Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: AI

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Monday, October 02, 2023

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Amnesty's latest anti-Israel report's scope and methodology proves its bias was intended from the outset (update)

Amnesty just released its latest anti-Israel report, "Automated Apartheid: How facial recognition fragments, segregates and controls Palestinians in the OPT."

The 82 page report was conceived from the start to be biased against Israel. This can be seen from just the introduction.

By Checkpoint 56 in H2, a towering barrier features two turnstiles, and at least 24 cameras on the outside. Palestinians rely on passage through the checkpoint to access most, if not all, of goods and services, work, education, family life, and healthcare. It is here where witnesses described coming face to face with a new facial recognition system, Red Wolf, in 2022.

Palestinians are the only racial group of residents in H2 required to use these checkpoints, and the system relies on databases consisting exclusively of Palestinian individuals’ data.

Palestinians are not a racial group. Here Amnesty is apparently again using a definition of "racial discrimination" based on the ICERD definition which explicitly says that its definition does not apply to treating citizens and non-citizens differently. Amnesty's use of the word "racial" here has only one purpose: to assume that Israel's racism as a basis for the report itself.

Similarly:

In Hebron City and East Jerusalem the rights of Palestinians are violated through a range of legal and military measures that help maintain Israel’s system of apartheid over Palestinians.

Amnesty lied about "apartheid" in its earlier reports, and those definitions have been thoroughly debunked. But since Amnesty is more interested in propaganda than accuracy, it now uses the term as if it was a fact and this report is meant to build on that assumption. As a result, any alternative explanations for its findings are discounted or ignored - everything must support the lie that Israel engages in "apartheid" against non-citizens, which is nonsensical, since by that definition every country in the world practices apartheid.

The constant surveillance Palestinians face means they not only live in a state of insecurity, but they are also at risk of arbitrary arrest, interrogation, and detention.

If Palestinians are being arrested or detained based on being identified by surveillance, then by definition the arrests are not arbitrary. Israel is only arresting those people it is looking for; the vast majority of Palestinians pass through the checkpoints with no problem. This is the opposite of arbitrary.

But "arbitrary arrest" sounds so much worse, so Amnesty lies.

Neda, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, spoke of the impact this oppressive technology has on her daily life: “I’m being watched the whole time…[it] gives me a really bad feeling everywhere in the street. Every time I see a camera, I feel anxious. Like you are always being treated as if you are a target.”

For better or worse, residents of every urban area on Earth have cameras pointing at them all the time. Police can request the video footage from private security cameras, too. There is no fundamental difference between what Neda is describing and what everyone in every city experiences.

This report establishes that facial recognition technologies are providing the Israeli authorities with powerful new tools for curbing freedom of movement – a pre-requisite for the realization of basic rights – adding further layers of technological sophistication to the system of apartheid that Israel is imposing on Palestinians in the OPT. This is achieved via:

• The establishment of compounding technological infrastructure to expand the reach of Israeli authorities’ control. As checkpoints govern the ability of Palestinians in H2––the area of Hebron under military rule by the Israeli Civil Administration––to travel outside their homes, Israel is able to contain Palestinians geographically, using domination by way of military force and surveillance tools such as Red Wolf and Blue Wolf to deter resistance.

Even if you call Israel's presence "occupation," the Geneva Conventions allows great latitude in allowing the occupier to maintain security of both civilians and soldiers. Checkpoints are not illegal. As we will see, the only people that the new technology stops are those who are already wanted.

Palestinians define attacking Jews as "resistance." Deterring resistance is not only legal but an obligation, to normal moral people.

• Surveillance as part of a coercive environment aimed at forcing Palestinians to leave areas of strategic interest to Israeli authorities, by making their ordinary lives unbearable.

Really? Cameras make their lives unbearable? Has a single Palestinian ever moved his family to avoid cameras? This is just another example of how Amnesty makes things up and knows that no one will look too closely at how their supposedly factual assertions are simple lies.

This report is based on field visits to Hebron and East Jerusalem, involving observations, interviews, and the collection of visual evidence, as well as on open-source intelligence and previous reporting. Between May and June 2022, Amnesty International met with Palestinian families, activists, students and experts from across Hebron and East Jerusalem, who were routinely exposed to daily surveillance. In doing so, Amnesty International researchers gathered testimonies and experiences related to the human rights harms associated with the deployment of invasive and wide-reaching remote biometric surveillance technologies, in particular facial recognition.

Given the sensitive nature of the research, risk of leaks, and risks posed to Amnesty researchers, a decision was made from the beginning of the research not to engage directly with Israeli officials.

Meaning, all of Amnesty's "research" involved looking at only one side of the issue. And this was a deliberate decision, not only not to include Israeli officials but not to include any Israelis who might contradict the premise of the report that Israeli is racist.

How can Amnesty claim to be objective when its decides, at the outset, to only look at sources biased in one direction?

Amnesty International issued a right of response letter to the state of Israel on 19 April 2023 but had not received a response at the date of publication.

Amnesty has been working on this report since 2021 - but gives Israel less than two weeks to respond to an 82 page report. One of those weeks includes Remembrance Day and Yom Haatzmaut. Yeah, that's real objective.

Amnesty International has found that facial recognition technology is used extensively by the Israeli authorities to support their continued domination and oppression of Palestinians in the OPT. With a record of discriminatory and inhuman acts that maintain a system of apartheid, the Israeli authorities are able to use facial recognition software – in particular at checkpoints – to consolidate existing practices of discriminatory policing and segregation, violating Palestinians’ basic rights.

Amnesty International is not convinced that the security justifications which Israel cites as the basis for its treatment of Palestinians – including restricting their freedom of movement – justify the severe restrictions that the Israeli authorities have imposed. While some of Israel’s policies may have been designed to promote legitimate security objectives, they have been implemented in a grossly disproportionate and discriminatory way which fails to comply with international law. Other policies have absolutely no reasonable basis in security and are clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate. This includes differential treatment in the occupied territories, supporting the settlement of Jewish Israelis in the OPT, the designation of closed military zones, and the imposition of certain restrictions on movement such as travel bans. Examined in the context of systematic discrimination and oppression, and in the light of the mass human rights violations these policies have entailed, it becomes clear that genuine security considerations, including in the context of the deployment of facial recognition, are not the driving force behind these measures.

There is no way for Amnesty to know any of this without mind-reading capabilities. These aren't conclusions - they are assumptions. Given that the number of terror attacks against Jews has increased dramatically during the time period that Amnesty researched and wrote this report, plus the rise of new terror infrastructure like Lion's Den, these two paragraphs are Amnesty's way of saying Jewish lives don't matter.

Amnesty's position is that any technology to save the lives of Jews and soldiers is disproportionate.

Their "Methodology" section shows more intentional bias by Amnesty:

To design the research project, Amnesty International established an advisory committee in early 2022 consisting of half a dozen researchers at the forefront of research on surveillance in the context of the OPT, with proven track records of scholarship and human rights advocacy in relation to the topic. They included academics, lawyers, campaigners and activists. The advisory committee was crucial in informing the research project, including but not limited to formulating the research questions, identifying potential witnesses and research partners, and addressing ethical and security-related concerns associated with the project.

So the advisory committee included only people who hate Israel. And no distinction was made between the supposed experts and "campaigners and activists." There is not even the pretense of objectivity.

Here is one perfect example of Amnesty's bias. The report relies heavily on testimony from Breaking the Silence, but ignores when their testimony proves that the facial recognition actually makes the lives of Palestinians at checkpoints easier. One BtS report quoted four times says:

You have this system called Red Wolf.

Okay, give more details.
A person arrives and goes through a security check. He gives me his ID. I put it into [the system]. If it goes green on the computer, he goes through a security check and moves on. If it goes yellow, I have to call... Yellow is unidentified, unknown, something like that. There’s this number you call, the division, the DCL (District Coordination and Liaison office, a regional unit of the Civil Administration), and they tell you what to do. And if it’s red, there’s the protocol. You lock down the whole turnstile [at the checkpoint], call to have him picked up because he’s wanted for arrest.

And they come to get him?
Yes.

Would that happen a lot?
No. It never happened. They (the Palestinians) are not idiots. In the end, there are openings that aren’t this checkpoint.

And usually, when there’s a yellow, what would actually happen?
It’s a computer bug. I never really had a yellow. For the most part, they’re all green, or they have no ID, and then you turn them around.

Can this system identify them even without putting in the ID [number]?
Yes. There’s something like ten cameras. Once they arrive and pass through inside, it essentially takes photos, identifies them, to help you as the soldier standing there. It catches the face before [they enter], and it displays the face for you on the computer. If it’s someone who’s been coming through there a lot, the computer already knows them. It takes photos of everyone who passes there essentially. And you, as a soldier, a commander, standing there, can match the face to the IDs until the system learns [to recognize] the face. It recognizes him, and then he comes, and he’s already lit green for me even before he showed me an ID, and so it makes the process shorter for him, in theory.

And then, after you see green?
He can go through the turnstile with no problem.

So the system allows Palestinians who live in Hebron to zip through checkpoints without having to show their ID each time.

Amnesty doesn't even consider that the systems could be used to ease Palestinians' lives, nor does it allow that the security gains and lives saved by these systems have any value at all.

Amnesty's scope for this report deliberately omits the high tech checkpoint at Qalandiya that speeds Palestinian workers through and saves them the hours that they used to spend there. It also uses facial recognition to help make things go much faster. There is no way that someone with any intellectual honesty can look at Qalandiya and conclude that the facial recognition is hurting them in any way.

