IMAGE: The apartheid 2022. report published by Amanti World (Photo: Oren Ziv/Source: Mekomit)
Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire
The International Board of Amnesty International is reported to have suspended the membership of their branch, Amnesty International Israel, for two years following Israel’s criticism AI International’s December report, which accused Israel of committing genocide against the native Palestinian population. The Israeli propaganda machine immediately went into full attack mode, describing the decision as “antisemitic” and biased, but is there more to it? We will trace back some of the views and opinions voiced by former members of Amnesty International Israel to better understand if the AI decision is justified.
On December 2024 Amnesty International (AI) published a report titled “ You feel like you are subhuman’Israels genocide against Palestinians in Gaza whose findings were contested by Amnesty International Israel Branch. The report documents Israel’s killing of civilians, damage to and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcible displacement, the obstruction or denial of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, and the restriction of power supplies, and concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The International Board of Amnesty International interim chair, Tiumalu Lauvale Peter Fa’afiu was reported earlier today by the Jerusalem Post to have said that “Amnesty International branch in Israel has sought to publicly discredit Amnesty’s human rights research and positions.”
According to a Jerusalem Post (JP) article dated January 7, 2025, the International Board of Amnesty has decided to suspend the membership of Amnesty International Israel (AI) within the non-governmental organization’s network for two years. This action follows the Israeli branch’s critique of the international organization’s recent reports concerning Israel, as well as allegations that the Israeli branch has consistently marginalized Palestinian voices. This information is allegedly based on internal memorandums that were leaked and made public on Monday.
The Jerusalem Post’s article refers to an email sent on Monday from the International Board of Amnesty International interim chair Tiumalu Lauvale Peter Fa’afiu, which reads as follows:
“We take this action in response to evidence of endemic anti-Palestinian racism within AI Israel, which violates core human rights principles and Amnesty values, and evidence of AI Israel’s misalignment with and hostility to Amnesty positions,”
On December 5, 2024, the Amnesty International branch in Israel reacted against Amnesty International’s research, publicizing differing opinions against the 2022 report Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity and the 2023 report You Feel Like You Are Subhuman:’ Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.
IMAGE: Amnesty International Israel disagrees with Amnesty International 2022 and 2023 report (investigation) accusing Israel of Genocide (Source: AI Israel)
In the above-mentioned statement which we have translated from Hebrew to English, the AI Israel branch declares:
“Regarding the report published today by the Amnesty International movement accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, Amnesty International Israel, an independent non-profit organization, wishes to clarify that it is not one of the initiators of the report; it is not one of its authors, and that the branch in Israel was not a partner in financing or approving the report, and the position adopted by the organization’s management regarding the report is that Amnesty Israel opposes it. That is, it does not accept the claim that genocide has been proven to be taking place in the Gaza Strip, and it does not accept the operative conclusions of the report”.
“It should be noted that there are diverse voices within Amnesty Israel. The majority position in Amnesty Israel believes that the claim that Israel is committing genocide is unfounded; the minority position in the branch is divided on this. We respect all voices in the branch and it is important for us to give them expression. However, this is not the position of Amnesty Israel and these opinions do not constitute support for what is stated in the report itself and its ultimate conclusions”.
“Amnesty Israel’s position is that although the scale of the killing and destruction carried out by Israel in Gaza – as reflected, among other things, in the aforementioned report – reaches horrific proportions, and must be stopped immediately, in a careful analysis of the difficult events we did not find that it can be determined that the findings meet the definition of genocide, as strictly formulated in the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
“On the other hand, Israel’s actions in Gaza, as documented by many sources, including aid organizations, victims, professionals, and Amnesty’s own reports, in response to the massacres committed by Hamas and other armed groups against civilians inside the State of Israel on October 7, 2012, establish suspicions of widespread and serious violations of international law and crimes against humanity, and may even amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing”.
The AI report appears to have generated significant controversy within the Israeli office. While there is an acknowledgement of the potential that Israel’s actions in Gaza could constitute crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, there is a notable reluctance to entertain the notion of Israel’s involvement in the genocide. The perspectives within the office are polarized on this issue, despite a definitive stance articulated in their official statement.
“[I]t is clear that Israel, at the very least, is blatantly violating an important article in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by failing to act adequately to prevent incitement to genocide. In the face of open and explicit calls by public figures for harm and revenge against the civilian population in Gaza as a whole, Israel has failed to respond appropriately to stop this incitement to genocide”.
