Amnesty International’s 2017 report accuses Israel of “torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, including children,” and “unlawfully” killing Palestinian civilians,” all without context.
By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Amnesty International, the global organization devoted to human rights around the world, issued its annual report Thursday on 159 countries. Speaking sharply about abuses in various totalitarian countries, it also turned a hypercritical eye on Israel.
Mentioning the Jewish state 115 times, the report accused Israel of “torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, including children,” and “unlawfully” killing Palestinian civilians and detaining thousands,” all without context.
The defensive blockade of the Gaza Strip was labelled “illegal” and the cause of “a growing humanitarian crisis,” without the context of its necessity due to unceasing Hamas attempts to smuggle weapons and tunnel-building materials to use against Israel.
Even when the report mentioned Palestinian attacks, it downplayed the organized dimension of the terrorists’ actions, as it noted, “The attacks, mostly carried out by individuals unaffiliated to armed groups, killed 14 Israelis and one foreign national.”
The report then cited the number of people killed by government forces, but without acknowledging that almost all were terrorists who either attacked or planned attacks Israelis. “Israeli forces killed 76 Palestinians and one foreign national,” it stated, adding, “Some were unlawfully killed while posing no threat to life.”
The report also equated building homes in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria with human rights abuses, saying, “The Israeli authorities intensified expansion of settlements and related infrastructure across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“Amnesty’s 2017 report is rife with distortions and maintains the group’s longstanding anti-Israel bias,” said Daniel Laufer, head of foreign media relations for NGO Monitor, The Jerusalem Post reported.
“That the Israel section is longer than those on Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, laughably suggests that there are greater human rights issues in Israel than in those countries,” Laufer said.
Commenting on the section claiming that “many [Palestinian] protesters threw rocks or other projectiles but were posing no threat to the lives of well-protected Israeli soldiers when they were shot,” the Post continued, Laufer said, “This thinking both excuses violence, while creating a baseless standard that prevents Israeli forces from protecting themselves and others.”