Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Amnesty

Showing posts with label Amnesty. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

B'Tselem and Amnesty's Gaza websites are aimed at fooling the ICC prosecutor

Over the past couple of days I have documented some clear errors and missing context in B'Tselem's new, supposedly exhaustive report on casualties Operation Protective Edge. I have other examples of B'Tselem's inaccuracy, for example claiming that four of the nine people killed in a July 19 airstrike were civilians, when the Abu Rish Brigades claimed all of them - including a 15 and 16 year old - as members:

Never have any NGOs spent as much time and effort to document a single war - a war whose casualties are far fewer than most wars - as Amnesty and B'Tselem are spending on Protective Edge, even two years afterwards. What are they trying to accomplish and why are they trying to claim that so many terrorists were civilian?

The answer perhaps may be seen in the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor Strategic Plan for 2016-2018.

The ICC now looks at NGOs as partners in determining whether war crimes were committed - and some NGOs are salivating at the idea of prosecuting Israel.

The Office of the Prosecutor (OPT) writes:

[T]here are also the first responders—international forces, human rights organisations, non-governmental organisations (“NGOs”), media, etc.—who deploy into areas where the OTP has not been able to be present (e.g. due to jurisdiction, required agreements, or security implications for staff or witnesses). While respecting each other’s mandate and independence, the Office has begun to discuss with the NGO community how first responders could support the Office in its work and what support could be expected from the Office.

In relation to investigations, the Office will continue to implement the present strategy. It will focus, in particular, on the following priority areas:
 Closing the time gap between events on the ground and the Office’s investigations by creating partnerships with first responders, creating a gateway for crime reporting and working with partners to preserve relevant information on the internet.
 Increasing its ability to collect different forms of evidence other than witness statements through continually enhancing its scientific and technology-related capabilities. Additionally, it will develop further partnerships to support this strategic need, so that in-house capacity is only developed where it is justified.
 Continuing to strengthen the Office’s analysis function through the further roll-out of the Factual Analytical Database, the upgrade of analytical software, the roll-out of the Gender Analysis, and through strengthening the use of analytical products in investigative decision-making for planning, case selection and case review.

[T]echnology is evolving so rapidly that it will be impossible for the Office to keep current if it does not combine investing in its own expertise with developing strategic partnerships for the purposes of outsourcing, when needed, and for understanding and shaping how future technology can assist it to execute its mandate. The Office has been working with the law enforcement community, NGOs and academic institutions to explore new possibilities to support the identification, collection and presentation of evidence through technology.

The ICC is overwhelmed and need help to determine what to prosecute. But the fatal mistake it is making is that it is appearing to assume that the NGOs it chooses to partner with are unbiased.

In these cases, nothing could be further from the truth. In respect to Israel, we have documented exhaustively how each of these NGOs are advocates against the State of Israel, not objective gatherers of data that can be trusted.

But the ICC OTP document indicates that there have been talks for a while between the ICC and NGOs regarding the "help" they can give. Amnesty and B'Tselem are putting together very professional websites where their ability to present data in new and attractive ways mask the fundamental problem, known to all computer science students: garbage in, garbage out.

The ICC prosecutor, who freely admits that she does not have adequate technical expertise, can easily be fooled into mistaking flash for accuracy. Just because the B'Tselem and Amnesty sites have lots of information does not mean that the information is accurate. Their methodologies range from flawed to outright dishonesty and flagrant malice. They are hiring people to gather statistics who are themselves biased, or basing their information on questionable sources. They do not use any known methodology for fact-finding that can eliminate bias. And their data shows that they are ignoring any facts that do not conform to their pre-existing biases.

In short, biased and anti-Israel NGOs are taking advantage of an overworked, under-teched ICC to "help" it come to the conclusions that they have already decided on before they started their Gaza projects: that Israel is guilty of war crimes. Both Amnesty and B'Tselem say this or broadly imply this in their literature.

Dead children are not evidence of war crimes. Without knowing the targets and what the commanders knew at the time of the strikes, one cannot come to that conclusion. That is what international law says. But the Amnesty and B'Tselem websites hide or mis-state relevant information that could exonerate Israel. They cynically parade an army of dead Palestinian children to overwhelm the person looking at the data while purposefully hiding evidence that shows that it is Hamas, not Israel, that is responsible for their deaths. These NGOs are representing themselves as honest fact-finders to the ICC at the same time that they are falsely telling the world that Israel is guilty.

They should not be trusted partners to an organization that is dedicated to impartiality.

This is a cynical attempt to twist international law into a weapon against Israel. And the ICC prosecutor does not seem to realize - indeed, she simply does not have the tools to understand - that her "partners" are biased as hell. They are respected, they are praised, and one has to dig to see that there is rot in the foundation of their beautiful castles.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

B'Tselem shows it is much more honest than Amnesty, but not quite honest enough

B'Tselem just released its own slick website to show detailed statistics behind every single death during Operation Protective Edge two years ago.