But Amnesty chose not to include that in this report, because it would contradict the anti-Israel message that Amnesty intended this report to be all along. If report readers knew about Qalandiya, they might think that checkpoints in Hebron that use facial recognition also are better then the old system of checking IDs.

Similarly, Amnesty quotes an IDF report about the surveillance system in Hebron, but doesn't quote the part that explains why it is necessary: "The main challenge in Hebron is the friction between the Jewish residents and the Palestinians, who live right next to each other - so when a security incident breaks out, the force has to react within seconds. The new cameras which give us a clearer picture of what is happening in the field, and thus solve the timing problem."

Amnesty doesn't mention, or airily dismisses, the actual security reasons for surveillance. Which is the entire problem. There are alternative explanations for this technology that make far more sense than Amnesty's assertion that these systems are "clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate." How exactly that oppression and domination would help Israel in any way is not defined. In fact, such a deliberate mistreatment as Amnesty describes would make life worse for Israelis as well. But according to Amnesty, Jewish supremacists just love to harass Palestinians for no reason, and even spend millions of dollars to create high tech methods to make their lives miserable.

Those are Amnesty's "facts" before they wrote one word of this report.

The report was conceived, researched, scoped and written with assumptions of unmitigated Israeli evil If you never encountered Amnesty's bias beforehand, this report alone is enough to show that the entire organization is a joke.

Yet the New York Times wrote essentially a press release for this anti-Israel report, without reporting any bias at all.

Because people who share a bias cannot notice it in others.

UPDATE: NGO Monitor adds lots more.

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Amnesty's defense of its anti-Israel lies: "Trust us, bro. We have experts."

There was a remarkable Twitter exchange between a number of critics of the Amnesty "apartheid" report and Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty UK campaigns manager.

CAMERA created a video showing specific lies in Amnesty's video supporting the report.

If Amnesty had a good case, why would it need to manipulate viewers?

15 Lies in 15 Minutes: Amnesty International's 'Apartheid' Video":#Israel pic.twitter.com/PFMqfs5T4T
— CAMERAorg (@CAMERAorg) April 18, 2023

Benedict responded:

Please send this as ‘evidence’ to the chief prosecutor of the ICC..

David Litman of CAMERA:

Now that we have your attention, perhaps someone from Amnesty could finally address some of those blatant factual errors I pointed out directly to your colleague, which suggest your organization is knowingly lying or doesn't actually understand the law.

Kristyan Benedict

Benedict: "Sound like you’ve already made your mind up. Good luck with that."

Adam Levick (CAMERA-UK): "Why don't you just respond to the CAMERA video, Kristyan."

Benedict: "We've laid out our findings in a very detailed report and stand by it. We didn't just put it out without serious review from experts. You however, should make your case to the likes of the ICC chief prosecutor and the COI. Would be a better use of your time in all seriousness."

Eitan Fischberger: "Who were the experts?"

Benedict: "External experts on international law including those with specialist knowledge of apartheid in international law."

Fischberger: "No I'm sure, but who? A couple of names for reference would be most appreciated."

Benedict: "Afraid not. External (and internal) colleagues have many reasons to not be public about such work - one of them being the awful smear campaigns that sometimes occur. Not everyone wants that nastiness in their lives. Hopefully that’s understandable."

Fischberger: "I can certainly understand the need for privacy. Yet, I can't help but worry this creates a situation in which Amnesty can issue reports on highly contentious topics, and when confronted with counterarguments, defers to unanswerable experts whose objectivity can't be verified."

Benedict:"The reports are signed off internally after many layers of review - so if there are any alleged ‘errors’ that you think you’ve found, including regarding applicable international law, then send them in. Just stating something is an ‘error’ does not make it so though.....the general public email is contactus@amnesty.org.

"There are of course other ways to engage but we’d both have to assess it’s a good use of our time. I suspect we’re quite far apart, no?"

Fischberger: "Thank you for the tip and clarification. What other ways are you referring to? While it appears we are far apart on this issue, I don't see that as a reason not to engage in a respectful and cordial manner, as we are now."

Benedict: "That’s of course true. I mean quite simply talking in private meetings. A lot of our (and my) time is focused on partnerships with HR NGOs and advocacy with political contacts. There is a time & place for engaging other groups but clarity on why / objectives would be paramount."

Fischberger: Makes sense. For me, the objective here is to understand what, if any, transparency and accountability mechanisms Amnesty has put in place for itself. Since you probably can't answer for the main branch, how about on behalf of @AmnestyUK?"

Benedict: "I’ve answered that. The findings and methodology are public. We are not just claiming Israel commits the crime of apartheid, we are laying out our findings for others to review. It’s worth reading our report if you haven’t already or other related assets."

Fischberger "What I'm concerned about arent reviews, but errors. AI has enormous reach. It isn't enough for someone to simply tweet about a potential error because far fewer people will see that than AI's report. Wouldn't the best solution be to ask AI to amend the error in the report itself?"