Certain members of the Amnesty International Branch in Israel have asserted that the report exhibits bias, contending that it leads to a predetermined conclusion. Additionally, some individuals have taken this critique further, alleging the international organization has forsaken its foundational commitment to equality. However, we have found no substantiating evidence to support this claim.
In a piece published by “Countercurrents” on December 15, 2024, we can read the reasons behind the resignation of Daniil Brodsky, the then Chairman of the Board of the Amnesty International Israel branch:
“ before the report came out — one week before, to be exact — I resigned my position as chair of the board of Amnesty Israel. I didn’t step down because of the imminent controversy over the conclusions of Amnesty International’s report. I resigned because I could no longer chair a branch that did not treat Palestinians as equal partners, and I could not sign off on a critique of Amnesty International’s report that pretends to be an expert minority opinion, but is instead little more than the expression of an Israeli-Jewish worldview, to the exclusion of Palestinian voices”.
In December 17, 2024, Yonatan Gher, former Executive Director at Amnesty International Israel branch (Sep 2011 – May 2019) agrees with opinions shared by other former Amnesty Israel members, namely Amal Ourabi and Muhammad Abdel Kader, who in December 16, 2024, shared the reasons behind their resignation (alongside 8 out of 9 other committee members), with Israeli outlet “Mekomit”, in which Ourabi and Kader explain the reason of their departure from AI Israel branch. According to them, the NGO in Israel was ignoring Israeli human rights abuses and focused on the effects after October 7.
In a tweet (X) dated Dec 17, 2024, Yonatan Gher stated:
“I share the deep disappointment with the conduct of the Israeli branch of Amnesty in recent years. I spent eight years managing Amnesty Israel, and during that time the branch spoke with a unified voice with the international movement of which it is a part. It pains me that the branch now sees itself as the guardian of the Israeli government against the human rights movement. Thank you Amal and Muhammad for this important article
IMAGE: Amal Ourabi and Muhammad Abdel Kader
Alon Sapir, a Human Rights Lawyer and former board member at Amnesty Israel stated in a tweet (X) dated December 5, 2024:
“It’s not exactly that I’m embarrassed that I was a board member at Amnesty Israel for a moment because it was an eye-opening experience regarding the blindness of the Zionist left. I hope that the global movement will soon close the failed branch where Palestinians somehow fail to hold on”.
It would seem there is more to the story than the Jerusalem Post is willing to contemplate. It The truth is that Palestinians were regarded merely as tokens, symbols, translators or laborers of some sort, and not as equal partners who play a crucial role in shaping agendas – Inclusivity and equity should have been prioritized and yet it would seem it was absent at the AI Israel office
We must conclude that the Palestinians had minimal if any, influence on Amnesty Israel’s evaluation of the AI genocide report. This lack of involvement cannot be attributed to the absence of Palestinians willing to participate in the discussions, as Amnesty Israel employed competent Palestinian personnel and board members who were prepared to engage. Therefore, one must question the reasons for their exclusion.
Perhaps the title of an article written by Palestinian activists and scholars Haneen Maikey and Lana Tatour on March 31, 2021, could provide some of the answers.
“How Israeli rights groups prevent Palestinians from framing their own reality”
The article points out to Racial hierarchy in Israel, stating:
“Some Israeli rights organisations are not only imbued in the settler-colonial system and benefit from it, but they also embody and reproduce in their institutional structures and operations, racial colonial power relations. Put more bluntly, the Israeli human rights sector has an Ashkenazi Jewish-Israeli supremacy problem”.
Amnesty International’s Israel Branch occupies a challenging position, lacking both a robust legal framework and a comprehensive human rights perspective that encompasses the experiences of both Israelis and Palestinians. AI Israel Branch seems to have primarily served as a platform for Israeli Jews to voice their opinions, sometimes ignoring the hard facts, rendering it a vulnerable entity that could potentially be compromised by Israeli intelligence operations.
The decision to close the Amnesty International branch in Israel should not be misconstrued as an act of anti-Semitism, despite the likely narrative that will emerge from Israeli media and government sources. Rather, it represents a commitment to integrity and alignment with the overarching principles of Amnesty International, which by now has likely recognized the profound impact of colonial fragmentation within Israel.
READ MORE ISRAEL NEWS AT: 21st CENTURY WIRE ISRAEL FILES
VISIT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL
SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV
