We all know the meaning of 'discredited.' I'm thinking in particular of meanings such as 'brought into disrepute, with loss of respect or credibility, no longer accepted as valid or effective.' The actions I advocate above could be extended. I take the view that existing members of Amnesty International should let their membership lapse, that 'activist members' of Amnesty International can and should channel their activist energy more effectively, that members of staff at Amnesty International could try to find better employment.
Even when Amnesty International policies reflect my own views, there are significant differences, I have significant reservations. One single issue, or set of issues, Amnesty International's gross bias in the matter of Israeli-Palestinian relations, is enough - far more than enough - to make me realize that Amnesty International is no longer an organization which should be taken seriously, but I'll begin with an issue which, to me, shows just how hopeless and clueless this organization has become - and how hopeless and clueless this organization could be long before, in fact, at the time when it originated.
In this page, I concentrate on the pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli policies and practice of Amnesty International, which have a wide range of implications and repercussions. These are in clear-cut conflict with Amnesty International's claims to work on such aspects of 'human rights' as homosexuality (illegal in Gaza throughout its history and punishable with imprisonment for up to ten years but legal in Israel), opposition to the death penalty (legal and used in Gaza and the West Bank but never used by Israel in the history of the modern state.
Links to pages with material on Israeli-Palestinian issues
The main pages which include this material are
www.linkagenet.com/themes/israel.htm
a general page with material added over a long period of time.
Cambridge university: excellence, mediocrity, stupidity includes
material on other universities, including extensive material, in the first
column of the page, on Oxford University and Palestinian issues, the pro-palestinian
encampment and the ignorance of pro-palestinian academics and other staff.
https://www.linkagenet.com/themes/sheffield-labour-friends-of-palestine.htm includes material on the gross incompetence of 'Labour Friends of
Palestine' (members at the time included Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy,
Chair.)
https://www.linkagenet.com/themes/camp.htm
has extensive, wide-ranging material on the pro-Palestinian camp at
Sheffield University, which ended in failure, not the achievement of its
ridiculous, grossly unrealistic objectives.
www.linkagenet.com/themes/deathpenalty.htm is a page on the death
penalty, with the title, 'The death penalty: strongly against, but not
always.' The principal exceptions where the death penalty is not just
allowable but far more than that, fully justifiable, concern its use against Nazi war criminals.
I take the view that far more of these should have been executed after the
Second World War ended.
Amnesty International: introductory
This is the newest page of the site. The content, sparse at present, will need to be revised and extended, to include profiles of Amnesty International people. There's a vast amount of material available on the shortcomings, mediocrity, shocking ignorance to be found in Amnesty International, which has become, overall, a harmful organization.
This introductory material was originally published in my page on the death penalty:
High-minded arguments, arguments with an impressive sound, are sometimes very feeble arguments, as in the case of an argument used by Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty in all circumstances (I don't):
'It violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
'Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner.'
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, including circumstances which make alternative, lesser punishments completely impractical, out of the question, to anyone with any sense.
The introduction of the prison system was essential before societies could dispense with the death penalty, unless threats to the society were far from severe. Since that time, whenever conditions have made alternative, lesser punishments completely impractical, out of the question, then executions have often been completely justifiable. This is with {restriction} of course - I'm only concerned with societies which would adopt humane measures if only they were feasible, not with ruthless societies.
In conditions not of a stable nation-state, equipped with prisons and at peace but of a country occupied by Nazis, partisans who opposed the Nazis were justified in executing the Nazis they captured.
When Poland was occupied by the Nazis, an underground society did all it could to sustain the life of the Polish nation. Underground universities gave tuition, and underground courts attempted to dispense justice, in harsh and hideous circumstances. The courts did their best to be fair-minded: 40% of all trials ended with a verdict of not-guilty. Only a tiny minority of Poles ever collaborated with the Nazis, but it was essential to take action against the Poles who did collaborate. The courts sentenced over 3 500 individuals to death for collaboration and something like 2 500 executions were carried out. Others were sentenced to corporal punishment or fines.
Jan Karski, the immensely brave Pole who was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto to observe conditions there, travelled to London and Washington and reported on the situation in Poland, including the plight of the Jews. Walter Laqueur's 'The Terrible Secret' does justice to his work, Claude Lanzmann's searing and unforgettable 'Shoah' does less than justice to him, and no justice at all to the activities of all the Poles who risked their lives to protect or rescue Jews. At Walter Laqueur's request, Jan Karski wrote a document about his mission and related matters, which included this
'Although the Polish people-at-large sympathize with or try to help the Jews, many Polish criminals blackmail, denounce or even murder the Jews in hiding. The Underground authorities must apply punitive sanctions against them, executions included.'
In those drastically inhumane times, more humane punishments were out of the question. A sentence of imprisonment was out of the question. The Nazis and the Communists killed more than 6 million Polish citizens during the Second World War. Over 90% were non-military losses. 250 000 people lost their lives during the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis.