Benedict: "If I were advising you (on presumably how to try to undermine the AI report?) and you were confident in your claims, I’d suggest you make your case to bodies like the COI, ICC CPs office, Special Rapps etc. Has that happened? Credible testing is important."

David Litman: "The question isn't what those other bodies said or did. It's about the inaccurate claims YOUR organization is spending so much effort promoting while refusing to accept responsibility for the inaccuracy of the claims. YOU can fix that. Not Ms. "Jewish lobby subjugates" Albanese."

Benedict: "Your claims might not be accurate. They may be more of the same defence of apartheid & other crimes we’re used to in this space. We also have to factor in if we think the group / person is credible / acts in good faith. We have limited time & must prioritise who we engage. Sorry!"

Fischberger: "How do you determine whether someone is acting in good faith? And honestly, how much should that matter? Isn't the pursuit of truth far more important?"

Benedict: It is but the meetings with those directly and indirectly seeking to defend Israel’s system of apartheid (not clear if your organisation is but that’s my perception) are mainly with states. It’s a matter of how we use our limited time."

Fischberger: "Again, how do you determine someone is acting in good faith?"

Benedict: Re good faith - i.e. not trying to defend war crimes and crimes against humanity. There is a space to engage those who do this but as said, it’s generally states and relevant non state actors."

Fischberger: "Is it possible that people defending Israel do it because they genuinely believe Amnesty's findings to be wrong, and not because they're in favor of war crimes or crimes against humanity? The way you phrased it implies that all who defend Israel automatically act in bad faith."

Benedict: "Nope. I’m talking about those who are defending war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not a state per se. Israel like all states is many things & not just it’s government & not just the crimes that government is committing. Focus on ending the crimes. That’s what we’re doing."

David Litman: "You keep talking about 'crimes' as if their existence is a fundamental truth beyond questioning. Yet, as I've pointed out, and as that legal review board pointed out, Amnesty's conclusions are often unsupported by the actual evidence. Allegations need proof, not blind faith.

Benedict: "Not wishing to be rude but if you wish to indulge in atrocity denial, go do it somewhere else. *Muted*"

I wrote my own response, not that I expect Benedict to answer, since he believes I also engage in "atrocity denial."

In 2015, Amnesty created a website -still online - called the Gaza Platform, that attempts to be a database of incidents and casualties in the 2014 Gaza war. I showed - with documentation - that dozens of the people killed that Amnesty called civilian were actually members of militant groups. I proved it in many ways. Amnesty dismissed me as not being "credible." The database still shows hundreds more civilian deaths than even the UN claims.

Newspapers would correct errors, no matter the source of the correction, because accuracy is objectively important. Even if CAMERA and NGO Monitor are biased, they are pointing out a pattern of errors. Yet Amnesty rarely if ever corrects its reports, far less than any major media. Shouldn't Amnesty's regard for accuracy be far more stringent than that of major media?

Your dismissal of such concerns as not being a good use of your time indicates that accuracy is not your primary concern in these reports. Reliance on unnamed experts that you have chosen using an unverifiable methodology does not in any way mitigate this.

The critics, myself included, rely on transparency with our criticism. That transparency is the antidote to bias. Just as you accuse us of bias - and we are - we accuse you of bias as well. However, there is not the equivalent transparency on your side - instead, you are falling back on the logical fallacy of an appeal to authority, and not even a named authority. "We had unnamed experts review it, trust us" is not the same as "here's where you are wrong."

Whether you intended to or not, this thread strengthens the idea that Amnesty - at least for the Palestinian issue - cares more about narrative than truth.

I'm obviously pulling my punches here. Benedict himself has previously shown his extreme anti-Israel bias. He once threatened violence against Richard Millett when he was respectfully asking questions from a speaker after an Amnesty event, demanding that the speaker not answer because Millett was a "war crimes denier" and then saying he would "smack" Millett in his "little bald head."

He's compared Israel to ISIS. He singled out British Jewish MPs for supporting bombing Gaza. he's accused Israel government officials of feeling "ethnic supremacy." And lots more.

There's a reason why Amnesty (and HRW) officials usually refuse to engage with their critics. When they do, their hypocrisy is seen by all.

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As soon as @Amnesty started their "Apartheid" campaign, they STOPPED mentioning Lebanese/Jordanian discrimination against Palestinians

In 2007, Amnesty International wrote a 5-page report describing the institutionalized and legal discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon.

It ended off with these recommendations for the Lebanese government:

To this end, the Lebanese authorities should:
 urgently repeal or revise all laws and policies that directly discriminate against Palestinian refugees;
 take immediate steps to improve conditions in the camps and gatherings;
 register all non-ID Palestinian refugees under Lebanese jurisdiction without delay;
 end the discrimination facing Palestinians in the labour market;
 ensure that adequate health care is available to all;
 ensure that all children have equal access to education.

That report, 16 years ago, was the last time that Amnesty dedicated a report to the plight of Palestinians in Lebanon.