This mirrors Amnesty International's similar website which is filled with absolute lies, as I've documented exhaustively.

To its credit, and in contrast with Amnesty, B'Tselem actually made attempts to be accurate. There was serious research behind this initiative.

The research was still biased. For example, many or all of those who were killed in a beach cafe bombing were members of the Abu Rish Brigades of Fatah, but B'Tselem identifies them all as "did not participate in hostilities," which implies that they were civilian without B'Tselem saying so.

The bottom line is that B'Tselem identifies about one third of those killed as having participated in hostilities, with another 46 of those killed not having been determined if they were or not.

The Meir Amit Intelligence Center had identified (at last count) about 48% of those that they counted as being militants, but they had a lot more that had not been determined as of their last report.

The statistic I would like to see is the percentage of those killed who were either terrorists or who were killed during the targeting of legitimate military targets. That number would show how many were killed for no apparent reason which is really what the "human rights" NGOs are trying to imply was the case with the majority. But as we have seen, many of those killed were being used as human shields by Hamas or other groups.

B'Tselem's data should be enough to get a good idea of that number; unfortunately it isn't visible in database format so such a task would be arduous. (Anyone who wants to volunteer to work on that, please contact me!)

I looked at the death of a two-year old child, the first infant to be killed during the war:

Muhammad Khalaf 'Awad a-Nawasrah. 2 years old, resident of al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district. Killed on 09 Jul 2014, in al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed at home with his family.

And who was his uncle?

Salah 'Awad Hussein a-Nawasrah. 22 years old, resident of al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district. Killed on 09 Jul 2014, in al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Participated in hostilities, member of the military wing of Hamas. Additional information: Killed at home with his wife and his two nephews.

So a woman and two children were killed because they were effectively used as human shields by a Hamas terrorist. Their deaths are regrettable - but fully justified under the Geneva Conventions assuming that he was an important enough target. That is a judgment call based on what a reasonable military commander would choose based on the best information he or she has at the time.

Even if B'Tselem's statistics were 100% correct, and I don't think they are, I believe that a little digging would show that the vast majority of civilians killed in Gaza died because they were in proximity to terrorist targets - the victim of Hamas' policy of using the civilians of Gaza as human shields.

That is not a statistic that B'Tselem would want to publicize because their goal is to demonize Israel, not to show that it wages war against terrorists in a way that is compliant with international law.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

.@Amnesty changes Abu Jame story, but still blames Israel

Last year Amnesty International came out with a page on the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war (advertising their very inaccurate Gaza Platform) with its usual combination of lies and half-truths.

One of the charges they made was that Israel deliberately targeted family homes for no reason except to murder entire families. Here's what they wrote:

I pointed out that by the time that they wrote this report it was already well-known that in fact there was a Hamas military commander who was killed in that airstrike, something that Amnesty purposefully hid from its readers.

We know that Amnesty hid is because it was known that 26 people were killed in the strike, not 25.

Here was what B'Tselem wrote about the Abu Jame home in 2014:

I published photos of Sahmoud and pointed out that he had a huge funeral, indicating his importance to the terror group.

I wrote at the time that it is still reasonable to ask whether the 25 family members killed indicated a violation of the principle of proportionality in war, and that Israel was investigating it.

But this proved that Amnesty knowingly misrepresented the circumstances of the incident.

This year, Amnesty put out another report on the anniversary of the Gaza war, and once again trotted out the Abu Jame family as an example of Israeli war crimes. But this time it admitted that Sahmoud was killed too:

Although Israel has not released any information on the attack, its apparent target was Ahmad Sulaiman Sahmoud, a Hamas operative, who died in the strike. The families said he was not in the building at the time but may have been in the vicinity. If Ahmad Sulaiman Sahmoud was the intended target, the attack was disproportionate and a potential war crime. It should have been apparent that a large number of civilians were in the house, and the attack should have been cancelled or postponed.

So they changed their charge from "Israel obviously targeted civilians" to "Israel should have been more careful when targeting militants." Yet they still claim "war crime."

We don't know the circumstances of the targeting of the home. But what we do know is that Amnesty was wrong to assume in 2015 that Israel had no military target, and they are wrong to assume in 2016 that Sahmoud was the only reason that Israel targeted the home. After all, if the Abu Jame family lied to Amnesty about whether they were harboring a Hamas terrorist (whether voluntarily or not) they would also lie about whether there were any command centers or weapons caches hidden in their house, which would make it a valid military target if either Sahmoud was a high-enough level Hamas operative or if the targets were of sufficient value.