Peter Benenson founded Amnesty International in 1961. His contribution to human rights campaigning is considerable, of course, but it's cause for intense disappointment that he didn't include the death penalty in his work. What gave him the impetus to start the organization was a newspaper report about two Portuguese students during the Salazar dictatorship. They had been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for making a toast to freedom, a shocking matter. But in the matter of the death penalty, Portugal was the advanced country - it hadn't executed anybody for a hundred years - and Britain was the backward one. Britain's last executions were in 1964. It was some years before Amnesty International began to work against the death penalty but since then, its contribution has been significant. Amongst many other achievements, it has documented the grim and harrowing facts - tragic lives, botched executions, the minutiae of international legislation, the heartening or depressing contemporary history of the death penalty in very small as well as very large states, many, many aspects of this shameful practice. Amnesty International's death penalty work still impresses, but for its documentation rather than its achievements. Now, Amnesty International gives it less prominence and gives more prominence, I think, to some issues where the organization's work isn't nearly as impressive.
There are issues where Amnesty International is grossly misguided, grossly biased. I'm referring to its policy on Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Amnesty International refers to Israel in terms which should only be used in connection with barbaric states such as Iran. In general, Israel's record has been exemplary, impressive, certainly so in the case of the death penalty. Israel has executed only one person in its modern history. In the Palestinian territories - the territories as they once were, before Hamas undertook its hideous, suicidal attack of 7 October - executions took place, although on nothing like the scale of Iranian executions.
Amnesty International has lost its way. Amnesty International was deeply flawed in its origins, considering the fact that it took the organization far too long to begin opposing the death penalty, and when it did begin work on the death penalty, it was in a naive and absolutist manner. Amnesty International doesn't deserve to be supported.
Amnesty International only uses a selection of campaigning techniques, arguments and methods of persuasion: inevitable and acceptable, to a large extent. Amnesty has its own ethos, its identity, which places a restriction on using some methods. But some of the campaign techniques, arguments and methods of persuasion which it does use are demonstrably ineffectual, or not as effective as could be wished.
I've written extensively about campaigning methods. Amongst other things, I advocate campaigning methods which
(1) make more use of the the public domain. Of course, Amnesty letters or emails, or those of other organizations, will always have a place. But a letter, email or (ridiculous thought) text message to a Governor or to the President of the United States is received in private and often dismissed out of hand in private. In the public realm there's at least the possibility that the person addressed will be 'shown up,' will have their standing lowered, even if they're not receptive. There are recipients who are quite receptive to arguments, and recipients who are anything but receptive. Shaming may work where arguments don't, even if there's no guarantee of that.
(2) are continuing in their effects rather than temporary. A demonstration, a vigil, other events of this kind may cause embarrassment, may exert some sort of pressure - but they're forgotten very quickly. Far better to forge a continuing linkage between a person, an institution, a city or a country with backwardness, barbarism, an image totally different from the image they would prefer to present.
(3) I also favour indirect means as well as direct means of publicizing the issue and imposing pressure. 'Direct campaigning' (not to be confused with 'direct action') is campaigning directed at those who are responsible for the death penalty in some way, such as governments, presidents, prime ministers, attorney generals, members of Pardons and Parole Boards. Such people are opinion-formers, to a greater or lesser extent, but not the only opinion formers. As in war, undermining the morale of opponents, making opponents feel that they no longer have right on their side, that their position is untenable, is important. One obvious place where the battle of ideas can be conducted is the university sphere. Amnesty International could supply posters giving information about the death penalty in the USA, China, Singapore and other death-penalty countries. The posters would be seen by staff and students from these countries. The Necropolis Initiative is mainly intended to be an indirect method of campaigning.
I was a death penalty co-ordinator for my local Amnesty group for about fifteen years. During that time, I was asked time and time again to write to the Texas Board of Pardons - which never recommended clemency to the prisoner about to be executed - to ask the board members for clemency, or to write to Governors of States with pleas for clemency - although it's been said that some of these Governors would have their own grandmother executed if that was needed for them to remain in power. A thought experiment. If Amnesty International had been in existence throughout the Nazi era, would Amnesty have recommended writing letters beginning, 'Dear Herr Hitler, I am very concerned about the plight of X, sentenced to death for making a joke about yourself...and ending, 'I call for his unconditional release.' Probably, Amnesty would have. Using this approach with such ruthless people would be completely futile. It's an admirable thing to fight against overwhelming odds but there's also such a thing as not wasting your time.
I'm not a member of Amnesty International any longer and now I'm able to choose from a greater range of campaigning techniques and to try out new methods, or advocate their trying out. Not just an expanded repertoire of campaigning techniques but a repertoire of styles, including styles which are abrasive and confrontational, which directly confront the supporters of the death penalty. Fellow campaigners - or anyone - feel free to object and disagree.
In campaigning, I think it's essential to distinguish two things: (1) The most effective techniques to win. This will often demand short, vivid messages and simple slogans. It will often demand arguments presented very briefly, and action which is concentrated rather than diffuse, ruthless in spirit rather than genteel, but action which keeps within the law. In a democracy, it may be necessary to break the law if that seems the only way to end a serious abuse, but the most effective actions for opposing the death penalty don't require the law to be broken, I'm sure. (Where the opponent is a totalitarian power, as in the occupied countries of Europe during the Second World War, then the use of violence and force can be justified.)
(2) The reasoning which underlies the action. This should not be simple. It
should be comprehensive (covering all relevant aspects of the subject rather
than a few), fair-minded (taking every care to avoid distortions of reality,
taking note of possible objections), sophisticated in moral argument and,
also, factually correct.