Nothing has changed since then. The discriminatory laws are still in place, Palestinians still cannot own land, they still are banned from many jobs, they still have no access to Lebanese health care, babies born are not given citizenship.

By any definition, including Amnesty's own definition, this is apartheid against Palestinians in Lebanon. But Amnesty never calls it such, and it has not considered this issue worth a follow-up report since the first decade of the century.

Amnesty would briefly mention Arab discrimination against Palestinians in their annual reports on every country. From their annual report on 2014:

Thousands of Palestinian long-term refugees continued to live in camps and informal gatherings in Lebanon, often in deprived conditions. They faced discriminatory laws and regulations, for example denying them the right to inherit property, the right to work in around 20 professions, and other basic rights.

And for 2019:

Lebanon also continued to host tens of thousands of long-term Palestinian refugees, who remained subject to discriminatory laws excluding them from owning or inheriting property, accessing public education and health services, and working in at least 36 professions. At least 3,000 Palestinian refugees who do not hold official identity documents faced further restrictions, denying them the right to register births, marriages and deaths.

2020:

Over 470,000 Palestinian refugees were registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, including 29,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria. The 180,000 of them estimated to be still living in the country remained subject to discriminatory laws, excluding them from owning or inheriting property, accessing public education and health services and from working in at least 36 professions.

But when you look at the Lebanon entry of Amnesty's latest annual report, covering 2021, there is not a word about discrimination and mistreatment of Palestinians in Lebanon.

Nothing has changed. The overcrowded camps are still there, the discriminatory laws are still there. Amnesty's decision not to mention that which had been in every annual report until now must be deliberate.

Perhaps it was a mere clerical error, an oversight, a regrettable mistake?

Let's look at Amnesty's annual reports on Jordan concerning the non-citizen Palestinians who live there.

2019:

On 14 October, the Ministry of Labour raised from 11 to 39 the number of professions barred to non-Jordanian nationals seeking employment. Among them were long-term Palestinian refugees not holding Jordanian citizenship, most of whom were from the Gaza Strip; they continued to be denied other basic rights and services, too.

2020:

Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip continued to be excluded from basic rights and services as they do not have Jordanian citizenship.

But in the latest 2021 report, there is not a word about Jordanian discrimination against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are not citizens. And they are still suffering from the same discrimination they were the year and decades before.

Why would Amnesty excise any mention of Arab human rights abuses against Palestinians in its 2021 report when they were mentioned in previous reports, and their situation has not gotten any better?

Here's why.

Amnesty released its 2021 annual report in March, 2022. This was shortly after Amnesty issued its report falsely accusing Israel of "apartheid" against Palestinians.

As soon as Amnesty issued its anti-Israel report, in which it had invested so many hours and so much money, it removed any mention of Jordan and Lebanon treating their Palestinian residents far worse than Israel does!

This is unlikely to be a coincidence. Amnesty's libel against Israel would have been diluted by their mentioning how Arab nations officially discriminate against Palestinians who have lived within their borders for decades. They did not want people to point to their own reports showing that Arabs really are guilty of apartheid against Palestinians, with discriminatory laws aimed specifically at them. 2022 was the year that Amnesty dedicated to attacking Israel - even creating T-shirts and swag and encouraging "stunts" to get publicity for their crusade.

Amnesty is not soberly reporting on accusations of Israeli human rights abuses. It is enthusiastically promoting an anti-Israel campaign. Mentioning that their fellow Arabs treat Palestinians worse than "racist, Jewish supremacist" Israel would damage that message.

So they erased all human rights abuses against Palestinians that they couldn't blame on Israel.

Which proves that Amnesty is not the impartial arbiter of human rights it pretends to be. At least when it comes to the Middle East, it is an anti-Israel propaganda outlet. It happily throws Palestinians in Lebanon and Jordan under the bus. To them, demonizing Israel is a far more important mission than mere human rights.

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Disgusting @Amnesty parrots lie that IDF shot tear gas at a hospital

Amnesty International's response to Israel's raid at a terrorist nest in Jenin yesterday is yet more evidence of its anti-Israel and ultimately antisemitic bias.

Responding to the killing of at least nine Palestinians by Israeli forces during a military raid on Jenin refugee camp this morning, Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty International, said:

“In the space of just a few hours this morning, Israeli forces killed at least nine people and injured 20 more; blocked ambulances from accessing the wounded; and fired tear gas at a hospital, reportedly causing suffocation injuries to sick children.

The charge that Israel fired tear gas at a hospital came from PA health minister Mai Al-Kaila who absurdly claimed that the IDF "stormed" the hospital and "deliberately" fired tear gas to the children's ward.

Luther knows that she is lying, because he doesn't mention her charge about "storming" the hospital, which makes no sense.

The IDF denied the charge immediately:

Israel's army denied a Palestinian claim that soldiers deliberately fired tear gas at a hospital during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

"No one shot tear gas on purpose at a hospital," an army spokesman told AFP. "But the activity was not far away from the hospital and it is possible some tear gar entered through an open window."

