Amnesty’s obsession with Israel

Amnesty persistently condemns Israel while ignoring suffering elsewhere
Yael Beck, Merav Fima

Even in a month when war raged in Georgia, Amnesty International continued to focus on the Gaza Strip, persistently blaming Israel for ongoing Palestinian hardship.

Amnesty, in fact, issued harsher condemnations of Israel than of any party to the Georgian conflict. With a ceasefire holding between Israel and Hamas, resulting in a period of calm, Amnesty stubbornly continued to spew hollow publications repeating outdated allegations.

Moreover, Amnesty took pride in its relentless criticism of Israel, while the rest of the world rightly concerned itself with the unfolding crisis in Georgia. In a press release, the organization boasted: “With the ceasefire holding, the suffering in Gaza has fallen off the international news agenda. However, Amnesty International members continue to campaign.” This “explanation” merely highlights Amnesty's obsession with Israel, regardless of the reality on the ground.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3604542,00.html

The human cost of war in Georgia
Amnesty International

1 October 2008

Large-scale destruction of property, unexploded ordnance and ongoing security concerns have stopped tens of thousands of people from returning to their homes after the Georgia-Russia conflict of 7-13 August.

Those remaining residents in South Ossetia and the adjacent, Russian-controlled "buffer zone" face shootings, looting and ethnically motivated attacks. These abuses are also stopping the return of those ethnic Georgians who fled their homes.

"The Russian and Georgian authorities, as well as the de facto South Ossetian administration must make every effort to guarantee security and provide assistance to all people without discrimination," said Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International. "Those forced to flee their homes must be allowed to return safely and those unable or unwilling to do so, must be resettled."

More than 160,000 people were forced from their homes during the five-day war and its aftermath between Georgia and the Russian Federation. Hundreds of civilians were killed and many more were injured during the conflict. Homes have been destroyed and lie in rubble.

Georgian forces shelled Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and surrounding villages on 7 August. Aerial attacks by Russian forces between 8 and 12 August bombed ethnic Georgian majority villages in South Ossetia, the town of Gori and surrounding areas in Georgia proper.

Amnesty International representatives collected eye-witness accounts from survivors of the hostilities and took photographs of the war's aftermath. Kazbek Djiloev gave this account of how he experienced the attack on his house in a residential area in the south of the town of Tskhinvali on the night of 7 August:

"We were listening to Saakashvili who was saying that he agrees on any negotiations. We felt comfortable. I was drinking tea and suddenly I heard gunfire followed by tanks, artillery, etc. we all went downstairs. Two hours later I heard explosions, the house shook, the roof exploded and these GRAD missiles fell on our house.

"The sofa and other stuff caught fire. We heard an airplane and it aimed at us and started firing at us with a machine gun. My brother and I hid downstairs again. After a while another GRAD fell and half of the house was destroyed. I was in shock.

"The Georgians claim that they fired at positions of Russian soldiers. This is a lie. There was no soldier here. They were firing at peaceful citizens. There was nothing military here. I was here with my brother and mother … Now I don’t have a house. The weather is nice and I can sleep in the garden but don't know what to do when the rain comes. Nobody is helping me. I'll never be able to restore the house because I don’t have the money."

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/the-human-cost-of-war-in-georgia-20081001

Mossad'.

Just because one disagrees with journalists (and I do here, strongly) doesn't make them 'vassals' of anyone, at least without proof.

"Vassals of the Mossad" was such a good phrase I could hardly resist. :evilgrin:

Calling these two "journalists" would hardly be more accurate. I see no evidence of that either.