Amnesty declared Israel guilty while apparently hiding some exculpatory evidence. And now they are declaring Israel guilty even with that evidence. This only goes to prove that Amnesty knows that it wants to damn Israel and it creates and modifies the narrative to achieve that aim.

It is also telling that Amnesty chose to highlight the Abu Jame family again. If Israel had routinely attacked family homes in Gaza, as Amnesty charged last year and the year before, surely they could have found other houses without any terrorists being targeted?

Yet last year Amnesty tried to do exactly that on the anniversaries of many Israeli attacks, and for virtually all the cases I was able to find a legitimate target.

Israeli air strike hit Joudeh family in their garden. 4 children & mother killed. http://t.co/gcEFrcDfMc #50days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/f6FM4eG1Eo
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 24, 2015

Fact: Homeowner Essam is a fighter for the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades of Fatah. His nom de guerre is Abu Mustafa.

Israel bombed home in #AlShati without warning & killed 6, including 4-year-old: http://t.co/MhYwhZx2gG #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/Eefaf3xoAW
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 4, 2015

Fact: Two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in the same attack, including a family member.

#DeirAlBalah: family home bombed. 8 civilians killed. 2 children found on roof: http://t.co/A9ZPlxmS0E #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/SYiBtu9dRl
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 20, 2015

Fact: A family member was a Hamas militant, even though Amnesty investigated this themselves and couldn't figure that out.

Amnesty's lies were demolished by me last year about Israel's supposed indiscriminate bombing of houses - and therefore they are moving the goalposts without correcting the older reports and tweets that slander Israel. This new report even links back to the old Amnesty report that gives the slander of indiscriminate bombing, a report that has not been corrected despite the fact that Amnesty clearly is aware of the facts by now, as evidenced by their grudgingly adding the fact that terrorist Ahmad Sahmoud was killed at the Abu Jame home.

If you still need evidence that Amnesty is more interested in bashing Israel than in reporting the truth, you are simply not willing to listen.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Amnesty's new communications director wants to restore the caliphate, supports terrorists

Osama Saeed Bhutta has joined Amnesty International as communications director, after leaving Al Jazeera earlier this year.

Here are some of his qualifications to become a major official at a human rights NGO:

Bhutta supports the idea of a restored caliphate across the Muslim world, claiming that it would be completely compatible with human rights.

There is no point in comparing the political form a caliphate might take to those in centuries past. Institutions such as the British monarchy or the papacy have existed for centuries, but bear little resemblance today to what's gone before. A restored caliphate is entirely compatible with democratically accountable institutions.

But what about the issue of sharia? Opposing it is apparently also one of the western world's .... Terms such as "sharia" and "caliphate" have important meanings to Muslims quite different from the distorted connotations they often carry in the west. The aim of Islamic law, contrary to popular belief, is not punishment by death or amputation of body parts. It is to create a peaceful and just society, with Islamic scholars over centuries citing its core aims: the freedom to practise religion; protection of life; safeguarding intellect; maintaining lineage and individual rights. This could be the basis for an Islamic bill of rights.

So, does Osama Saeed support the idea that Jews and Christians pay a poll tax if they live in Muslim countries? After all, that is Sharia law, is it not>?

Does he support equal rights for gays? Does he think they should be hanged? Or somewhere in between?

Let's be clear. The much-lauded Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam signed in 1990 did not call for freedom of religion, equal rights for women, equal rights for gays, freedom to leave Islam, freedom of expression (it explicitly says there is no right to disparage Islamic prophets,) and so forth. It is fundamentally opposed to everything Amnesty pretends to stand for.

In another article, Saeed writes "Mr Blair has attacked the idea of the caliphate - the equivalent of criticising the Pope." Really? A Muslim 'umma with a billion people under a theocratic rule is similar to the Pope today?

Saeed also wrote this in 2006:

Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki was originally hounded in the US becuase two of the 9/11 bombers happened to pray at his mosque. Many of my Muslim readers will either know him personally or have heard his lectures. He preached nothing but peace, and I pray he will be able to do so again.

Alwaki, by 2006, had claimed that the FBI or Mossad was behind 9/11, and he told his followers to never cooperate with law enforcement in reporting Muslims who support terror attacks. And Alwaki was already known to have had far closer ties to the 9/11 hijackers than just having them as members of his mosque. Oh, and this person who "preached nothing but peace" also had expressed support for suicide bombers killing Jews.

So Amnesty is hiring someone who calls Hamas suicide bombings "martyrdom operations," who is almost certainly against equal rights for gays, who supports Muslim supremacism within a new caliphate run by sharia law, and who openly supported someone who was known to have undeniable terror ties.

Wouldn't it be nice if some reporter would actually ask Amnesty's new communications director very specifically if, when there is a contradiction between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Sharia law, which he would support?