Amnesty's statement was published ten hours after Israel's emphatic denial.

Which means that Amnesty chose to parrot the obvious lies of a Palestinian minister, watering it down a little because they knew her entire statement was propaganda. Then they chose to ignore Israel's denial as not being even worth considering.

To Amnesty, Palestinians are trustworthy and Jews are simply liars whose words aren't even worth considering.

And what really happened in the hospital? Middle East Monitor published video that they claimed shows the mothers and children choking:

There's no panic, no running, no choking, no one looking like their eyes hurt, and the women aren't even covering their own or their children's faces to protect from the tear gas.

The IDF explanation makes perfect sense - the mothers and nurses smelled the tear gas and are looking for a room that didn't have an open window, and hospital staff directs them where to go.

Middle East Monitor knows this, so they caption the video with what they want you to believe, not what you are actually seeing - a time honored Pallywood propaganda technique. People are conditioned to implicitly trust captions and then view the photo or video through the lens that the propagandists helpfully provide.

But even worse than repeating obvious lies and treating Israeli rebuttals as not even worth considering, from reading Amnesty's statement one wouldn't even know that there was a three hour battle going on. Amnesty makes it sound like the IDF went into Jenin to kill a bunch of civilians because of "impunity." No one reading Amnesty's statement would know that this is what nearly all of those killed were doing at the moment of their deaths:

The statement also doesn't even hint at the reason the Israeli forces must go into Jenin to begin with - because a wave of deadly attacks in Israel last year where Jenin was the source.

While Amnesty rushes to condemn Israel going after armed terrorists, Amnesty did not condemn a single one of those attacks on Israeli civilians. Here are their press releases during the time period between March and May 2022 when there were five multiple-casualty terror attacks in Israel:

This is beyond simple bias. This is the world's leading human rights organization actively choosing to support Islamic terrorism over the Jewish state.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Modern antisemitism: Amnesty's annual report criticizes Israel more than ANY OTHER COUNTRY

When the utopian vision of a one-state socialist "Palestine" crashes into Palestinian Islamism

Popular Saudi newspaper says it is time to stop supporting Palestinians

New @Amnesty report makes up yet another fake definition of apartheid - just for Israel

Black conservatives engaging in casual antisemitism while being clueless why Kanye is offensive

I demolished James Zogby's "Israel is Apartheid" arguments on Twitter so thoroughly, he blocked me

Columbia BDS professor a little unclear on what "academic freedom" means

Buffalo shooter's manifesto shows the cross-pollination between Right and Left antisemitism

Seven inconvenient and under-reported facts about the Munich Olympics massacre

Spanish Christian tourist on Temple Mount freaks out Palestinians as a "naked Jewish settler"

France moves to outlaw pro-terror Palestinian groups. They respond that calling for murdering Jews is a "human right."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The UN Palestinian "NGO Action News" ignores any reports that criticize Palestinian leaders

Every week, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People publishes a newsletter, NGO Action News, where they list out and summarize all of the NGO reports and articles about Palestinians they can find that were published that week. The newsletter is filled with references to reports from Amnesty, Al Haq, Gisha, B'Tselem and lots of other anti-Israel NGOs.

The UN committee routinely and reflexively links to every Amnesty article and report criticizing Israel. However, every once in a while Amnesty issues a rare report criticizing Palestinian leaders. Does the UN report mention those?

On November 2, Amnesty wrote an article about the Palestinian Authority and its torture policies. The NGO Action News that week didn't mention it.

In June of 2021 and again a year later, Amnesty demanded an investigation into the death of Palestinian Nizar Banat apparently at the hands of Palestinian police. NGO Action News ignored both of them.

On March 18, 2019, Amnesty issued a report on Hamas attacking protesters. That week's NGO Action News didn't mention that, either.

Apparently, supporting "Palestinian rights" doesn't include Palestinian human rights under their own leadership. When Palestinians are oppressed by their own leaders, the UN doesn't care.

Or to put it another way, the UN Committee doesn't care about Palestinian rights. It is wholly about attacking Israel.

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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. "Human rights defenders" want Jews to be killed.

Salah Hammouri, who was deported to France today, is a terrorist.

There is no doubt about that. He has admitted it.

While newspapers say that he denied having anything to do with a plot to assassinate Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi, and that he was even a member of the PFLP, he admitted to the plot in his plea bargain. Moreover, he essentially admitted to and justified the plot in this PFLP website, no longer online, from 2011, which also calls him a member of the group ("comrade.")

Moreover, this PFLP website listed him as one of their members, #8, who participated in a hunger strike only this past September (autotranslated):

But this would-be assassin is labeled a "human rights defender" by the UN, by the International Federation of Human Rights, and Amnesty International.