However, it's sometimes difficult to separate the two. The ideas which seem vastly more forceful, developed, persuasive than the opposing ideas are amongst the most important contributions to activism. They're a precondition for activism, or should be. One of the most striking demonstrations comes from the history of penal reform, on which the Italian thinker Beccaria has had an incalculable influence. Beccaria's achievement is amongst other things a massive practical achievement - concrete reforms can be traced back to his work - but these were due purely to his ideas. He had none of the attributes of an activist. The introduction to his work 'On Crimes and Punishments' in the Hackett edition describes the work as 'greater than its self-effacing author, a man of almost crippling shyness.'
Amnesty International doesn't always distinguish sufficiently between (1) and (2). It tends to use the methods of reasoned argument which are part of (2) as a campaigning tactic, for the purposes of (1). It may often be more effective to have {separation} of the two activities. As I've noted earlier, not all recipients of pleas from Amnesty members are susceptible of reasoned argument (or capable of reasoned argument). People who have the power to change things may be very unlikely to change things because they may have too much to lose. A governor in a death penalty state may not be re-elected. People whose livelihood depends upon administering or carrying out the death penalty may lose their livelihood. Or there may be strong psychological reasons why they should not be open to rational argument. They may lose their self-respect. To acknowledge that the death penalty is wrong could well bring with it the burden of guilt, feelings of inadequacy and worse. This is why methods of campaigning based on rational arguments, which will always be necessary have to be supplemented by other methods.
See also the section in the column to the right, Profile: Amnesty's Kristyan Benedict, with wide-ranging material on issues relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Action in war, like action in peacetime, but to a much greater extent, may well be excessive, regretted later, sometimes subject to action later, but comprehensible when a state is fighting for survival against a ruthless enemy which regards practically no atrocities as forbidden.
British action has involved excesses but the excesses don't in the least make Britain 'just as bad as Nazi Germany.' There was a massive gulf between the conduct of the war by Great Britain and Nazi Germany, taking full account of excesses - which are still the subject of debate, with widely different views.
Estimates of German civilians killed by Allied strategic bombing have ranged from 350,000 to 500,000.
This photograph shows the aftermath of a bombing raid on
Cologne, according to Wikipedia (Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1979-025-19A),
but a book on my bookshelves, 'Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Bildern und Dokumenten,' Dritter Band, 'Sieg
ohne Frieden 1944 - 1945' edited by H-A Jacobsen and H Dollinger places the
grim scene in the city of Braunschweig, which experienced 42 air raids
during the war.
The bodies shown are the bodies of school children.
Nazi Germany deserved to lose the Second World War, not Great Britain. The moral superiority of Great Britain, the evil of Nazi Germany, are not erased by the fact that British bombers killed a total of 593 000 German civilians, according to some estimates, and converted vast areas of German towns and cities to rubble.
W G Sebald, 'On the Natural History of Destruction:' ' ... at the end of the war 7.5 million people were left homeless, and there were 31.1 cubic metres of rubble for everyone in Cologne and 42.8 cubic metres for every inhabitant of Dresden.'
The image of a sombre, dignified woman amidst the devastation of Cologne (or Braunschweig) is no argument for the moral equality of Great Britain and Nazi Germany. Again and again, images, sensationalist 'facts' and supposed 'facts,' 'facts' presented without the least attempt at providing context' are used to manipulate opinion.
There's been a vast difference in this recent episode, and in previous events, between the Israeli and the Palestinian / Hamas approach. Israeli (including Israel Defence Force) representatives have given an abundance of intelligent comment and evidence.
...
It's a gross
misconception to believe that Israel cannot possibly be a liberal, humane
state in view of its attacks on Gaza by bombing from the air and other
means. It's a gross misconception to believe that totalitarian states, such
as the Nazi state, may kill many civilians and destroy many civilian homes,
but that democratic states, such as Britain, the United States and Israel,
can be expected always to fight wars without sometimes killing
civilians and destroying civilian homes.
It's a
gross misconception to equate Israelis with Nazis, just as it's a gross
misconception to equate the British and the Americans with the Nazis, or to
claim that the British and Americans were no better than the Japanese at the
time of the Second World War.
When a democracy is fighting for survival, in the midst of extreme
danger, then the measured response which is approved by armchair critics is
an ideal not always attained - impossible of attainment.
To overcome
fanatical opposition, the armed forces of a democratic state often have no
alternative but to use extreme force.
All the same, the armed forces of democracies have often used force which was excessive and cannot claim to have never broken the rules of war.
Excesses, mistakes, blunders are often pounced on and taken as evidence that the forces of a democracy responsible for excesses, mistakes and blunders - generally committed under conditions of acute danger and danger which is not short-lived but which has tested the courage and stamina of the democratic forces in extreme ways - are just the same or almost as bad as their opponents.
I find it essential to use the concept of 'outweighing,'
which I explain on the page
Ethics: theory and practice. The excesses, mistakes and blunders
are considered as part of an overall survey.They are outweighed by other considerations.
Britain's nuclear deterrent has cost not a single civilian (or
military) life, but most deterrents in war aren't nearly so free of harm. A
deterrent has to involve pain or loss, or possible pain and loss. When deterrents involve no pain or
loss, they cease to be deterrents, or effective deterrents. (The British
justice system sometimes fails to understand this simple point.)
A
deterrent in war may involve many civilian casualties. It would be difficult
to establish that Israeli actions amounted to war crimes, and even if some
of them were war crimes, it would no more undermine Israeli superiority than
the 'war crimes' of Britain during the Second World War undermined British
moral superiority.
