As early as 2002-4, the rot was setting in. I was still a member of Amnesty, writing letters about prisoners of conscience, when the organisation published a particularly skewed report about "bad" Israeli behaviour in Jenin, the West Bank, which was quickly agreed false internationally but Amnesty did not remove their skewed comments. When I objected, I received a reply such that We are Amnesty, we are and, if we say something happened, it happened. I resigned my membership.
As a longtime member of AI, do you recall whether Peter Benenson, who died in 2005, expressed concerns about AI's overly harsh treatment of Israel? I've read that he did, but was unable to retrieve anything relevant.
I'm afraid I don't. But I was attended meetings of AI in Hampstead and people were already holding Israel to different standards. One sensed a change when Ken Livingstone's girlfriend/wife/partner joined Amnesty.
Excellent and thorough investigation. An indictment of how human rights have been corrupted. These orgs focus on the low-hanging fruit in western democracies and rarely on the despotic regimes who torture and execute their people.
Danielle Haas's new organization EiGHT issued a report that indicates that Amnesty, HRW, Doctors Without Borders and others use Gaza as a centerpiece of their fundraising campaigns.
Excellent article. It's a further reflection of how so many institutions from NGOs, education through to the police and judiciary have been captured and are no longer fit for purpose. It is going to take a massive effort to correct this.
One thing I never understood was how the Trans rights movement took such a hold given how it concerned such a tiny minority of people, although it adversely impacted a far greater number of women. I've come to the conclusion that it was deliberately pushed by those behind the long march of the institutions and who wish to undermine western society because if they could force you to believe something as absurd as a woman can have a penis then they can literally make you believe and accept anything. It is positively Orwellian in attempt to create a society in which literally nothing is based on reality.
"“We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy and alignment with Amnesty International UK’s positions."
Interesting to note that Beira's Place solicitors have just issued a follow up letter stating that this is in fact the second AI report to call Beira's Place an anti-rights organisation and also, given that Chiara Capraro spoke publicly about the report, the claim this hadn't followed a full internal review rings false. They had just failed to appreciate the changing mood and the degree of backlash they would receive. They had falsely assumed they could still bully people and get away with it.
I think anyone interested in human rights has to first examine their own motivations- Am I using human rights to sensitize myself to the plights of others and the complexity and inherent tradeoffs in deciding what policies best serve all? Or am I claiming the title of human rights defender to boost my own ego and as a personal shield? So often, particularly regarding the most strident activists, we see the latter.
The OmniCause claims all flags but serves none – it promotes only the interests of surplus seminarians – humanities graduates in search of scarce pulpits (and the livings attached to them).
For hungry and heresiological seminarians, everything must be vigorously slashed back to ideology – the domain in which they claim authority. Anything that falls outside that domain – biology not least – must be harried with anathematising rage, strident badges, orientalist scarves.
Formerly social democratic parties have become clerisy parties – furtively tempted by anything that looks like theocracy, or even just dictatorship of the clerisy.
(Lurking in the background is student debt, and panic about prospects)
In my experience, this way of thinking started in the 60s and got progressively worse. There was a list of Omnicauses - Guardian, croissants, brown rice, macrobiotic diet, ban the bomb, anti-establishment, brown sandals etc. You had to tick them all!
I think you catch it well – lots of things in play: post-war surge in student numbers, Vietnam on the TV screens, New Left in search of less demanding constituencies – more responsive to the needs of educated middle-class activism – but as you say, most expressive of all: that turning of the tide, away from late 17c curiosity and experimentalism – the improvement of questions – towards an insistence on catechism, shibboleths, ticking boxes, and pious certainties.
Humanities departments reverting to training preachers.
Peter Benenson’s mother was the extraordinary Flora Solomon, mover and shaker in the establishment of Israel. Read her autobiography “From Baku to Baker Street.” (Titled “A Woman’s Way” in the US).
Hi. I find it troubling to include your sneering remarks about "trans obsession" that ignore the horrible plight of trans individuals in the UK and the US and how the right is making it their "obsession" to erase these people from existence. I find so much troubling about the far left especially the moral rot when it comes to israel and jews, but pushing back on the real obsession on the right on trans issues seems to me to be fair game for everyone of good conscience. And JK Rowling can piss all the way off in HER obsession with this topic.
