frank Johansson, the chairman of Amnesty International-
Finland called Israel a
nilkkimaa, a derogatory term variously translated as "scum state", "creep state" or "punk state."
[23][24] Johansson stood by his statement, saying that it was based on Israel's "repeated flouting of international law", and his own personal experiences with Israelis. When asked by a journalist if any other country on earth that could be described in these terms, he said that he could not think of any, although some individual "Russian officials" could be so described.
[24] According to Israeli professor Gerald M. Steinberg of NGO Monitor: "Amnesty International has promoted an intense anti-Israel ideology, resulting in statements like these."
[24]
In November 2012, Amnesty UK began a disciplinary process against staffer Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty UK campaigns manager, because of a posting on his
Twitter account, said to be
anti-semitic, regarding three
Jewish members of parliament and Operation Pillar of Defense where he wrote: "Louise Ellman, Robert Halfon and Luciana Berger walk into a bar…each orders a round of B52s … #Gaza”. Amnesty International UK said "the matter has been referred to our internal and confidential processes." Amnesty’s campaigns director Tim Hancock said, "We do not believe that humour is appropriate in the current circumstances, particularly from our own members of staff." An Amnesty International UK spokesperson later said the charity had decided that "the tweet in question was ill-advised and had the potential to be offensive and inflammatory but was not racist or antisemitic."
[25][26][27]