The Palestinian use of rockets against civilians is without any doubt at all a war crime. In general, it would be very difficult to criticize the actions of The Israeli Defence Force without knowledge which it's impossible to acquire now. For example, a Hamas sniper is shooting at Israeli soldiers. In a built-up environment, the sniper is very difficult to remove. Israeli soldiers can't possibly be expected to expose themselves to continued fire and put their lives at great risk by trying and persisting with very 'conservative,' methods, methods which cause no harm to anyone else and no damage or very little damage to anything.
At all times, the terrible risk of being captured by Hamas will be obvious to them - the risk of being held captive for years and years or being killed. (Operations of war where there it's certain that being captured by the enemy will be followed by death or mistreatment, not by prisoner-of-war status in accordance with accepted international legislation generally give rise to particularly intense revulsion against the enemy forces.) The longer the IDF forces have to operate here, the greater the dangers. Who can blame them for calling on the firepower which will remove the danger from the sniper reliably, even if it entails the destruction of the building where the sniper is based, or harm to civilians sheltering in the same building?
The gulf between a liberal democracy and a totalitarian state is most apparent not in what happens on the battlefield but the actions which take place away from the battlefield, such actions as mass executions of civilians.
The combat operations of totalitarian states and of liberal democracies have many similarities, just as their weapons tend to be similar, including the use of flame-throwers. (This is not to overlook the differences, such as the use of penal battalions by the Soviet army, which were forced to undertake very dangerous or suicidal operations, and, of course, the use of suicide pilots by the Japanese.)
The image of civilian casualties in the photograph at the top of the page is no evidence at all for the slogan, 'One picture is worth a thousand words.' Rather, 'one picture may need a thousand words of explanation.'
The image of a sombre and dignified woman and a pile of bodies does nothing at all to establish the barbarity of British airmen and the barbarity of the British cause during the Second World War. Images are often a refuge for superficial people too lazy to do the work of acquiring the deep and comprehensive understanding necessary for an adequate survey.
First impressions often ignore knowledge. Judgment requires knowledge, even if the acquiring of knowledge is no guarantee that the knowledge will be put to good use. Images of distraught, suffering people in Gaza are no substitute for acquiring knowledge, making an adequate ((survey)) and exercising judgment.
Opposition to Israeli actions in Gaza has often been based on the dogma of feeling, the supposition that feelings of outrage are conclusive. Feelings of compassion and humanitarian feelings are not necessarily conclusive. They can mislead, they can apportion blame mistakenly, they can lead to disastrously misguided action, doing nothing to correct a humanitarian catastrophe, perpetuating a humanitarian catastrophe. The selectivity of so many supporters of the Palestinians has often been noted. Almost all human suffering seems to pass these people by, or to be treated with insufficient seriousness, such as suffering at the hands of ISIS.
Anyone who believes that the Israeli Defence Force has fought in Gaza with unprecedented savagery needs to undertake as soon as possible a remedial course of study in military history. IDF warnings to civilians to evacuate an area are, of course, exceptional in the history of warfare.
On the streets of Gaza: a horrific video
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/
dec/12/cattle-abuse-gaza-video
Amnesty International repeatedly accuses Israel of being an 'apartheid state.' An atrocious example, from the page
Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty International said today in a damning new report ... Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity This system is maintained by violations which Amnesty International found to constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.
Amnesty International is calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider the crime of apartheid in its current investigation in the OPT and calls on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to bring perpetrators of apartheid crimes to justice. [Comment: calls on all states ... to bring perpetrators of apartheid crimes to justice? Including the Iranian state and the North Korean state and Russia? This is deranged.]
Richard Goldstone, who had been a South African judge, had been critical of Israel in a United Nations report of 2009 but went on to modify his view significantly. In a significant letter published in the New York Times, he addressed the claim that Israel is an 'apartheid state.'
Extracts:
' ... it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
...
In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
...
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” ... the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.
...
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination ... Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence ... '
Amnesty: 'widespread bullying, public humiliation, discrimination and other abuses of power ... '
This is simply an extract from a piece published in the Guardian, published 6 February, 2019, given without comment here.
Amnesty International has a “toxic” working environment, with widespread bullying, public humiliation, discrimination and other abuses of power, a report has found.
A review into workplace culture, commissioned after two staff members killed themselves last year, found a dangerous “us versus them” dynamic, and a severe lack of trust in senior management, which threatened Amnesty’s credibility as a human rights champion.
It added: “As organisational rifts and evidence of nepotism and hypocrisy become public knowledge they will be used by government and other opponents of Amnesty’s work to undercut or dismiss Amnesty’s advocacy around the world, fundamentally jeopardising the organisation’s mission.”
The report, undertaken by the KonTerra Group and led by psychologists, to look into lessons learned following the suicides in 2018, found bullying and public humiliation were routinely used by management.
“There were multiple reports of managers belittling staff in meetings, deliberately excluding certain staff from reporting, or making demeaning, menacing comments like: ‘You’re shit!’ or: ‘You should quit! If you stay in this position, your life will be a misery,’” it said.
...
The review was based on a survey of 475 staff, 70% of the workforce of Amnesty’s international secretariat, and on scores of interviews. Some experienced “significant distress” during the process, it said.
...
“Given Amnesty’s status and mission – to protect and promote human rights – the number of accounts the assessment team received of ‘bullying’,‘racism’, and ‘sexism’ is disconcerting,” it said. The reviewers provided Amnesty’s secretary general with a private report on allegations of abuse of power, discrimination and unfair treatment, which merit further investigation.
