Why Amnesty International Whispers About Hamas Yet Shouts About Israel

More than two years after Hamas perpetrated its massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, Amnesty International finally released a report documenting those crimes. But they’ve made it quite hard to locate.

Amnesty’s home page currently has links to articles titled “Stand with the woman accused of witchcraft in Ghana” and “Demand accountability in Tanzania,” but the Hamas report is nowhere to be found.

If you navigate to their page about Israel, you can only get there if you know where to click.

This is the title of the report’s release: “Sustainable peace requires international justice for all victims of all crimes in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The first subheading is: “Israel’s ongoing genocide, apartheid and unlawful occupation.” It goes on for 11 paragraphs detailing those accusations, but the link to the report about Hamas is also somewhere in there.

Amnesty claims that the long delay is nothing unusual, as it is difficult to accurately document evidence in a war zone. But this did not stop them from issuing a nearly 300 page report accusing Israel of genocide over a year ago. Or a report last month titled, “Post-ceasefire: Israel’s genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip continues.”

When it comes to condemning Israel, Amnesty runs and shouts. With regard to condemning Hamas, they go at a snail’s pace and then whisper.

It turns out, according to reporting from The Free Press, that there was significant pushback within Amnesty against releasing the Hamas report at all. Some Amnesty officials complained that “the situation in Gaza is getting worse,” and “the report could be used by Israel to justify its actions.” If it was released in the Fall, they were concerned it also might interfere with recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.

But doesn’t failure to condemn the Hamas attack give the impression that it was somehow justified, and make Hamas more likely to do it again? And doesn’t Amnesty’s constant vilification of Israel risk inciting violence against Jews and Israelis, as we have unfortunately seen so much of, including just recently at Bondi Beach in Australia?

Amnesty claims the universality and indivisibility of human rights as core values, along with impartiality and independence. What we see in its long-delayed and downplayed condemnation of Hamas atrocities, however, is its betrayal of its own principles in favor of advocacy for a popular political cause.

Human rights were created to establish norms of behavior that protect all people, regardless of politics, history, or culture. It’s well known that many perceive Palestinians as battling Israeli oppression and domination in a fight for freedom. Others think Palestinians have time and again rejected actual offers of statehood or independence, and are using these claims as mere cover for what is really a fight for Israel’s destruction. These two narratives are deeply conflicting and, for many, irreconcilable.

The proper role of human rights is to step in and say that even though we cannot agree on even the basic historical narrative of what’s happening, there are universal norms of behavior that bind us. No matter how much Palestinians believe they are oppressed and their cause is righteous, they cannot fire rockets at Israeli cities, attack Israeli civilians, or hold Israelis hostage. And no matter how certain Israel feels that Palestinians are aiming for its destruction, it may not use indiscriminate force, deny civilians aid, or engage in collective punishment.

This is what Amnesty should campaign for, without taking sides as to who has the moral high ground. But unfortunately, Amnesty has completely adopted the Palestinian narrative of victimhood, and then distorted human rights to advocate for the Palestinian cause. It emphasizes Israeli violations in ways that generate political pressure and outrage, while minimizing and contextualizing Hamas atrocities to avoid political fallout.

This turns human rights from universal standards into political weapons. It means Amnesty loses credibility with all who do not accept its political slant, and that it has no more moral authority than anyone else with an opinion.

When we are upset by the conduct of organizations such as Amnesty, we have to remember that human rights themselves are not the problem. In fact, human rights have never been more needed than now. The problem is so-called human rights groups that throw away their mission in order to take sides in political issues and campaign for causes.

When human rights organizations abandon universality for advocacy, they do not advance justice — they undermine the very idea of human rights itself.

Shlomo Levin is the author of the Human Rights Haggadah, and he uses short fiction and questions to explore human rights at https://shalzed.com/