Which can only mean one of two things. Either these "human rights" organizations consider murdering Jewish Israelis to be a human right, or they don't believe that Jews in Israel are human to begin with.

Either way, calling Hammouri a "human rights defender" proves that the term "human rights" has lost all meaning, and indeed means the opposite of its original definition.

In this, they agree with the PFLP itself, which makes that equation between murdering Jews and "human rights' explicit, as one of their officials said ten years ago:

We reaffirm our commitment to our goals, principles, and inalienable Palestinian national rights. Some of which have been recognized and approved by international norms, principles, agreements, resolutions, international law and human rights. The first of these rights is the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation by all means and methods.

Every Palestinian understands "all means and methods" to include terrorism against civilians.

"Human rights organizations'" defense of Hammouri indicates that they agree.

(h/t GnasherJew)

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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Elder Comix: Eyes on the prize

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Amnesty, HRW, the UN or David Duke? You decide

This text is from white supremacist David Duke's 2003 book, "Jewish Supremacy."

This looks virtually the same as reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN over the past year.

Same evidence, same methodology, same reference to international conventions.

So is David Duke suddenly a human rights expert? Or does the fact that all of them will cherry pick facts that make Israel (and Jews) look like criminals, and ignore all counterevidence, indicate that all of them are really antisemites?

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/16 Links Pt2: Meir Soloveichik: The Prime Minister and the Minyan; A UN Seminar Teaches Antisemitism, Encourages Bias; Israeli company on the edge of finding diabetes cure

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Prime Minister and the Minyan

While Jabotinsky’s own appreciation of civic religion may have grown over time, there was no guarantee that the nascent Israeli right in 1948 would have been sympathetic to the Jewish state being a place that cherished traditional Jewish faith. It was Begin who, as prime minister three decades after the founding, first demanded kosher food when making state visits abroad; and it was Begin who, as prime minister, first insisted that Israel’s airline not fly on the Sabbath. He argued, as Yehuda Avner recounts in The Prime Ministers, that “one need not be pious to accept the cherished principle of Shabbat. One merely needs to be a proud Jew.” It was Begin, in other words, who understood the role religious tradition would play in the Israeli future.

This understanding has been vindicated. Much has been written on the various and very different views of the members of Israel’s newest government. But less focus has been given to the remarkable fact that this seems to be the first Israeli coalition with a majority made up of Orthodox Jews. This includes not only the members of the religious parties themselves but also those MKs from the Likud who are part of the Orthodox community. And this is an accurate representation of what the country has become. As Maayan Hoffman noted in an article titled “Why the Israeli Election Results Should Not Be Surprising,” the makeup of the future Knesset reflects plain sociology: “Around 80% of Israel’s population is either traditional, Religious Zionist or ultra-Orthodox, according to official reports.”

Begin was a singular figure in Israel’s history—one who seamlessly joined deep familiarity with, and knowledge of, Jewish tradition, a personal, natural faith in the God of Israel, and a Zionism that defended both Western democratic traditions and the Jewish right to the Land of Israel. But there is no question that Israeli society today reflects the fact that only Begin among the nation’s founders sensed what the future of Israel would be.

No one, under the new government, will be forced to eat gefilte fish. But all future successful political leaders will have to understand and address the central role that traditionally religious Israelis are now playing in the country’s polity. In the ministerial offices of Israel’s 37th government—and its 47th, and its 57th—there will be many more minha minyanim yet to come.

Time for an Israeli victory, end 100 year rejections against Israel - opinion

ALL OF the polls undertaken by the Israel Victory Project show growing support for the idea that peace will only become possible when the Palestinian leadership recognizes that it has lost its fight against Israel, and that Israel is here to stay.

This is reflected in a growing acceptance among politicians and even senior IDF officials that Israel has to return to winning wars and not be continually stuck in a cycle of violence with no way to escape the loss of life and bloodshed.

It is not a simple task to defeat Palestinian violent rejectionism as it has been allowed to fester for generations but as with all wars throughout history, once the will of the antagonist to continue fighting has been broken and that their war aims will not be reached are accepted, the war can finally end.

This is the strategic solution that the government must reach now.

It might be painful and difficult but it is the only one that will finally end the conflict for the good of both Israelis and Palestinians.

It will be good for Israelis because the country will finally see peace without the threat of endless military operations and can focus on potentially greater threats like those posed by a nuclear Iran. It will allow Israel to dictate the terms for peace that will ensure its permanent security needs.

For the Palestinians, it will free them of hate that unrelentingly permeates so much of their lives, whether in the media, the education system or in the mosques. It will free up the budget of violent rejectionism that incites and pays for mass murder which can then be freed up for social welfare, education, health and public services. This will mean a better future for Palestinian society which is being crushed by its own crucible of hate and rejectionism. It will ensure that Palestinians elect leaders who do not distract and deflect from allowing greater progress, development and democracy for their people by constantly blaming Israel for all of their ills. It is a win-win for all.

