Amnesty, October 7, and human-rights NGOs gone wild
Even by the usual standards of NGO methodological mutton dressed up as lamb, Amnesty International’s newly released report on October 7 is appalling, and what it “concludes” at this point in its sorry race to the ideological bottom is worth nothing. I should know: as ex-senior editor at Human Rights Watch, I’ve read and edited hundreds of these documents.
More than two years after the attacks, and a full year after it “concluded” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, Amnesty has for the first time found that the actions of “members of Palestinian armed groups” during and following the October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in Gaza constitute crimes against humanity.
This isn’t a case of bad editing or writing; it is the latest example of human rights NGOs Gone Wild: organizations hollowed by ideology, peddling dangerous, pseudo–human rights, with zero meaningful accountability.
A small taste of what you don’t want to waste your time reading in its “report”:
Two years late, no explanation. A report on the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is released more than two years after the fact—with no reason given. As reporting already shows, it was delayed to avoid generating sympathy for Israel.
Dehumanization through omission. “Murder,” “massacre,” “hostages,” and even “Israelis” do not appear before Amnesty pivots to Israel’s supposed “genocide” by paragraph three.
Burying the lede. Ah. Hamas committed crimes against humanity? Maybe mention before paragraph five?
Anodyne euphemisms. “The subsequent holding of individuals in captivity” (i.e., hostage-taking and kidnapping); “survivors of the attacks”; “Palestinian fighters.”
Classic Amnesty selective “context.” We are educated in paragraph two that: “The attacks of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent holding of individuals in captivity were part of a non-international armed conflict between Palestinian armed groups and Israel. They took place against the backdrop of Israel’s prolonged occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the widespread human rights violations perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians, including the imposition of a system of apartheid on Palestinians and the long-standing illegal blockade of Gaza since 2007.”
Amplifying the absurd. Amnesty gives space to Hamas’s claim that its forces were not involved in killing, abducting, or mistreating civilians. That’s before we’ve heard from anything close to a victim. “Hamas has claimed that its forces were not involved in the targeted killing, abduction or mistreatment of civilians during the 7 October 2023 attacks.”
Meaningless institutional validation. After citing “extensive video, testimonial and other evidence,” Amnesty concludes that while some civilians were killed by Israeli forces, “the vast majority” were killed by “Palestinian fighters.”
Amnesty’s arrogance is astounding; its naked partisanship breathtaking; its shoddy methodology a disgrace.
But there is a silver lining to Amnesty’s blatant lifting of even the pretense of being an NGO committed to regenuine human rights values: We too can stop treating it as one, strip it of its tax-exempt status, and hold its leadership accountable.