(h/t Petra)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Amnesty's Twitter followers don't care about dead Jews

Here are the number of retweets for recent Amnesty International tweets from their @AmnestyOnline account:

-Ireland’s ban on abortion violates human rights – ground-breaking UN ruling - 174
-I fled war in Syria, was attacked in #Germany: Report on failure to tackle hate crime rise - 127
-GOOD NEWS! Torture survivor Yecenia Armenta now free in Mexico - ends 4 years of injustice - 113
-Bahrain shatters façade of reform with persecution of opposition leader @ariel_plotkin oped - 109
-UN: Shameful pandering to Saudi Arabia over children killed in Yemen conflict - 154
-Nowhere safe: Refugee women on the Greek islands live in constant fear - 60
-Malawi: Killing spree of people with albinism fuelled by ritual practices/police failures - 260
-Two Syrian refugees are first at risk of forced return to Turkey under #EUTurkeyDeal: Tell @imouzalas to STOP this! - 124
-Evidence counters UK claims that no British-made cluster munitions used in recent Yemen war - 219

It is very clear that AmnestyOnline can count over a hundred of its followers to pretty consistently retweet nearly every tweet of theirs, no matter how obscure the topic.

With one exception.

Amnesty released a fairly strong statement about the Tel Aviv bombing (although it also couldn't stop itself from warning against Israel engaging in "collective punishment." How many people retweeted that statement from this account since yesterday?

Israel/OPT: Tel Aviv attack displays total disdain for human life - 37 retweets

Amnesty International's Twitter followers apparently care far less about Jews being murdered than any other human rights issue on Earth.

This is not the first time that Amnesty's followers showed a marked indifference to dead Jews. Last November Amnesty tweeted a similar message against killing Israelis, and it received only 46 retweets. Yet a general anti-Israel tweet in the midst of the knife attacks weeks earlier received nearly triple that amount.

During the Gaza war, an Amnesty tweet against the US providing Israel with fuel gathered over 1500 retweets. The daily tweets that Amnesty did last summer on events that happened in Gaza a year earlier routinely gathered 100-200 retweets.

The pattern is consistent: Not only does Amnesty tweet far more against Israel than against people trying to kill Israelis, but its fans don't give a damn about dead Israelis the few times that Amnesty decides to pretend to be "even handed" and condemn the terrorists.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that most of Amnesty International's active online fans either don't care about dead Jews or that they feel that slaughtering Israeli civilians is justified and should not be condemned as much as, say, Bahrain persecuting an opposition leader.

(AmnestyUSA's fans does not show the same overt bias as its international Twitter account followers do, the AmnestyUSA tweet about the attacks garnered 148 retweets, which is about average for that account.)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Amnesty mildly scolds Hamas - and condemns Israel - in bus bombing press release

Amnesty International loves when there are Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians.

Because then it can issue statements against all such attacks and pretend that it is not biased against Israel.

Yet even when Amnesty issues a very mild rebuke of Hamas, it bends over backwards to minimize blame while it uses it as yet another excuse to bash Israel.

Here is most of the Amnesty press release about the recent Jerusalem bus bombing, divided up into the parts that are negative towards Hamas, neutral and negative towards Israel (I omitted some background information.)

Even though the title calls on Hamas to condemn the attack, most of the negative words it has are for Israel alone.

Anti-Hamas	Neutral	Anti-Israel
Hamas must condemn attacks on civilians following Jerusalem bus bombing
After the Hamas movement in Bethlehem claimed the person who detonated a bomb aboard a Jerusalem bus earlier this week as a member, Amnesty International reiterates that deliberate attacks on civilians can never be justified, and calls on Hamas to condemn all such attacks.
	On the evening of 18 April, 20 people were wounded when a Palestinian man detonated a bomb on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem….While it does not appear that Hamas’ leadership or its military wing in Gaza ordered the attack, the involvement of the Hamas movement, possibly including members of its military wing in Bethlehem or elsewhere, is a worrying development.
Hamas, including its political leadership in Gaza and elsewhere, must clearly condemn all attacks targeting civilians. Such attacks can never be justified and represent a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
	In the upsurge of violence since the beginning of October 2015, 29 Israelis and two US nationals have been killed in Palestinian stabbing, shooting, and car-ramming attacks on Israeli soldiers, police and civilians.1 The vast majority of these attacks, however, have been carried out by individuals not affiliated with any Palestinian armed group,
though Palestinian political factions and armed groups, including Hamas and its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades, have frequently praised the attacks.
		During the same period, at least 197 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and civilians,
	the majority of whom were reportedly either carrying out or perceived as intending to carry out attacks.
		While deliberate attacks against civilians are never justifiable, the Israeli authorities have an obligation to uphold international law at all times, including in their response to such attacks. Amnesty International has documented a series of unlawful killings of Palestinians – including attackers or alleged attackers who were not posing an imminent threat to life when they were shot – by Israeli forces since the beginning of October 2015. Some of these killings appear to have been extrajudicial executions. In addition, Israeli forces have increased measures that amount to collective punishment against Palestinians, such as demolishing the family homes of attackers, imposing arbitrary restrictions on movement, and carrying out mass arbitrary arrests. Collective punishment is prohibited under international law, including Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to Israel as the occupying power.

