Extreme Bias in Amnesty Campaign

Amnesty International are currently engaged in a campaign to ’Ban Settlement Goods’ as a means of stopping what they describe as ‘50 years of oppression’ of the Palestinians by Israel.

But their campaign features extreme bias and significant errors.

In a recent campaign letter, seeking to raise money for their support of the Palestinians, Amnesty International focuses on the ‘separation barrier’ between Israel and the so-called West Bank. They claim that:

’The wall is designed to inflict misery on an entire population.’

That is a very serious claim, and they make statements that seem to support it.

But they make no mention of the extraordinary number of suicide attacks that Israel suffered before starting to build the barrier, nor the number of Israelis who were murdered.

Suicide attacks in Israel 2000 to 2007

When those figures are seen – 305 dead as a result of 89 attacks over 2 years – it becomes obvious why the Israelis decided to build the barrier. Which country would allow its enemies to continue to attack it in this way?

The figures also reveal a very significant improvement in the situation as a result of building the barrier.

But Amnesty International make no mention of the severity of the security task that faces the Israelis. They make no mention of the horror of the suicide-bombing tactic, where someone who looks to be an ordinary civilian can walk into a crowd, or travel on a train or bus, and then blow themselves up in a place that causes the maximum number of casualties.

Amnesty International do claim that the barrier ‘looms over the lives of everyone.’ Yet that is a physical nonsense, there are many communities in the West Bank from which there is no sight of the barrier.

Conveniently, whilst listing accusations of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and degrading strip searches by the Israelis, Amnesty International make no mention of the violent rioting by Palestinians. Nor do they mention the ongoing terror attacks, such as the drive-by shooting of a rabbi on 9^th January 2018 or the knife attack that killed another rabbi just 4 days ago.

Amnesty International make no mention of the fact that the school curriculum being used with Palestinian children is based on three sinister fundamentals:

• de-legitimization of the State of Israel,
• demonization of the Israelis and
• indoctrination to violent struggle.

Whilst the people who call themselves ‘Palestinians’ are clearly enduring significant difficulties, this Amnesty International campaign is a shocking distortion of both the real situation and the motives of the Israelis.

Amnesty International should be deeply ashamed of this campaign.