...
They found multiple instances of alleged favouritism or nepotism in hiring and cases where “it appears that positions or individuals may have been made redundant without due process”.
Amnesty’s work culture problems were first revealed in May last year, when the Times reported that Gaëtan Mootoo had killed himself after complaining of stress and overwork ...
One staff member told the review that the organisation’s response to Mootoo’s death “upset many of us a lot”. “The way they announced it, the way they tried to cover up.”
His death was followed by several reviews. One, conducted by James Laddie QC, found that “a serious failure of management” had contributed to Mootoo's death.
Amnesty International Manchester and grotesque
bias: Alison Wearden
The Amnesty vigils in Manchester: photographing
the 'activists' and the law on photography in public places
Amnesty International Sheffield
Profile: Amnesty's Kristyan Benedict,
with wide-ranging material on issues relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict
Wells Amnesty International, Wells Cathedral, Ed
Standhaft: praying for the work of Amnesty
Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty, a failure of
judgment, and Amnesty International, an inexcusable delay
This is a very new page. Amnesty International groups and people will be added to the material here, in the form of profiles and comments sections. Much more comment on Amnesty policies and practice will be needed.
Amnesty International Manchester and grotesque bias: Alison Wearden
From the Facebook page of Manchester Amnesty, a hideous, grotesquely biased piece written by Alison Wearden, (who endorsed the hideous, grotesquely biased Palestine Solidarity Campaign by including some of its 'publicity' material.)
Alison Wearden writes, 'Since last October, the volume of arrests [arrests carried out by Israel] has increased.' And what happened last October? To be more exact, on October 7, 2023? Multiple rapes, mutilations, executions, abductions of men, women and children - almost all the people abducted were civilians, of course -abductions followed by executions - all carried out by the Palestinians who entered Israeli territory. What did Alison Wearden expect to happen? No arrests at all, or no increase in arrests? Was Israel expected to 'grin and bear it?' To do nothing to defend itself, to do nothing to deter future incursions?
In general, the tone of Alison Wearden's posts are in accordance with the characteristic tone of Amnesty International - supposedly calm, authoritative, the intention being to convince the reader that this way of interpreting events is the only right way, the only humane way. Soothing and evasive words can be used - manipulated - to convey this impression when they have absolutely no prospect of changing the realities. Again and again, Amnesty tries to give the impression that its members are not just making a difference but making 'real' change possible - or transforming the situation. That famous 'Amnesty Impartiality' is often in evidence, or attempts to simulate impartiality, to give the impression of impartiality. This is one more manifestation of Amnesty dishonesty, which is far more likely to keep donations coming in than honesty, acknowledgment of restrictions on action.
Material on donating on the Amnesty UK Website includes maerial on governance and includes these false claims:
Our deeply held core principles of impartiality, independence and accuracy underpin all we do. This is built on an understanding that all human rights must be respected together if we are to achieve a world free from fear and want.
We are independent of any institution, ideology, economic interest, and religion. Our only interest is in achieving human rights for all.
The claims to impartiality, independence and accuracy are fraudulent, including the claim to be independent of economic interest: Amnesty's economic interests include an obvious interest in continued flow of donations and other funds. Also false: the claim that 'we' could possibly achieve a world 'free from fear and want.' The experience of human history shows otherwise. Amnesty will never be able to ensure that tyrannical and despotic governments and rulers belong only to the past and disappear in the future (if only Amnesty achieves the necessary support and funding). Similarly, human rights for all is an absolutely unattainable objective. To suppose otherwise amounts to delusions of grandeur, rampant megalomania, deluded utopianism - but I'll grant that Amnesty is skilled at pretending.
Amnesty is not even much good at achieving far more limited objectives. It has millions of members worldwide, very many members in the United States. For campaigning against abuses in the United States, there's the advantage that the recipients of Amnesty actions speak English. The abuse I'm thinking of is the continued use of the death penalty in the United States, a penalty which occurs nowhere else in the Western hemisphere, in no countries in Europe except for Belarus. The barriers to success would seem to be few. Yet there are executions scheduled for 2024. What is the reason? One factor to be taken into account, a very important one, is this: Amnesty acts as if the action taken by Amnesty is the principal factor to be taken into account, but the people who receive Amnesty requests or demands take into account other factors, which so often outweigh anything that Amnesty presents. This may be for good reasons or bad reasons.
A governor in a retentionist Southern state will find it easy to disregard an Amnesty campaign to abolish the death penalty in the state when the result would likely be rampant opposition from many evangelical Christians and others. This factor outweighs any force in the Amnesty position. Tactical and strategic successes in campaigning can be achieved by taking much more account of outweighing. Tactical and strategic failures in campaigning can be the result of failure to consider outweighing. Amnesty work on Israel-Palestinian issues will never achieve the intended objective. The background information on this and other pages should easily supply the reasons.
An example. Alison Wearden persuading Amnesty members to take 'action' on the same Facebook page. The comments in brackets [ ... ] are my own, of course.
Silent vigil for Palestine and Israel
Amnesty International, Manchester
invites you to join us in our weekly silent
vigil calling for a ceasefire and the protection of all civilians in
Palestine and Israel.
