“Amnesty a worthless sham”

Fierce criticism of Amnesty International by the editor at large of the Jewish Chronicle

April 2024

“Amnesty is an indecent, morally bankrupt sham that has nothing of value to contribute”. These are just two comments in a Times column under the ‘Thunderer’ heading in its edition of April 11th. After first saying that the organisation was once a remarkable one which campaigned on behalf of prisoners of conscience, today it has become “just another partisan NGO, with all the dreary hard-left obsessions – including the customary fixation on Israel”. There then follows a damning description of current prisoners of conscience saying that far from being law abiding citizens and writers, they were in fact dreadful terrorists who committed fearful crimes against Israeli men.

This site has referred, in several posts, to the system of Apartheid being operated in Israel against Palestinians. Many of the processes used in South Africa against the Blacks are present in the country and severely limit the movement and livelihoods of non Jewish citizens. Three detailed reports have been published: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and B’Tselem an Israel based human rights organisation. The HRW report has received a detailed rebuttal essentially denying that Apartheid exists in any form.

The invasion of Gaza following the horrific attack by Hamas on 7 October has seen around 33,000 Palestinians killed, many of whom were women and children with thousands more buried in demolished buildings. The sympathy for Israel after the Hamas attack, has begun to dissipate following the actions of the IDF. As famine begins to set in, the blocking of aid trucks by one means or another has attracted criticism from international friends of Israel. The killing of 7 aid workers recently drew widespread criticism and renewed attention to how IDF were conducting the war in the territory.

It is not true to say that Amnesty is ‘fixated’ on Israel. It has campaigns on a wide range of issues around the world. It has argued that the root causes of the conflict in Israel and Gaza need to be addressed and has called on all parties to adhere to International Humanitarian law. Israel is by far the most sophisticated country in the area with massive resources courtesy of the USA, a powerful military and is a sophisticated society.

Stephen Pollard’s Times’ article verges on being a diatribe. It is of a piece with normal Israeli practice to demonise critics as being anti-Israel. While Israel continues its Apartheid actions in the West Bank, there is unlikely to be a satisfactory long-term peaceful solution. Using ‘dumb’ bombs to destroy entire blocks because there is (it is believed) a Hamas operative within it is not consistent with International law. Writing tirades against those who draw attention to Israeli failings are unlikely to succeed either. It is in contrast to a rather prescient article of his in the New Statesman six years ago in which he notes that the violent putting down of protests will lose the country empathy.