Amnesty Suspends “Israel” Branch for Rejecting NGO’s Findings

An email from the IB Amnesty International interim chair Tiumalu Lauvale Peter Fa’afiu mentioned on Monday that such action was taken in response to evidence of endemic anti-Palestinian racism within the “Israeli” AI branch, which “violated core human rights principles and Amnesty values, and evidence of AI ‘Israel's’ misalignment with and hostility to Amnesty positions.”

According to the report, Fa’afiu claimed that Amnesty International in "Israel" had taken issue with the organization's reports, specifically questioning the findings of the 2022 report titled "Israel’s” Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity" and the 2023 report "You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza."

"AI ‘Israel’ has sought to publicly discredit Amnesty’s human rights research and positions," said Fa’afiu.

"Its efforts to publicly undermine the findings and recommendations of Amnesty’s 2022 report on Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians and, more recently, Amnesty’s 2024 report on ‘Israel’s’ genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, have been deeply prejudicial to Amnesty’s human rights mission, threatening our credibility, integrity and operational coherence."

As noted in the report, the "Israel" branch rejected AI's findings in December, which accused the occupation of committing genocide in Gaza. The ‘Israeli’ branch argued that the allegation of genocide had not been "sufficiently substantiated."

The report mentioned that the "Israel" branch acknowledged the possibility of widespread violations of international law, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.

Fa’afiu cited in the report an article by former Amnesty "Israel" members Amal Ourabi and Muhammad Abdel Kader, who wrote in a December 16 Mekomit opinion piece that there was an internal crisis in the branch due to the report.