St Peters Square, Manchester
[How does the holding of a vigil in Manchester, witnessed by whatever passers by happen to be in the area at the time - most of them, presumably, taking notice of the event only momentarily, lead to the objectives which are listed below, which are very far reaching - more exactly, utopian, impossible to achieve, with no recognition at all of political and military realities in this part of the Middle East? I would describe the vigil as futile but I'd ask - can the 'activists' taking part in this vigil justify this use of their time? Time spent travelling to St Peters Square, taking part in the vigil and travelling back is time that could be better spent, surely. Activists may often be dilettantes, spending a bit of time on one issue and then going on to other issues. Time spent in concentrated attention on one issue or set of issues, a more thorough approach to campaigning can be very worthwhile - time not interrupted by taking part in a vigil which will achieve nothing - in my view.]
['calling for a ceasefire' It has been pointed out again and again that a ceasefire is likely to benefit Hamas, pressure on Hamas is eased, Hamas has the opportunity to add to its weaponry, whilst making no concessions.]
['protection of all civilians in Palestine and Israel' is completely impossible. If Israel is unable to protect its civilians from further Hamas action - then there will be more incursions, more deaths of Israeli civilians. Israeli civilians won't be protected by Hamas goodwill. How are Israeli civilians to be protected from rockets fired by Hamas? For a very long time, Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel at intervals, breaking previous ceasefires at intervals and has never recognized that to prevent Palestinian civilian deaths and injuries, it's essential to act on this advice: stop firing rockets, stop breaking ceasefires. I don't comment further on Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli military action because there's very full information and comment on these issues on this page and other pages of the site. I comment in detail on the differences between unavoidable or difficult-to-avoid killing of civilians in war and the issue of genocide. In practice, the bias of Amnesty International in matters of Israeli-Palestinian issues is blatant and shocking. I've no idea how many Amnesty actions have been concerned with the barbarities of Hamas on October 7 but my view is that Amnesty International has failed comprehensively. I had a very low opinion of Amnesty International before those events but now it seems all the more a pitifully deficient organization whose work in other areas - often, impressive - is undermined by those failures. Amnesty International has a reputation which, overall, is now, more than ever, very poor. Members sending well-written, well-argued letters or emails to government ministers or others about cases of torture, wrongful imprisonment and other abuses are working on behalf of an organization which has been comprehensively failed by very large numbers of its members, by very large numbers of its paid staff.]
Please wear dark colours
No placards / No banners / No flags / No chants
Simple placards will be provided bearing the messages:
Ceasefire now [Again and again, demonstrators use that word 'now' when 'now' is completely out of the question and its use is nonsensical. A very long time ago, I took part in demonstrations concerned with animal welfare, although I didn't share the view that the demonstration was about 'animal rights,' let alone 'animal liberation.' One chant, heard again and again, went like this: 'What do we want? Animal liberation. When do we want it? NOW' A completely unachievable objective which could actually be achieved now, at that moment - or perhaps very soon, if not immediately?]
Stop arms sales [Not specified - which arms sales are to be stopped? All arms sales? Including the arms needed by Ukraine to resist unprovoked Russian aggression? If Amnesty International had begun much earlier, in the mid-1930's, with a similar ethos and broadly similar policies, the experience would have been very instructive. When Germany invaded Poland, and war was declared, would Amnesty have called for a ceasefire? Would Amnesty have called for a ceasefire NOW? Would there have been the slightest chance of a ceasefire? Would Amnesty have issued a rousing call to 'Stop arms sales.' When the Nazis were preparing to invade Britain, would Amnesty have called for the stopping of arms sales? Would Amnesty have been an irrelevance at this time? Would Amnesty have been harmful, calling for actions which, if implemented - an impossibility - would have reduced the chances of Britain retaining its freedom? Would Amnesty supporters have been political and military innocents, people not to be taken seriously?]
Humanitarian aid now [The humanitarian needs of the rest of the world, or so many countries of the world, are in danger of being forgotten. Palestinians don't completely monopolize attention but distort priorities. The situation they are placed in is to a large extent of their own making. I don't, of course, refer to all Palestinians as culpable in the least. If there had been no incursion into Israeli territory on October 7, if there had been no Hamas atrocities, then humanitarian assistance would not be needed now.]
Uphold international law [This gives the impression, the false impression, that international law is capable of being applied fairly. In fact, claims for the application of international law are frequently grossly biased, excusing the worst offenders. International law has completely failed to come to terms with the horrific abuses committed by Iran or to do anything realistic to correct the abuses.]
Stop war crimes [by which is meant the alleged war crimes of the Israeli Defence Force. A far more detailed knowledge of military history and the law relating to war and war crimes is needed to correct these misinterpretations. Again, I supply an outline of the knowledge needed on this page and other pages.]
Release political prisoners [Hamas regards as political prisoners people who have slaughtered Israeli civilians over a very long period of time. Hamas regards as political prisoners people detained and held by Israel who raped, mutilated and murdered Israeli civilians on October 7.]
Stop killing civilians [It's no more possible for the Israeli Defence Force to avoid killing civilians than it was for the allied armed forces to avoid killing German civilians, French civilians, civilians of many other nationalities during the Second World War. The evidence is supplied on this page.]
Release all hostages [It's far easier to issue this call than to carry out the arduous work needed to make more likely the release of hostages. How much work has been carried out by Amnesty groups to try to secure the release of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. In fact, Amnesty has absolutely no power to increase the likelihood. It can make no realistic attempt to secure the release of these hostages. The powerlessness and impotence of Amnesty International won't impress potential donors to the organization and won't motivate its activists, the activists with some claim to respect and the Amnesty activists who are ignorant ideologists.]