Just as importantly, the international community is starting to understand that wars are still simply won and lost, and diplomacy, unfortunately, isn’t enough when one party insists on playing a zero-sum game.

A UN Seminar Teaches Antisemitism, Encourages Bias

So, who does control the media and the “strong machine,” according to Marai, a featured panelist at the UN seminar?

That would be the “Center of Powers,” declared Marai, who confided to the audience it makes him “scared to say anything” because of unfair accusations of antisemitism the “Center” employs against people like him. The same Center also targets Palestinian journalists “even out of Palestine,” he added.

Marai’s cited evidence for the existence of this monolithic media-controlling entity is the case of several Deutsche Welle journalists who lost their jobs after CAMERA exposed their promotion of anti-Jewish terrorism and tropes, including their claims of Jewish control and “fabricating” the Holocaust.

Conveniently omitting the journalists’ own objectionable rhetoric, Marai suggested they lost their jobs over unproven allegations of antisemitism and that this, in turn, is evidence of a shadowy “Center of Powers” that controls the media by weaponizing antisemitism for its own nefarious purposes.

The moderator of the panel, Director of the UN Information Service Alessandra Vellucci, did not challenge any of Marai’s conspiratorial and bigoted rantings. Rather, she expressed her gratitude towards Marai for his remarks, thus imitating earlier silent acquiescence by other UN officials to such claims of “Jewish lobby” control during the July 2022 anti-Israel UN Commission of Inquiry.

One might forgive Marai for conspiratorial thinking regarding media control, given that he works for an outlet controlled by the repressive Qatari government. However, many inside the UN seem all too comfortable with suggestions that a manipulative Jewish cabal controls the levers of power.

Meet @UN_HRC's @FranceskAlbs, the "new favorite" rapporteur of the Syria regime and who believes Jews should be murdered, because Israelis don't have a right to self-defense against Palestinian terror. https://t.co/uDI26rrWeR
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 15, 2022

Amnesty's hypocrisy on antisemitism is off the charts

Yesterday, Amnesty-USA issued a press release:

In light of the recent surge in antisemitic rhetoric, messages and memes, Amnesty International USA reiterates its condemnation of antisemitism in the strongest possible terms and demands action to counter antisemitism by the US government, Twitter and other social media companies.

Antisemitism is hatred. It attacks the rights and well-being of Jews around the world and the very notion of universal human rights. The right to be free from discrimination is a fundamental principle of human rights law, and all governments are obliged to combat discrimination in all its forms.

Antisemitism is the most commonly reported anti-religious hate crime in the United States, which is a crisis we must work to end. We must hold accountable — in our personal interactions, in our workplaces, in our communities, and in our activism — those who commit, encourage or acquiesce in such abuse against Jewish people, whenever and wherever it is inflicted.

I could write a book about how antisemitic Amnesty International is. In fact, I did discuss a small subset of my criticisms in three chapters of my book. But there is a lot more.

For the purposes of this article, I will talk about one further proof that Amnesty does not care about antisemitism, even in the form that they pretend to condemn here.

Amnesty has never condemned antisemitism from media in the Arab world.

Arab newspapers and TV shows feature pure antisemitism and incitement against Jews all the time - from Holocaust denial to fake Talmud quotes to Christian deicide to saying Jews control the world.

Quotes from actual articles:

"Jews are the enemy of God"

"Jews are rats who desecrate Jerusalem"

"Jews are like the devil"

"Jews are spreading corruption, usury, the spreading of lies and myths"

I see these kinds of articles several times a week.

Every single antisemitic myth that has ever been uttered over history - from medieval Christian hate to "Elders of Zion" conspiracy theories to Nazi literature - is rife in Arabic media.

But that's not even the worst part.

Palestinian media feature lots of purely antisemitic cartoons.

Some are incitement to hate Jews.

Others are incitement to murder Jews.

Amnesty has never said a word. And Western media, taking its cue from organizations like Amnesty and HRW, keep silent - if human rights groups aren't concerned, it must not be an issue.

As bad as antisemitism is on Twitter, outside of people like Kanye West, most of the antisemitic posts are only seen by a very small number of people. But those in Arab media are seen by tens or hundreds of thousands.

Not to mention the anti-Jewish incitement is in Arab schools and textbooks as well.

Thousands of Jews have been killed because of this incitement in Palestinian society. And as much as Amnesty likes to pretend that they only hate "Zionists," their own media often says "Jews."

Amnesty, which pretends to care about incitement and antisemitism, has not mentioned these things once - even though this is far worse than nearly all of the antisemitism in American social media.

So when Amnesty pretends to suddenly care about antisemitism in rightwing social media, ask them where they have been for the past couple of decades when direct incitement to murder Jews has been a feature in Palestinian media?

Amnesty doesn''t say a word because they agree with the underlying message that Jews have no right to their own nation, and if they refuse to commit national suicide they must be expelled from the Middle East.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!