You mentioned amnesty changed the definition of apartheid, is there a way to see what the original real one is and or how they changed it? Thank you, excellent article
"Instead, the Amnesty message, even on October 7 2023, was titled ‘Civilians on both sides paying the price of unprecedented escalation in hostilities between Israel and Gaza as death toll mounts,’ and blamed Israel’s behaviour for the cause of the attack.
Less than 20 days later, Amnesty was officially calling for a ceasefire. ‘In the lead to their statement up there had been these urgent emails, especially from the Europeans and Americans, pushing for a ceasefire. But Amnesty had never done this before. This was not part of their mandate.’
While Molly’s department pushed hard for Amnesty to at least speak up about the hostages, the head office refused.
Instead, Molly started seeing internal discussion about ‘the genocide report’: the conclusion had been determined before the investigation. The report came out in December 2024, a few weeks later, once again in tandem, HRW came out with a report with the same conclusion."
Former Secretary General of Amnesty Canada, Alex Neve, who teaches "international law" at two Canadian universities, likely reflected the "thinking" at Amnesty when speaking on CBC Radio, he used the term "captives" to describe both the 250+ people abducted from Israeli territory into Gaza on October 7/23 and Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of whom were tried and convicted of violent crimes and included Gazans rounded up inside Israel on that blackest of weekends as suspected participants in an invasion so barbaric that the then UN Special Rapporteur for Torture, Dr. Alice Edwards, referred to as one of the worst cases of abduction and torture in modern times. Neve, as a professor of "international law" would have surely known that the International Court of Justice's January 26/24 interim order directed Hamas to release all the abductees held in Gaza "immediately and without condition" (with no such parallel order on Israel), as should Amnesty's legal staffers. Utterly vile and mendacious.
As early as 2002-4, the rot was setting in. I was still a member of Amnesty, writing letters about prisoners of conscience, when the organisation published a particularly skewed report about "bad" Israeli behaviour in Jenin, the West Bank, which was quickly agreed false internationally but Amnesty did not remove their skewed comments. When I objected, I received a reply such that We are Amnesty, we are and, if we say something happened, it happened. I resigned my membership.
As a longtime member of AI, do you recall whether Peter Benenson, who died in 2005, expressed concerns about AI's overly harsh treatment of Israel? I've read that he did, but was unable to retrieve anything relevant.
I'm afraid I don't. But I was attended meetings of AI in Hampstead and people were already holding Israel to different standards. One sensed a change when Ken Livingstone's girlfriend/wife/partner joined Amnesty.
Excellent and thorough investigation. An indictment of how human rights have been corrupted. These orgs focus on the low-hanging fruit in western democracies and rarely on the despotic regimes who torture and execute their people.
Given the state of AI's finances as noted in the article, it does make me wonder where their current funding comes from.
Danielle Haas's new organization EiGHT issued a report that indicates that Amnesty, HRW, Doctors Without Borders and others use Gaza as a centerpiece of their fundraising campaigns.
Excellent article. It's a further reflection of how so many institutions from NGOs, education through to the police and judiciary have been captured and are no longer fit for purpose. It is going to take a massive effort to correct this.
One thing I never understood was how the Trans rights movement took such a hold given how it concerned such a tiny minority of people, although it adversely impacted a far greater number of women. I've come to the conclusion that it was deliberately pushed by those behind the long march of the institutions and who wish to undermine western society because if they could force you to believe something as absurd as a woman can have a penis then they can literally make you believe and accept anything. It is positively Orwellian in attempt to create a society in which literally nothing is based on reality.
"“We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy and alignment with Amnesty International UK’s positions."
Interesting to note that Beira's Place solicitors have just issued a follow up letter stating that this is in fact the second AI report to call Beira's Place an anti-rights organisation and also, given that Chiara Capraro spoke publicly about the report, the claim this hadn't followed a full internal review rings false. They had just failed to appreciate the changing mood and the degree of backlash they would receive. They had falsely assumed they could still bully people and get away with it.
I think anyone interested in human rights has to first examine their own motivations- Am I using human rights to sensitize myself to the plights of others and the complexity and inherent tradeoffs in deciding what policies best serve all? Or am I claiming the title of human rights defender to boost my own ego and as a personal shield? So often, particularly regarding the most strident activists, we see the latter.