And you have to wonder why these two would fail to look at AI's website.

left for Georgia. ! or ? Personally, I doubt it.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-10-01-voa10.cfm

www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=US203006+30-Sep-2008+PRN20080930 - 64k -

www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17892 - 16k -

www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SHIG-7JZFYM?OpenDocument - 21k -

The current front page of the Amnesty International website includes reports on child soldiers in the Congo; campaigns against the arms trade; attacks on housing rights activists in Cambodia; the 40th anniversary of a massacre in Mexico City; anti-gay violence in Sarajevo; the investigation of the killing of Menezes in London in 2005; the imprisonment of an Egyptian editor and the release of a Moroccan blogger - *and*, very prominently, an article on 'The Human Cost of War in Georgia'. The front page of their UK website focuses on abuses by the junta in Burma, persecution of Christians in India, the anniversary of the Mexican massacre, the threatened execution of Troy Davis, and the decision of some more countries to ban cluster bombs.

No obvious mention of Israel.

And, if anyone still doubts that Amnesty International *have* made an issue of the Russia/Georgia situation, there is the ultimate proof: an attack on them in 'Pravda'!

www.english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/28-05-2008/105363-amnesty_international-0 - 38k


I agree that the UN and its Human Rights Commission really *are* obsessed with abuses by Israel, and criticize it disproportionately in comparison with abuses by other countries. But I think the accusations against Amnesty International and other human rights organizations are unfair.

There's a lot about Georgia, as well as other conflicts going on around the world. I saw a press release about Gaza, but that was it. How anyone could claim that's obsession is amazing. Then again, I just looked at who wrote the article and it's that bunch of folk who are obsessed with AI and HRW, so that explains the incredible blindness. 'The authors are researchers at NGO Monitor'...

My takeaway was not that Amnesty focuses exclusively on Israel at the expense of all other areas of the world. They don't. At least, certainly not to the degree that the UNHRC does, which is truly a farce. The points that I took away are as follows:

• Comparing the coverage that the Georgia conflict received from Amnesty compared to a similar conflict concerning Israel, the 2006 Lebanon War, we see a disproportionate focus on the Israeli conflict. Amnesty wrote a few reports on Georgia during the conflict and afterwards. But in 2006, there were literally dozens on reports posted on the Israel/Lebanon conflict. (I realize the Israel/Lebanon War was larger and longer than the Georgian conflict. But does that justify Amnesty offering 9-10 times as much coverage for the former?)

• More importantly, the content of the reports in 2006 was overwhelmingly critical of Israel while their 2008 reports focused on the importance of protecting human rights without assigning blame to either party. The 2006 conflict was used as an opportunity to criticize Israel while very few reports offered similar criticism of Lebanon.

The point isn't that Amnesty's mission is to critique Israel, as the UNHRC's surely is. Rather that their focus on Israel and subsequent criticism dwarfs other, similar issues around the globe. For example, I did a search just now at amnesty.org. A country search for Israel returned 74 articles. One for Sudan returned only 44.

This is an ad hominem, in it's essence. If one wants to refute AI's reports and claims, one must address what they say, not their motives. It seems clear enough the writers of this piece are not unbiased observers, ought we to ignore what they say for that reason?

FWIW, I am entirely OK with viewing what AI has to say with a critical eye, they have no privileged position.

It is expected for an oped to be biased towards one argument or another. It is an opinion piece after all. That does not mean that anything it says is factually incorrect.

But when it comes to an organization like Amnesty, objectivity is not an unreasonable expectation. Just as when we read news reports there is an implicit trust that we are being given a balanced description of current events. The danger is not that a bias against Israel suggests that Amnesty is lying. In fact, I would expect them to be accurate in their facts. But it is not enough to merely refrain from being untruthful.

By downplaying or neglecting certain aspects of an event one provides a distorted version of reality. It is not necessary to outright lie in order to leave a dishonest picture. When an organization like Amnesty describes any given situation people assume that they are being given the entire story... or at least the essential pieces. But this conflict certainly has two sides to it and by neglecting to adequately describe the reality in full, (to a truly egregious degree) by focusing on the transgressions of Israel above all others, they do a disservice to both their cause and their members.

