Amnesty International’s Dec. 4 report accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip is being criticized for being biased and “redefining genocide.”
“Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza,” Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement announcing the release of the report. “These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) responded in a Dec. 5 statement lambasting the report for distorting the facts on the ground and emboldening “terrorist organizations like Hamas to continue their tactics of exploiting civilians and violating international law … Amnesty’s report parrots countless false claims originating from Hamas and Hamas-controlled sources in Gaza that consider the Jewish state’s existence an abomination,” the AJC statement said. “Lacking access on the ground, the organization disregards the voluminous evidence published by the IDF and others that Hamas has deliberately embedded its operations inside, next to, and underneath nominally civilian areas in Gaza like residential buildings, schools, mosques, and hospitals, and cities, instead determining that Israeli forces were engaged in a widespread campaign of wanton and deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians as such.”
The AJC proceeded to accuse Amnesty of distorting “the definition of the constituent acts of genocide and the legal standard for establishing genocidal intent to avoid this and other inconvenient facts, manufacturing a vague ‘holistic approach’ to making genocide determinations and reaching its damning conclusion without ever establishing that Israeli forces had any policy to deliberately harm Palestinians as such, much less to destroy the group.”
Amnesty’s track record on Israel, the statement claimed, “reveals a troubling pattern of distortion and bias. In 2022, the organization accused Israel of apartheid in a report riddled with historical inaccuracies and antisemitic tropes, even suggesting that Israel’s very creation in 1948 marked the origin of such a system … Amnesty leaders have openly questioned Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and do not recognize Hamas as a terrorist group. Today’s report further undermines Amnesty’s credibility — compounding concerns previously raised following Amnesty’s misguided criticism of Ukraine’s military as it defended itself against Russian aggression and its willingness to align itself with individuals who advocate violence in other contexts.”
Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, posted a lengthy thread to X contending that Amnesty’s definition of “genocide” is “a willful misrepresentation of international law … Amnesty says a determination of genocide must be made ‘holistically,’ and that ‘the context in which Israel’s military campaign took place must be part of this holistic examination.’ Ok, @amnesty, you mean the Oct 7 massacre right? That’s the relevant context, right? Right? Right? NO,” Goldfeder wrote. He later explained that “under U.N. jurisprudence, incitement to genocide cannot be ‘a mere vague or indirect suggestion’ and to pretend that Israeli officials are calling for a genocide by cribbing sentences, ignoring facts, and selectively including outlying (and widely condemned) comments by people who do not have decision-making authority, that are clearly against official policy and bear no resemblance to what is actually factually happening on the ground- is nothing short of ludicrous.”
Goldfeder argued that “the United States did not commit genocide when it destroyed ISIS, even though President Trump once suggested we should use a nuclear bomb against their strongholds” and the Allied powers did not commit genocide against the Germans in World War II “even though Winston Churchill once admitted that ‘we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us.’ … Those statements did not turn those wars into genocide because even poorly made comments from people in power made in the heat of the moment (and at least those comments were real!) do not change the fact that those were clearly not the actual positions of the relevant parties,” Goldfeder wrote.
“Amnesty International’s report does not just distort facts; it weaponizes the language of international law in a way that undermines its credibility. In doing so, it cheapens the real horrors of genocide and places the fundamental right of self-defense in jeopardy” – Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder
He concluded his thread by stating that “Amnesty International’s report does not just distort facts; it weaponizes the language of international law in a way that undermines its credibility. In doing so, it cheapens the real horrors of genocide and places the fundamental right of self-defense in jeopardy. Today, it is Israel, but if @amnesty’s ‘definition’ of genocide was to be accepted then in the future every democracy that wages war to defend itself against terrorism- or even a more conventional enemy- will face the specter of being labeled genocidal.”
This is not just a failure of factual accuracy; it is a willful misrepresentation of international law.