Note that Amnesty takes pains to say that Hamas in Gaza doesn't seem to have really been directly involved and cannot even say that Hamas had anything to do with the attack altogether - its only negative words for Hamas is the fact that it did not condemn the attack, not that it was involved in planning and executing it.

The bus attack was well planned and involved many people, and the bomber was an admitted member of Hamas. The Shin Bet says that Hamas was behind it. Yet Amnesty, which will run with any anti-Israel accusation with little proof, is careful to give Hamas the full benefit of the doubt as to whether it was involved in planning this attack.

Amnesty loves to point to press releases like this as proof that it is not biased, yet it proves the exact opposite.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Amnesty annual report implies Israel the 2nd worst violator of human rights in world (updated)

Amnesty International cemented its reputation for anti-Israel bias with its 2015/2016 annual report.

Based on the number of mentions of countries in the report, Israel appears to Amnesty to be the second worst violator of human rights, besides Syria.

Here's how selected countries add up:

The fact is that the world trusts Amnesty to give an accurate portrayal of the relative severity of human rights abuses. And because of years of this kind of obscene anti-Israel bias from Amnesty and others, many in the world really believe that Israel is nearly as bad as Syria, and worse than every other country, in the area of human rights.

It is not even worth the time to disprove it. Those who actually believe that the Jewish state is this bad are either seriously lacking in basic fact checking abilities or they are de facto antisemitic. Even if you believe every one of Amnesty's charges against Israel, to compare the scale of Israel's alleged crimes against those of other countries - people killed by the authorities, amount of land taken, number of arrests, journalists detained, name your metric - Israel would not be close to the top for any of them. If you do a true comparison of how nations protecting their citizens under continuous attack protect human rights, Israel would be the best.

But we cannot trust Amnesty to actually give us facts and figures. We cannot ever expect Amnesty to offer context. That is not their stock in trade. They prefer baseless accusations, exaggeration, belief in the most outrageous and allegations and no sense of context or proportionality when they write their anti-Israel screeds.

Amnesty can do this because it is guilty of the crime it most often hurls at others - impunity. No one goes after them and when they are shown to be liars, they don't even acknowledge their errors let alone correct them.

Amnesty is not about human rights. It is about confirming the existing biases that its researchers have and then shoehorning the data to fit those biases. Their Middle East researchers made up their minds that Israel is evil long ago - now they spend all of their time pretending to prove it by fudging the facts.

And all the proof you need is in the chart above.

UPDATE: Fixed Hamas issue and added North Korea.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Amnesty report praises antisemitic, pro-violence organization

Amnesty International has issued another one-sided anti-Israel report accusing the Jewish state of "arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions" by closing off and adding checkpoint to areas of Hebron where Arabs have been stabbing Jews.

Obviously, the mere murder and attempted murder of Jews is not enough of a reason to take any measures to protect them, since Amnesty does not seem to believe that Jews (especially Jews who choose to live in Judea and Aamaria) have any human rights.

Yes, even though there have been over 20 violent attacks resulting in injuries and at least four deaths in the area of Hebron since October (Amnesty only counts one,) Amnesty believes that it is "arbitrary punishment" to limit access to the specific areas where Jews are being attacked.

Amnesty claims that the closing of stores along Shuhada Street - where there had been several attacks on Jews - collectively punishes "tens of thousands" of Palestinians in Hebron. Yet Shuhada Street is only a tiny part of the Jewish part of Hebron, most of which is closed to all Jews. Is that collective punishment for Jews? Obviously not from Amnesty's point of view. Jews have no rights.

One part of the report praises an NGO called Youth Against Settlements:

Alongside the recent restrictions on movement in the centre of Hebron, human rights defenders – Palestinian, Israeli and international – have come under renewed pressure from Israeli forces and settlers. The area of the closed military zone extends to a house in Tel Rumeida owned by Issa Amro, a human rights defender and director of Youth Against Settlements, a Palestinian activist group committed to non-violence. The house functions as the group’s headquarters and an education centre, but is now only accessible to Issa Amro, as he is the legal owner.

Is Youth Against Settlements really committed to human rights and non-violence?

Here are photos from their Facebook page glorifying stone throwing and shooting projectiles:

Here the organization calls explicitly for its "non-violent youth" to attend a violent demonstration:

And here they reproduce a poster with fake Talmud quotes using a generic Jew (taken from a wedding photographer page) as the embodiment of evil.

