Amnesty in 2007: Attacking Democracy instead of Oppression in Middle East

Promoting accountability in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Via NGO Monitor:

Summary: NGO Monitor has systematically analyzed Amnesty International’s Middle East coverage in 2007, applying a quantitative methodology, similar to that used to examine the agenda of Human Rights Watch.

The results show that in 2007 Amnesty singled out Israel for more condemnation than Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Lebanon, and Algeria.

More items were published condemning Israel, than the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hezbollah combined. If detailed reports are used as an indicator, Amnesty ranks Israel and Iraq as equally the worst human rights abusers in the Middle East.

Israel’s democratic and open society ironically invites disproportionately negative reporting from Amnesty International. Access to information facilitates more comprehensive research than in less democratic regimes; democracy demands higher standards of human rights, according to Amnesty International’s Israel branch; external factors, such as media attention, dictate AI’s policy.

Amnesty's 2008 annual report (covering events in 2007) is yet another example of the NGO's highly biased approach. It presents a gross distortion of the conflict, selectively reports events to remove the context of terrorism and ignore human rights issues not related to its political agenda, while repeating un-sourced and anecdotal claims.

The Israeli Justice Ministry's response to Amnesty's June 2007 report, "Enduring occupation Palestinians under siege in the West Bank” stated that “Amnesty’s report is one-sided, immoral, and riddled with mistakes and numerous factual and legal inaccuracies, including scant mention of Palestinian terrorism."

Click here to read the complete report.