— Mark Goldfeder (@MarkGoldfeder) December 5, 2024
Amnesty says a determination of genocide must be made ‘holistically,” and that “the context in which Israel’s military campaign took place must be part of this holistic examination.”Ok, @amnesty, you mean the Oct 7 massacre right? That’s the relevant context, right? Right?…
— Mark Goldfeder (@MarkGoldfeder) December 5, 2024
Again, under UN jurisprudence, incitement to genocide cannot be “a mere vague or indirect suggestion” and to pretend that Israeli officials are calling for a genocide by cribbing sentences, ignoring facts, and selectively including outlying (and widely condemned) comments by…
— Mark Goldfeder (@MarkGoldfeder) December 5, 2024
Just for comparison’s sake, the United States did not commit genocide when it destroyed ISIS, even though President Trump once suggested we should use a nuclear bomb against their strongholds.
— Mark Goldfeder (@MarkGoldfeder) December 5, 2024
Nor did the Allies commit genocide against the Germans when they bombed their cities in WWII – even though Winston Churchill once admitted that “we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us.”
— Mark Goldfeder (@MarkGoldfeder) December 5, 2024
Amnesty International’s report does not just distort facts; it weaponizes the language of international law in a way that undermines its credibility. In doing so, it cheapens the real horrors of genocide and places the fundamental right of self-defense in jeopardy.
— Mark Goldfeder (@MarkGoldfeder) December 5, 2024
International human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky, who heads the International Legal Forum, posted on X that “The key element of the crime of genocide, as defined under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), is the need to possess relevant ‘intent.’ [emphasis in original] Whatever criticism one may have of Israeli policies or IDF actions in Gaza, Israel is not seeking to destroy the Palestinian people, whether in whole, in part, or in any manner. And saying so is utterly false, a gross distortion of truth and fabrications of law, that is tantamount to a blood libel.” Ostrovsky added that “Israel has gone to extraordinary efforts, not seen in the history of modern warfare, to avoid harm to civilians and abide by the principles of IHL (International Humanitarian Law). If anyone is guilty of genocide here, it is Hamas, who gleefully stated they would repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again” until Israel was “annihilated,” openly admitting the group’s genocidal intentions. In addition, the Islamic Republic of Iran is also guilty of incitement to genocide, by openly supporting and directing the actions of Hamas and stating their goal of eliminating the Jewish state.” He accused Amnesty of subverting and weaponizing the term “genocide” especially since “the Oct.7 attacks were the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Whatever credibility Amnesty had, which wasn’t much to begin with, is entirely torn to shred with this report. A sad ending for a once storied human rights organization, now becoming nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the murderers and rapists of Hamas.”
🧵 A brief International Law 101 Lesson on #Genocide following the publication of @amnesty’s report:
It is important to underscore that the commission of genocide has nothing to do with the number of civilian casualties (especially when those numbers are relied on the Hamas-run… https://t.co/uT6s9iDG4h pic.twitter.com/cn2VJDbXAN
— Arsen Ostrovsky 🎗️ (@Ostrov_A) December 5, 2024
Amnesty Israel rebuked the report’s conclusion that Israel is committing genocide, as the local branch said in a statement that “based on our analysis, put together in consultation with external experts, many of us have doubts regarding the possibility of proving unequivocally, and beyond any reasonable alternative explanation, the element of intent,” per The Times of Israel. That said, Amnesty Israel did state that there are “suspicions of widespread and serious violations of international law and crimes against humanity” regarding what Israel has been doing in Gaza.
Both Israel and the United States have rejected the Amnesty report. State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Dec. 5, “We disagree with the conclusions of such a report. We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry posted on X, “The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies. The genocidal massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, was carried out by the Hamas terrorist organization against Israeli citizens. Since then, Israeli citizens have been subjected to daily attacks from seven different fronts. Israel is defending itself against these attacks acting fully in accordance with international law.” The post also featured a blood-spattered picture “of a child’s bedroom on Oct. 7, tells you everything you need to know about Amnesty’s report.”
Here is our official response to @amnesty’s recent report:
The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies. The genocidal massacre on October 7, 2023, was carried out by the… pic.twitter.com/GXsRJn5kVn
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) December 5, 2024
Amnesty International did not immediately respond to the Journal’s request for comment.