This is pure antisemitism from an organization that Amnesty regards as "non-violent" and pro-human rights.

Amnesty actually timed this report to coincide with Youth Against Settlements' annual Open Shuhada Street campaign, showing that Amnesty is in a real sense partnering with an organization that supports violence and Jew-hatred.

Way to go, Amnesty!

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Amnesty "specialist" writes a love letter to a Hamas supporter

ABC Australia reports about Hamas supporting hunger striker Muhammed al-Qiq:

The Israel army told the ABC that Mr al-Qeeq was detained because he is accused of "involvement and activism" with the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas and that he poses a "danger to local security".

Mr al-Qeeq was arrested and jailed three times in his 20s and his wife admitted he was involved with Hamas as a university student, but she said he was not active now.

"I tell you no Mohammad is not a member of Hamas," she said.

"He is a Palestinian journalist. Since he got out of jail in 2009 until he got arrested in 2015 he didn't organise any activities."

The ABC has seen video that Israel said proves Mr Al Qeeq incited others to violence.

Speaking at a West Bank University in November he praised young Palestinian attackers who had recently killed Israelis and spoke glowingly of a famous Hamas commander and bomb maker Yahya Ayyash.

Amnesty International is among the international bodies that have voiced concern for Mr al-Qeeq.

"Amnesty International has called on the Israeli authorities to release Mr al-Qeeq unless they are going to charge him with an internationally recognised criminal offence and trial him according to international fair trial standards," said Jacob Burns, Amnesty International research and campaign assistant.

Mr al-Qeeq has also alleged he was tortured by the Israeli security services.

"He says he was tied in a stress position known as the banana to a chair for up to 15 hours a day," Mr Burns said.

"And that his Israel interrogators threatened him with sexual violence and told him he would not see his family again for a long time if he did not confess to the allegations against him."

Israeli security officials have told the ABC the allegations about torture are "totally baseless".

Now, Edith Garwood, who is the "country specialist" for Israel and the territories for Amnesty USA, has written - on Amnesty's official blog - what can only be described as a love letter to the terrorist supporter.

Muhammed -What were you thinking about when you accepted the reality of your own death?

What thoughts and images went through your mind when you realized you were willing to risk permanent physical damage or even death to gain your freedom?

Were you thinking about the softness of your babies’ cheeks? How they smelled so fresh and their skin felt so soft after bath time?

Did you think of all the moments with your children, your babies, that you would miss?

Your children’s first day of school? Sending them off with their little backpacks or maybe how they would proudly walk up the aisle to receive their high school diplomas?

Maybe you imagined yourself dancing with your daughter at her wedding as your body started to shut down and you began to vomit blood.

Did you picture your wife’s face just as it was when you asked her to marry you as you were unable to resist the intravenous drip being inserted in your arm against your wishes?

Or maybe, when she told you she was pregnant, as your internal organs began to shut down?

Perhaps you were thinking of how they tortured you, using stress positions and threats of sexual violence?

Were you scared when you went on hunger strike? Hopeful?

The italicized sections of the article reproduced here are indented, making them appear to be a quote from someone else, the conclusion of the article - not set off as a block quote - shows that Garwood herself is indeed the author of this love note:

So, I wonder, knowing all this information, understanding his options – or non-options – what was Muhammed thinking when he realized that he may very well be leaving his wife and two, young children, his mother, his friends and profession at the hands of death as a last, desperate act to fight the unjust situation and on the small chance he would win his release?

What was he thinking when he chose – freedom?

Garwood is a former ISM volunteer and had written plenty of absurd, one-sided anti-Israel polemics before Amnesty decided that she is the perfect fit for that organization.

Now she writes the same things with the imprimatur of a major human rights organization.

And Amnesty has no problem with officially believing and publishing, without any disclaimer, the claims of a terror supporter about being tortured.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

EoZTV: Amnesty can't fight antisemitism but can buy an ad for the Terror Clown

Last year, at Amnesty International's annual conference, the only resolution to be voted down was one calling to fight antisemitism.

Yet Amnesty had no problem spending an estimated $10,000 to buy an ad to support a Palestinian clown in administrative detention - a clown who happens to feature terrorists and support for ethnically cleansing Jews on his Facebook page.

This story is discussed in the latest edition of EoZTV, along with the rallies supporting the Terror Clown throughout Europe.

(There were some sound problems with my microphone, so a few of my words are lost. Not sure why.)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Compare how Amnesty reports on Russia vs. Israel

From Amnesty International:

“Some Russian air strikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. Such attacks may amount to war crimes,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

Compare that language with how Philip Luther described Israeli attacks on houses in a nearly parallel report issued last November:

“Israeli forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

“The report exposes a pattern of attacks on civilian homes by Israeli forces which have shown a shocking disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, who were given no warning and had no chance to flee.”