Passers by will have the opportunity to leave a message of support [By now, this vigil will have taken place. Does Manchester Amnesty have a record of the messages of support? Were there many, a few or none? Perhaps Manchester Amnesty could supply the evidence.]
Please join us [I wonder just how many people did join. Even if there were many, many people who took up the invitation - which seems very, very unlikely - it would have made absolutely no effect on the impact of this event.]
Please circulate this invitation to your friends and contacts [But these friends and contacts will have so many other demands on their time. To attend this vigil would be to miss the opportunity to take some exercise, to do some reading, to carry out gardening, to visit someone not seen for quite a time - but the list of alternative uses for the time is obviously very, very long. To attend this vigil would also entail overlooking the gross bias and unfairness of Amnesty's approach to the conflict, the ignoring of significant argument and evidence, the cluelessness to be found in Amnesty International's policies and practice. ]
The Amnesty vigils in Manchester: photographing the 'activists' and the law on photography in public places.
The page
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/groups/
manchester/manchester-amnesty-42nd-silent-vigil-palestine-and-israel-friday-16th-august-5pm
includes a photograph of Amnesty members holding the placards discussed in the previous section. This 42nd silent vigil has not the least chance of bringing any benefits and a thousand more vigils would have no more impact on events in these areas of the Middle East. If similar vigils had been held during the Second World War in an attempt to bring peace to the world, they would have been just as futile. The Nazis were defeated by military action, not by silent witness.
Images are a prominent part of this site but are far less important than the argument and evidence I give. A picture can be worth a thousand words, but only for restricted purposes. To make a case, the main emphasis has to be upon words.
On this page, and similar pages, images are subsidiary, then. When I do use images, I observe copyright. A number of photographs on the site were paid for, obtained from reputable commercial agencies. A much greater number were obtained by the use of Google Advanced Image Search, using the option of 'Creative Commons Licences' or are photographs I've taken myself. If I want photographs of the Manchester vigil, I have to take the photographs myself. I'm willing to do just that.
I'm based in Sheffield. Manchester isn't far away. Manchester is a city I know well. I used to work there. There are so many demands on my time and I can't possibly regard a visit to Manchester for this purpose as a priority. It would have to be fitted in when I'm able, but it's very likely or quite likely that I'll be there, taking photographs of the people holding their placards - and bringing a few placards of my own, which could be placed in the foreground of the picture. I have full colour printing facilities which allow for the printing of high quality, quite large images, including images similar to the two images included in the first column of the page, unflattering alternative views of Amnesty International.
Supplementary material:
Above, a prototype of a very recent placard display system' I've recently designed for my own use - to be used in earnest for the first time, I would hope, in Manchester. Manchester Amnesty International has many members who can be relied upon to stand there, each of them holding a placard at their vigils. As I work single-handedly, to display a number of placards, I have to have supports for them. Here there are three, but there could be many more. The system is lightweight and it's easy to carry quite a large number of these units, in a large carrying bag. The colour posters are attached to foamboards by small spring clips at the upper edge and larger spring clips at the lower edge. These larger clips keep the posters above the surface, keeping the surfaces clean, and they also have the function of supporting the foamboards and placards. The system is a self-supporting one, then. Much taller (and wider) placards can be used. In the case of much taller placards, much larger spring clips can be used at base level.
The system has already been used, before a meeting of an Amnesty International group, not named here. The photograph above shows the boards outside the place where the Amnesty meeting would take place. I knew before going to the venue that this was not a group with the faults of the Manchester group, or many more Amnesty groups.
I talked to Amnesty members before they went into the meeting place, and before any Amnesty members arrived, to another person. It was a pleasure to talk to these people. The experience was very rewarding for me. It was already clear to me that there will need to be a variety of approaches, since Amnesty members and Amnesty groups vary enormously. I see the need for harshness, but only when harshness is fully justifiable. I think that all Amnesty groups are contributing to the maintenance of an organization which doesn't deserve such support, for the reasons I give on this page and other pages, but Amnesty members and groups may well have significant strengths.
I've previously designed structures for my van which can be used to convert the van into a simple campervan - mainly a response to a design challenge, since I haven't left Sheffield to spend a night away from home for very many used. A previous system I designed was used and tested at a campsite. The newer support structures, which include a roof array, with a system of telescopic tubes,, can be used to support vertical display boards. Placards, such as anti-Amnesty placards, can be attached to these boards, but I've no plans to use the van for this purpose. I've used magnetic signs on the sides of the van for a long time, as part of my work in the project 'Paul Hurt Design.'
Above, the van, showing the use of magnetic signs for display purposes. These could include publicity material for a cause, in this case, anti-Amnesty work. Also shown, the roof array, of wood with extensible telescopic components, black, at an angle to the longer wooden sections. A variety of sheet materials can be used to construct a camper-van extension at the rear of the vehicle. I've made extensive use of curved polycarbonate sheets. Photographs of some of these designs are included in the larger images on the Home Page of the site. Some extension components, of polycarbonate and other materials, eg fabric, can be put into place reasonably quickly. The most spacious ones take longer.
