Antisemites International

Embed from Getty Images

The words Amnesty International contain every single letter of the word “Antisemite.”

Coincidence? Sure.  But, as silly as that statement would be if it were actually used to advance a substantive argument, it pales next to the utter imbecility and irresponsibility of the Amnesty International report that concludes that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Any objective analysis of the Amnesty International report must conclude that, motivated by hostility and prejudice against the Jewish people and the Jewish State, it judges Israel and Jews by different standards than those used in measuring the activities of others, and presumes guilt. That is the very definition of antisemitism.

In order to reach its insupportable conclusion as to genocide, it must redefine the  defamatory term in a futile attempt to make it relevant, as applied to Israel. And even after coming up with its manufactured (and incorrect) definition, it still must adopt tortured and conclusory arguments, as well as flawed analysis, in order to arrive at its predetermined judgment.

By the standards of Antisemites International, every urban war that has ever been fought in which there were civilian casualties involved genocide. By the standards of Antisemites International, Israel, uniquely among the nations, is not entitled to defend itself against past, present, or future attacks. By the standards of Antisemites International, attempts by Israel to protect civilian populations are themselves genocidal activities. By the standards of Antisemites International, even attacks upon enemy combatants are genocidal, if conducted by the Israel Defense Forces.

Am I overstating the case? Just examine their own “research,” which concludes that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the “occupied” Gaza Strip. Israel has not occupied the Gaza Strip since 2005, but why let inconvenient facts get in the way of a preferred narrative? In the view of ASI, Israel “launched a military offensive in the wake of deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 that unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.”

Or, as someone less prejudiced might say, Israel responded to being attacked by waging war against its attackers. That is how one might describe the actions of non-Jews in similar circumstances. But this is Israel. In the words of the report, “Israel carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”

But wait. Wasn’t Israel attacked? Wasn’t it entitled to fight back, especially in the face of repeated assertions that similar attacks could be expected in the future? “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.”

Aha! One can be genocidal even while waging war. And how does ASI know that Israel is being genocidal while waging its war? Because . . . it is Israel. Israel is presumptively evil.

“Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas . . . The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

One supposes that is true, if Israel were indeed committing genocide. But the numbers and the facts don’t support that claim. There has been no genocide. No matter, says Antisemites International. One must consider the pre-existing context. “International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient.”

What is the evidence that Israel intends to destroy the group? Well, Israel’s “brutal military offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children. Are those numbers derived from Hamas sources? Well, yes. Are they reliable? Well, no. Are there a significant number of terrorist combatants included among the casualties? Possibly. So what? In the view of Antisemites International, the death of any Palestinian in Gaza at the hands of Jews is apparently an act of genocide. And if the proportion of non-combatant deaths is the lowest in any modern case of urban warfare, well, that also doesn’t matter, because “looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion.”

Oh.

How does one reach that “reasonable” conclusion? “To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analyzed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory.”

But what if any objective observer would conclude that there is no apartheid, certainly not in Gaza, where Hamas has ruled since 2005? No blockade on food and humanitarian supplies? No military (or any) occupation from 2005-2023? “Whom are you going to believe?” say Antisemites International. Our analysis of what we take to be “dehumanizing statements,” or the facts? Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International says that it examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid.

The organization concluded these claims are not credible.

There you have it. What more could you want? Antisemites International chose not to believe the Jews. It chose to believe Hamas. And as to the attack by Hamas, and its ongoing commission of war crimes by embedding in civilian populations and hijacking the tons of aid provided by the Israelis? “On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report.”

Oh.  “A forthcoming Amnesty International report.” As if the actions by the Israeli armed forces in self-defense should be considered in isolation from the events that precipitated them. Dissociating the attack from the response, the cause from the effect, the stimulus from the reaction must be seen as a willful act of moral obtuseness. Amnesty International can not be that stupid.

[This just in: Amnesty International has released a report condemning the racist and genocidal activities of the United States against the Japanese on Guadalcanal, at Midway, and over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A forthcoming report will discuss Pearl Harbor.]

As to Israeli efforts to remove civilians from harm’s way? Well, “the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass ‘evacuation’ orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population” is yet another example of genocidal activity.  Sometimes you just can’t win. What previous perpetrator of genocide has sought to move its targets out of harm’s way to minimize or avoid casualties?

The Israelis have done more to safeguard the lives of civilians than any army in history. Antisemites International perversely distorts every humanitarian action into yet another international crime. The thousands of truckloads of humanitarian aid are effectively disregarded. The closing of the Egyptian border is barely mentioned; after all, the Egyptians are not Jewish. The destruction of homes and hospitals are described without reference to the tunnels and rocket launchers that Hamas placed in and alongside the homes, and the terrorist operations in, under, and alongside the hospitals.

Insufficient evidence of bias, you say? See this wholly gratuitous sentence: The war has left many Gaza residents “deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba.” Even if it had any relevance to the report, which it does not, this canard would be a breathtakingly inaccurate statement. And, of course, the Jews have no traumatic memories of anything that happened to their ancestors in the 1930s and 1940s; what could they possibly know of genocide?

The Israelis are actually faulted in the report for not permitting the Arabs of Gaza to relocate inside Israel, Judea, and Samaria. The Allied forces could have significantly reduced German casualties if they had just transported the civilian population to Manchester. Instead, they fire-bombed Dresden.  

There is one bright spot, but, unfortunately, it just throws the glaring inadequacy and mendacity of the report into bolder relief. The Amnesty International branch in Israel, no right wing fanatics they, disavowed the report, saying that it “does not accept the claim that genocide has been proven to be taking place in the Gaza Strip and does not accept the operative findings of the report.” But what do they know?  They are probably blinded by the fact that they are actually on the ground in proximity to the war and privy to its reality. And . . . they are Jews.

“Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account.” I guess that we can take some comfort in this gesture; perhaps the folks who actually attempted to commit genocide might also be subject to the opprobrium of civilized society? Can’t wait for that report. If and when it comes.

Bottom line: the Amnesty International report is antisemitic trash, pure drivel. It is a hateful piece of putrid propaganda. No one is going to find proof of genocide because, unlike Hamas, Hezbollah, and their puppet masters in Iran, the Israelis have no genocidal intent and have not engaged in genocidal activities. Israel is engaged in a war it did not start and is conducting responsibly. The evacuation of civilians from Rafah, undertaken at a significant military risk of endangering Israel’s own forces, is the ultimate proof that Israel is not engaging in genocide. And yet the antisemites see the evacuation itself as proof of genocide.

There is also the inconvenient and unfortunate fact that nothing Israel has done conforms to the traditional definition of genocide? Easy. Amnesty International rejects the traditional definition. “Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict.”

Translation: under any accepted definition of genocide, Israel is not guilty.  Therefore, we must craft a new definition that begins and ends with the conclusion that Israel is guilty. What others may call a defensive war is, as applied to Israel, genocide. What others may call humanitarian activity is, as applied to Israel, genocide. Caravans of food and medicine? Genocide. Relocation of civilians away from danger? Genocide. After all, one must consider the context.

In this report, Amnesty International provides material support to a terrorist organization. It and its supporters should be ashamed.