Amnesty uses much more graphic and loaded language to describe Israeli actions.

It gets worse. Amnesty's report about Russia says that they found zero evidence of any military targets among the sites hit. But it admits that Israel did have some military targets even according to their biased investigation:

In several of the cases documented in the report, possible military targets were identified by Amnesty International. However the devastation to civilian lives and property caused in all cases was clearly disproportionate to the military advantages gained by launching the attacks.

As I have proven repeatedly, Amnesty was wrong about many of the targets because I was able to document valid military targets in nearly every single case Amnesty mentioned. And Amnesty was wrong about international law ("disproportionate") in the report on Israel.

But with Russia, where Amnesty cannot find a single military target, Philip Luther's language is far less critical and more clinical.

The bias is obvious. As usual.

(h/t Ben)

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

World military leaders slam @Amnesty, praise IDF

From TheJC:

Israel fought “an exemplary campaign” during the Gaza conflict last year, an independent group of prominent military personnel and a former United Nations war crimes prosecutor has concluded.

A report by the High Level Military Group (HLMG), made up of 11 former military and intelligence leaders from five continents, said Israel operated “within the parameters of the Law of Armed Conflict” and had even “in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nations’ militaries,”

The group unanimously agreed that Israel's military response was reasonable.

“Israel’s efforts were entirely justified, appropriately conceived and lawfully carried out, and necessary in the defence of that country’s national security.”

The study was compiled this summer during six fact-finding and research trips.

The former officers, who held important positions in the US, UK, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Indian, Australian and Colombian defence forces, said they had enjoyed a level of access to military information which was “undoubtedly in excess of what our own countries would afford in similar circumstances.”

The actual report includes some details that, as far as I know, were not previously made public.

This section shows the amount of care the IDF uses before choosing to bomb a target:

186. A comprehensive protocol exists in the IDF to assert LOAC compliance during active hostilities, no matter how complex the battlefield. This was clearly evidenced during our fact-finding. In particular the HLMG was able to consider in detail IDF targeting practices and those as related to operating around sensitive sites, two of the most controversial aspects of Operation Protective Edge.

187. Where the IDF prepares pre-planned targets for attack against military objectives, it follows a multi-stage process for approval in order to ensure LOAC compliance. The procedure consists of the collection of intelligence about the potential target in order to ascertain that it constitutes a valid military objective and that the conditions for proportionality are met, as well as to assess any civilians, infrastructure or sensitive sites that may be affected by the attack. Commanders then determine objectives in regard to the target on the basis of this information. Here conditions can include the extent of destruction warranted, the necessity of enemy presence and similar considerations. Separately, operational planners may also advise on options for a specific attack, geared towards the further minimisation of collateral damage for example. Officers then examine all parameters and make a professional assessment of the target. This includes a binding assessment by a legal adviser about the legality of the attack and any necessary stipulations. Commanders may add additional conditions beyond legal considerations; and the input provided into the decision by the various different organisations, such as intelligence or operational planning, is updated and re-evaluated on a timely basis in advance of any attack. A senior commander will ultimately review the information before an attack and approve it, if necessary subject to certain conditions; suspend action pending further input regarding parameters that are insufficiently clear; or decide not to attack the target at that time.

188. The process of ensuring LOAC compliance of IDF attacks is in most cases aided by what the IDF refers to as a Target Card, a standardised document which centralises all the above information into one place so that the commander may make an informed decision. The Target Card contains relevant intelligence, including imagery, an assessment of the military value of the target, options regarding operational plans as well as a binding legal opinion regarding the intended attack’s compliance with LOAC.

189. Some of the members of the HLMG expressed explicit concerns that these procedures are excessive, and that they are not necessary, particularly when the IDF is educated in the application of the LOAC throughout their training. They expressed concern in particular that these elaborate procedures may establish an unwarranted precedent that yields significant advantage to an adversary that intentionally violates LOAC to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic advantage.

190. Where the acute realities and necessities of combat prevent real-time legal input and do not allow for such a deliberative targeting process, for example during intense air and ground combat operations or other specific situations where targets are highly time sensitive, commanders are instructed to be diligently reliant on their training, specific relevant directives and other relevant actors to ensure their compliance with all aspects of LOAC. In relation to so-called sensitive sites - that is, objects that are considered to have special protection from attack under LOAC or warrant special consideration on account of policy decisions, such as for example, hospitals, schools, religious sites, large food factories, power stations and UN facilities - detailed regulations exist in the IDF to ensure their appropriate safeguarding. Notice of the location of sensitive sites is distributed to all levels of command, and updated on a real-time basis by a specific officer tasked with ensuring the real-time data is up to date. This data is widely accessible, including to relevant commanders in the field. There are limited circumstances in which sensitive sites may be damaged, either on account of an attack in their proximity, or directly in circumstances where they are legitimate military targets on account of their use for military purposes thus invalidating their protected status. These instances are governed by detailed IDF regulations that mandate precautionary measures and require attacks to be granted specific approval by a high ranking officer. Depending on the type of target and attack, this approval can go all the way to the Chief of Staff and, in certain extremely sensitive cases, to the Minister of Defence and even the Prime Minister.