*I never suggested ignoring anyone. Just because Amnesty's biased doesn't mean that we should ignore their criticisms of Israel. Pointing out Amnesty's bias serves to inform its readers that they may not be getting the full story from them. The defense, "but they're biased!" is never adequate on its own to refute charges. Similarly, these charges against Amnesty can't be ignored just because of the bias of these reporters.

since i believe that part of AIs purpose is to put pressure on the israeli govt via the israeli people, to do so would mean that it would have to be credible in the avg israeli eyes.....

and their lies its failure...its not looked upon a as "fair" dealer in the I/P conflict and hence loses its credibility amongst the one population* that it has the best change of getting a reaction out of and some movement towards its goals.( i could be wrong however and its goals are to put pressure on israel via world pressure and not the israeli population in which case its less of a failure)

*I think its reasonable to assume that it has even less credibility amongst the various jihad groups and the Palestinians/Hizballa in general when it comes to criticizing them, given that its a "western organization"

Do you really expect me to believe that if AI wrote LESS about I/P issues, that would persuade the Israeli public to do something because AI is seen as "fair" and "credible", whereas now they don't because AI is seen as "unfair" and "not credible" because they write about I/P issues a lot? I think it is far more likely that the Israeli public would do nothing regardless of what AI does.

to put a bit more blame on the PA/hamas/hizballa etc. for the violence, civilian deaths etc...we do realize however that such reports would probably put their researchers lives in danger, but thats not really an acceptable excuse....

More of the same "don't criticize the scared cow" bullshit from apologists.

The problem lies with the apologists, who cannot stand any criticism of Israel.

...Amnon Vidan, director-general of Amnesty International's Israel branch, said the organization expected Israel and other democratic states to abide by a higher standard of respect for human rights than non-democratic regimes.

<snip>

In principle, Amnesty's treatment of different crises is based on different parameters, such as our ability to influence, and need to present issues to media," he added.

<snip>

"There is an expectation of Israel and other democratic states to abide by a higher standard than Sudan.

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3402530,00.html

This is why AI, HRW, etc.. are not taken as seriously as they could be. They admit they are disproportionately focused on western democracies violating human rights - even though such societies already have built in criticism, checks/balances, and rules of law that internally work to enforce these standards.

OTOH, non-democratic societies and their leadership are treated as "retarded children" (see writings of Ben Dror Yemini) who cannot be expected to improve their behavior. Of course this is racist and therefore dictatorships are never challenged like the USA and Israel. It follows that atrocities in such countries continue unabated - which works out great for tin-pot dictators who want nothing more than to have a scapegoat and shift blame elsewhere. AI gives these tyrannical regimes a virtual green light to continue to violate human rights at will. They're retarded children, remember? Less is expected of them.

Sucks to be the victims of non-democratic leadership, huh? Their so-called human rights "advocates" like AI would rather focus more of their efforts elsewhere and give a platform to tyrannical despots who rule the asylum at the UNHRC and UNGA - so that they can smear, defame and demonize certain democracies rather than take heat on themselves. The media doesn't care. The UN doesn't care. Why then shouldn't AI continue to be biased? It's apparently what the rest of the world and media want anyway (tell that to the oppressed at the mercy of non-democracies). To hell with genocide in Sudan and Rwanda. Or other gross human rights violations that affect hundreds of millions worldwide. Better to focus on some spots of blood rather than rivers of blood.

This isn't to say Israel shouldn't be criticized. Only that the fruits of these efforts have resulted in great blindspots elsewhere, where the situations are far worse than anything in the I/P territories. To the extent that when most Europeans are polled and asked who the greatest threat to world peace is, it's Israel. To the extent that too many people think Israel is the most egregious violator of human rights on the planet, and undeserving of their own country or any right to determination. And lastly, to the extent that millions are actually dying elsewhere due to deliberately grievous human rights violations, while the focus remains mostly on Israel.

Highly recommended:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=149885&mesg_id=149885