The 200+ page Amnesty Report, to be published tomorrow (1 February), parrots other ‘human rights’ organisations – eg Human Rights Watch – in making the Apartheid Slur. The Report (principal author: Philip Luther) is a farrago of malicious lies about Israel.
Unsurprising given that Amnesty employs known hard core Israel Haters.
Only on 4 pages is there any attempt at ‘balance’. On pages 5, 18, 31 and 130 you will find:
Palestinian armed groups fired thousands of indiscriminate rockets towards cities and towns in Israel killing or injuring dozens of civilians
NB the page numbers in this blog are from the pre-publication document – they are inferred as there are no numbers – the numbers in the published version may be different.
Elder of Zion exposes some of the lies here and here. Amnesty has to resort to the demonstrable falsehood that discriminating against “national origin” is ‘apartheid’. In other words the UK government – by charging non-citizens for NHS services – is guilty of ‘apartheid’! Plus it alleges ‘apartheid’ within Israel using false logic. Thus there is supposedly ‘apartheid’ against Israeli Arabs- they do not join the IDF therefore do not get the same post-service benefits as Jews. Elder points out that many Arabs DO join the IDF – and Charedi Jews do not – so how can it be ‘apartheid’?
As Elder says
In these and countless other cases in this long report, Amnesty is going out of its way to twist the facts to make Israel appear guilty. The decision that Israel is guilty of “apartheid” was made by HRW, B’Tselem and HRW way before they gathered any evidence. It was a pre-ordained conclusion and any facts that prove they have been dishonest in their information gathering is simply ignored or buried.
It isn’t an honest report about Israel. It is a hatchet job. And Amnesty knows that very few people will read it critically, because they assume that Amnesty is an honest broker. So later this week we will see AP and Reuters and the New York Times give fawning coverage of this report, and not one mainstream reporter will take the time and effort to look at it critically.
Below I document 16 lies in the Report. There are plenty more. How many can you find? Let me know and I’ll add them at the end.
Lie #1: Failing to tell the truth about the Sheikh Jarrah evictions. If a tenant repeatedly refuses to pay rent, they are evicted.
Lie #2: The only security action by Israel within the Mosque compound was to pursue suspected criminals who had attacked people and fled into the Mosque thinking it was a safe haven. Arab aggression was initiated at the start of Ramadan with attacks on Jews in the streets of Jerusalem and its light railway. A yeshiva student was murdered in an attack that left two other students critically wounded. A terror cell was thwarted on its way to commit a major atrocity in Jerusalem. Arabs desecrated the al-Aqsa mosque by turning it into a war encampment. Stockpiled rocks and Molotov cocktails were lobbed from the mosque compound at police and at Jews praying at the Western Wall. The police entered the mosque purely to stop this murderous onslaught.
Lie #3: Israel always warns before a bombing raid in Gaza. Yes there are civilian deaths but Israel achieves the lowest-ever ratio of civilian:combatant casualties (1:1) in asymmetric warfare.
Lie #4: There is no ‘blockade’ of Gaza. All there is, is a prohibition on goods entering which can be used to make weapons.
Lie #5: Every one of the six has links with terrorist organisations.
Lie #6: Around 600,000 Arabs left their homes; only a fraction of the 600,000 who left their homes were driven out by Jews/Israelis. Twice as many were driven out by Arabs. The vast majority simply fled in fear, disorientation, and lack of national cohesion.
Lie #7: Non-Jews have equal rights in Israel. Just one example of many: An Arab Supreme Court Judge, Salim Joubran, helped to send a former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to jail.
Lie #9: See Lie #6 above
Lie #10: See Lie #4 above. No law prohibits Israel from restricting goods going into Gaza in order to protect its own citizens from terror.
Lie #11: A massive lie – Nothing stops Arab Israelis becoming Members of the Knesset. Indeed an Arab Party – the Ra’am Party – is a member of the governing coalition!
Lie #12: The security fence is NOT ‘illegal’. Many countries have built similar security fences or walls.
Lie #13: There is no such thing as ‘international law’ in the sense of laws that can be enforced by a Court. No Court has ever ruled the settlements illegal.
Lie #14: Checkpoints etc are there to prevent suicide bombers
Lie #15: Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria is perfectly legal. The League of Nations Resolution of July 24, 1922 remains valid. It endorsed Jewish settlement throughout the Mandate area.
Lie #16: The JNF does lease land to non-Jews.
NGO Monitor’s analysis is here.
Like many previous NGO publications, Amnesty’s report manipulates and distorts international law, Israeli policy, and events on the ground, as well as denies the Jewish people their right to sovereign equality and self-determination.
Thus, Amnesty’s report can be considered antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which notes that: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
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Update 1: Revoke Amnesty’s UK Charitable status. Please sign and share my petition. No to taxpayer funding of antisemitic hate!
Update 2: Melanie Phillips
Nevertheless, the agenda behind this report remains perfectly clear. Amnesty thinks the Jewish State needs to be dismantled. Indeed, in the intensity and obsession of its hatred for Israel, its inversion of victim and aggressor and its disdain for Jewish suffering and Jewish human rights, it has the feel of Palestinian Authority or Hamas propaganda.
This is hardly surprising. In 2019, David Collier wrote a report on Amnesty pointing out that key figures on its staff were Palestinian propagandists and terrorist sympathisers, including fans of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Amnesty International is a hate group, and should be treated by all decent people as a pariah organisation beyond the pale.
Update 3: Colonel Richard Kemp
This report will also provoke increased violence, abuse and boycotts against Jews in Israel and Jews who support Israel in the diaspora, in an era where antisemitic attacks are already at a high point and on the rise. That may not be Amnesty’s aim in producing this twisted document, but they cannot be so blind as to fail to see its bloody consequences, which have played out over decades following similar distorted reports, debates, resolutions and media fabrications.
Update 4: Jake Wallis Simons, the new Editor of the JC
Ironically enough, the same week that the Amnesty report was published, Osila Abu Assad, from Nazareth, became the first female Arab judge to be elevated to an Israeli district court. She was one of six Arabs appointed to important positions in the judiciary this week, half of them women.
Update 5: Alex Safian of CAMERA exposes Amnesty’s deception in the first line of the report!
Update 6: NGO Monitor
Very comprehensive fisk of Amnesty’s lies and distortions.
Update 7: My RevelationTV interview on Amnesty
Update 8: I was delighted to have assisted Israeli Arab Yoseph Haddad and his fiancee Emily Schrader for their end-February roadshow in London and Dublin. Here’s Yoseph’s terrific address to the Irish Parliament on 24 February.
We Are The 99% of Jews ............ 