Here's a copy of a Target Card (probably translated from Hebrew):

You will never learn this from reading reports from the UN or Amnesty or HRW. They write their reports with the conclusion that Israel acted recklessly as the initial premise and all evidence is chosen to support that premise.

In fact, the HLMG points out that the "human rights" NGOs have zero military expertise, which is a necessity in deciding what is legal or not in warfare - and that these groups misstatements of international law actually have severe ramifications for the free world:

Without seeking to deny the necessity or discourage in any way the practice of appropriate formal and informal checks and balances on warfare in the international system, we further note that in reviewing commentary from the United Nations Human Rights Council, a number of NGOs such as Amnesty International, and sections of the media commentary on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, there are stark, unwarranted condemnations of the IDF’s conduct that do not accord with our own examination. We believe that where ideological motivation can be discounted, the principal reason for this disparity is the absence of the appropriate military and legal expertise and judgement in much of this commentary. Our concern with this matter stems primarily from an appreciation that the misapplication of outcome-based assessments made on the basis of incomplete information and incorrect interpretation of the laws and norms governing warfare pose a concern to all democratic nations.

Beyond that, the HLMG says (and provides documentation for) this:

It is further our view that in the overall conduct of its campaign, the IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict, but often exceeded them, both on the battlefield and in the humanitarian relief efforts that accompanied its operation. In many cases where the fighting was concerned, this came at significant tactical cost to the IDF. It fought under restrictive Rules of Engagement and it is obvious that instances existed throughout the conflict where the IDF did not attack lawful military objectives on account of a deliberate policy of restraint. The IDF also used a number of highly innovative tactics over and above the necessities of the precautions required by the Law of Armed Conflict. It further used its formidable intelligence capability in an effort to contain its action as closely as possible to Hamas’s assets and protect the civilian population amid which these were purposely and unlawfully embedded. Intelligence is not infallible however, nor is it possible to preclude completely preclude civilian casualties through precautions enacted in compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict.

Critics will point out that this study was facilitated by the Friends of Israel Initiative and the director of that group - Rafael L. Bardají - is also one of the members of the HLMG, with the qualifications of being a former National Security Adviser in Spain and many other impressive achievements. But the other members of the group cannot be said to be biased; all have formidable experience in the military and in national defense for their respective countries. The report itself is detailed and does not have a whiff of bias in its presentation. But since Israel's critics have little to stand on, they will dismiss this because it is sponsored by a Zionist group, while pretending that Amnesty and HRW aren't biased.

I am unaware of anyone with significant military leadership experience who has criticized Israel's conduct in Gaza. (And, no, I don't include John Kerry in that category.)

Leader of the antisemitic BDS "inspectors" in Germany last week is an @Amnesty official (UPDATE)

JPost and JNS reported last Saturday:

A group of anti-Israel activists in the northern German city of Bremen on Saturday visited stores to ensure they marked their products as originating from Israeli settlements.

The Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment (BDS) group stated in a press release: “With an ‘inspection tour’ on November 28 we want to examine which businesses are selling ‘products from Israel’ and to call upon them to comply with the EU labeling obligation.”

The activists, dressed in white overalls, visited downtown shops such as fruit stands and department stores in the German city of Bremen to enforce the rule. One spokesperson for the BDS group, Claus Walischewski, said the inspectors would guess which products were actually imported from beyond Israel’s 1967 lines because it is generally difficult to recognize products imported from Israel.

According to TAZ, the BDS group marked products on the shelves with notes that read, “Caution: The product could come from an illegal Israeli settlement.”

The photos show that the BDSers dressed as if they were health inspectors, trying to keep customers away from dangerous, contaminated Israeli products that might infect consumers with Jew-cooties.

The Liza's Welt blog notes that the leader of this action, which is arguably antisemitic, was Claus Walischewski.

Walischewski is the district spokesman for Amnesty International in Bremen.

Just more proof that Amnesty has long ago ceased being concerned with human rights and now is obsessed with demonizing Israel.

(h/t Vandoren)

UPDATE:
A complaint has been filed against against Walischewski. "The inspection of retail stores and the products therein is the sole responsibility of public authorities. The suspect, Claus Walischewski, and his accomplices (including, it is presumed, his wife, Doris Flack) are therefore charged with exercising a public office without authorisation and performing actions reserved for public officials by labelling goods that they considered to have originated in Israeli settlements."
(h/t Rab iBurns)