Very interesting, and disturbing, as usual. One small thing though, could you have the ai voice changed to a female one? It’s has a distancing effect.
The OmniCause claims all flags but serves none – it promotes only the interests of surplus seminarians – humanities graduates in search of scarce pulpits (and the livings attached to them).
For hungry and heresiological seminarians, everything must be vigorously slashed back to ideology – the domain in which they claim authority. Anything that falls outside that domain – biology not least – must be harried with anathematising rage, strident badges, orientalist scarves.
Formerly social democratic parties have become clerisy parties – furtively tempted by anything that looks like theocracy, or even just dictatorship of the clerisy.
(Lurking in the background is student debt, and panic about prospects)
In my experience, this way of thinking started in the 60s and got progressively worse. There was a list of Omnicauses - Guardian, croissants, brown rice, macrobiotic diet, ban the bomb, anti-establishment, brown sandals etc. You had to tick them all!
I think you catch it well – lots of things in play: post-war surge in student numbers, Vietnam on the TV screens, New Left in search of less demanding constituencies – more responsive to the needs of educated middle-class activism – but as you say, most expressive of all: that turning of the tide, away from late 17c curiosity and experimentalism – the improvement of questions – towards an insistence on catechism, shibboleths, ticking boxes, and pious certainties.
Humanities departments reverting to training preachers.
I didn't write half as much as you! My simple point was that we tend to think all this rubbish started recently but it started long ago!
A wonderful and important essay and message!
These organizations long ago succumbed to their incentives, sacrificing the morals and values they were built on. This is frankly inevitable, so the only answer is to stop granting any moral credibility for any organizations and judge them based on every one of their actions. I wrote about this here if you're interested: https://elevin11.substack.com/p/conscience-vs-calculus-why-we-must?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=si8z
Peter Benenson’s mother was the extraordinary Flora Solomon, mover and shaker in the establishment of Israel. Read her autobiography “From Baku to Baker Street.” (Titled “A Woman’s Way” in the US).
They are both spinning in their graves.
Hi. I find it troubling to include your sneering remarks about "trans obsession" that ignore the horrible plight of trans individuals in the UK and the US and how the right is making it their "obsession" to erase these people from existence. I find so much troubling about the far left especially the moral rot when it comes to israel and jews, but pushing back on the real obsession on the right on trans issues seems to me to be fair game for everyone of good conscience. And JK Rowling can piss all the way off in HER obsession with this topic.
You mentioned amnesty changed the definition of apartheid, is there a way to see what the original real one is and or how they changed it? Thank you, excellent article
"Instead, the Amnesty message, even on October 7 2023, was titled ‘Civilians on both sides paying the price of unprecedented escalation in hostilities between Israel and Gaza as death toll mounts,’ and blamed Israel’s behaviour for the cause of the attack.
Less than 20 days later, Amnesty was officially calling for a ceasefire. ‘In the lead to their statement up there had been these urgent emails, especially from the Europeans and Americans, pushing for a ceasefire. But Amnesty had never done this before. This was not part of their mandate.’
While Molly’s department pushed hard for Amnesty to at least speak up about the hostages, the head office refused.
Instead, Molly started seeing internal discussion about ‘the genocide report’: the conclusion had been determined before the investigation. The report came out in December 2024, a few weeks later, once again in tandem, HRW came out with a report with the same conclusion."
Former Secretary General of Amnesty Canada, Alex Neve, who teaches "international law" at two Canadian universities, likely reflected the "thinking" at Amnesty when speaking on CBC Radio, he used the term "captives" to describe both the 250+ people abducted from Israeli territory into Gaza on October 7/23 and Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of whom were tried and convicted of violent crimes and included Gazans rounded up inside Israel on that blackest of weekends as suspected participants in an invasion so barbaric that the then UN Special Rapporteur for Torture, Dr. Alice Edwards, referred to as one of the worst cases of abduction and torture in modern times. Neve, as a professor of "international law" would have surely known that the International Court of Justice's January 26/24 interim order directed Hamas to release all the abductees held in Gaza "immediately and without condition" (with no such parallel order on Israel), as should Amnesty's legal staffers. Utterly vile and mendacious.
As regards Amnesty's "apartheid report", Shany Mor's piece at Fathom Journal is a "must read": https://fathomjournal.org/on-amnestys-car-crash-interview-in-israel/