Amnesty International’s Anti-Israel Activism

For many years, Amnesty International [AI] has pursued an agenda hostile to Israel. Like its sister organization Human Rights Watch, AI was originally founded to expose and combat human rights abuses by oppressive regimes, but its mission has been corrupted over the years by activists intent on ostracizing the Jewish state. Its biased reports on Israel’s Cast Lead military operation [Dec. 27, 2008 to Jan. 18, 2009] and numerous other reports published under its banner over the years attest to the organization’s inability to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a credible and balanced manner.

The Feb. 27, 2014 issue of the Algemeiner, an online Jewish newspaper, interviews Anne Herzberg, legal counsel for NGO Monitor, an Israeli group that scrutinizes non-governmental organizations like AI that inject themselves into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. NGO Monitor has provided an important service by naming names and identifying the anti-Israel activities and affiliations of some of the activists hired by AI. Among them are

Deborah Hyams, [who] was a human shield in Beit Jala; the Amnesty US Israel researcher, Edith Garwood, used to be a member of the International Solidarity Movement.

Hyams signed a letter claiming Israel is “a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land.”

The International Solidarity Movement is a cult-like group that sends impressionable young Westerners into harms way to interfere with Israeli anti-terrorist operations. Several of these young people have lost their lives carrying out the dangerous activities urged upon them by this irresponsible extremist group.

The article also reveals that AI has collaborated with individuals connected to terrorism. Herzberg mentions one of these individuals, Moazzem Begg, who was just arrested this past Tuesday in the UK on terrorism-related charges.

The same issue of the Algemeiner published an article on a new report just released by AI accusing Israel of committing human rights violations.

The Algemeiner article provides a video of one of the incidents which AI accused Israeli soldiers of acting disproportionately. It shows Palestinians throwing large rocks capable of seriously injuring the soldiers.
The article also observes that the

report on Israel killing (by Amnesty’s count) 22 civilians in 2013 is 87 pages long. It goes into detail about every single one of those deaths, humanizing the victims and interviewing multiple friends of each, all in an attempt to paint Israel in the worst light possible.

By contrast,

Amnesty’s report about Egyptian repression since July 2013, where 1,400 people were killed, is only 49 pages long. It only provides details on a few specific cases, and most of those aren’t even for people being killed but for other violations of human rights.

The amplified focus on alleged Israeli disproportionate action, accompanied by an extensive portrait of the alleged victims, is a longstanding pattern with Amnesty International.