I'm used to very simple arrangements for spending the night. with very extensive camping experience, including winter camping in the Alps (and camping in bear country in Canada), admittedly, long ago. When I haven't found somewhere suitable to put up a tent, I've sometimes used a simple bivouac bag for shelter, as on the Isle of Skye. The van, which offers toilet facilities, is a luxury, even without use of the extensions. When travelling, I've often slept in the coach or train or gone without. I've occasionally used guest houses and once a youth hostel but I've never yet stayed in an hotel. My varied work experience has included a year spent working in a four star hotel as a night porter, though.
These facilities, or one implementation of the facilities, could be used as an overnight stay for reaching Amnesty events in areas which are distant from Sheffield, to publicize the anti-Amnesty case. I don't exclude the possibility but at the moment, this isn't very likely.
The law on photography in public places is very clear. This is from information supplied by the Metropolitan Police:
'Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing ... '
It follows that members of Amnesty International have no power to prevent a member of the public from filming them or taking photographs of them in public places.
I've extensive experience of filming and photographing members of the Palestine Solidarity campaign and other pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The law allows me to film and photograph freely but the demonstrators have had other ideas.
My page
https://www.linkagenet.com/themes/camp.htm
on the Sheffield pro-Palestinian camp (now dismantled) includes this:
'[Pro-Palestinian protesters] hate being shown in photographs, if the photographer happens to be opposed to their views. Again and again, they panic or become aggressive. Taking photographs of pro-Palestinian protesters showing them in a state of panic or responding aggressively when they realize they're being photographed is perfectly legitimate, a lawful activity, freely permitted. They like to suppress legitimate, lawful activities when it suits their purposes. But my purposes are very different, my way of thinking is very different, as they will have noticed.
'In a world where people take photographs very, very often with their phones (I'm not one of them - I use photography far less often, in a far more restricted way, always with a camera, not a phone) then their ban on photographs of themselves is ridiculous - rather, their attempted ban is ridiculous. It can't possibly be defended. If they think they can defend it they should go ahead and give their reasons.'
They haven't attempted to argue a case. What they have done is try a variety of intimidating methods, including physical attack. The film footage and photographic evidence on the page was obtained successfully, despite the difficulties.
Amnesty International members are much more genteel but in my experience they tend to be sure of their own ethical superiority - completely mistakenly - and are likely to be affronted when the photographer doesn't share this high opinion. They may well protest, then, but it will get them nowhere. The approved, official Amnesty International view of the Manchester Vigils will be supplemented in the public domain with a very different view.
The Amnesty members taking part in the vigil - and the many, many paid Amnesty researchers and managers and fund-raisers of this multi-million pound defective enterprise are free to offer counter-arguments (preferably with evidence) in response to my own enterprise, which is sadly deficient, virtually non-existent in financing and which is the work of just one person, working part-time. I await their crushing response, if any, without any apprehension whatsoever.
Amnesty International Sheffield: comment
I was a very active member of Sheffield Amnesty International for some 20 years. I was the Death Penalty Co-ordinator for the group for most of that time but I worked on a very wide range of what Amnesty International prefers to call abuses of 'human rights.' I often took part in stalls in Sheffield City Centre intended to publicize the work of Amnesty International and this group, and to raise funds for Amnesty International.
On three occasions, I suggested that the group could take on motions to be debated and voted on at Amnesty International Annual General Meetings. This was done. I and another member shared the speaking roles to promote the motions at these AGM's. Each of them was passed by an overwhelming majority.
One motion was concerned with anti-personnel mines. At the time, Amnesty had no policy regarding these mines. I took the view that mines planted before a conflict and during a conflict could kill non-combatants long after the conflict had ended and that Amnesty should begin work on this issue.
Another motion was concerned with Amnesty's compaigning techniques. I took the view that often, the methods used by Amnesty were demonstrably ineffective, or not as effective as they could be. The repertoire of techniques needed to be improved. There's further material on Amnesty's defective use of campaigning techniques in the section in the column to the left Amnesty International: introductory
Another motion was to do with human rights abuses in China. I took the view that the scale of these abuses merited much greater effort on the part of Amnesty.
I think that the second and third motions I formulated had merit but not the first. No blanket ban on anti-personnel mines was realistic, and for various reasons. Anti-personnel mines had and still have legitimate uses, for example at the long border between Finland and Russia, when used by Finland to prevent invasion of the country. Amnesty International had and stil has no realistic chance at all of persuading all countries or most countries or some countries which use anti-personnel mines to abandon their use.
Campaigning techniques have changed enormously since I was an active Amnesty member. At that time, the aerogramme letter was by far the most common way of reaching governments and other recipients of Amnesty pleas, requests and demands. Now, I would think, electronic methods are far more likely to be used. I had misgivings about the realism and good sense of Amnesty International. After I left, I became far more critical. My view is that now, the organization has become not just ineffectual but harmful in large part, and deserves to be actively opposed, at local, national and international levels. I intend to do just that, despite all the other demands on my time, using a repertoire of campaigning techniques.
The Amnesty Page on local groups
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/groups/
sheffield
has a section on Sheffield Amnesty, with separate sections, 'Latest' and
'Archived.' The most recent material in the 'latest' section dates back to
April 4, 2019. This isn't encouraging at all. Has the group stagnated since
then? Of course, a group can drift, stagnate in its thinking, achieve
nothing whatsoever whilst being exceptionally busy.
Profile: Amnesty's Kristyan Benedict
See also the section in the column to the left, Excesses in war
His ignorance is abysmal. He's Campaign Manager at Amnesty International, responsible for Amnesty's work in Syria and Israel-Palestine but he obviously lacks all-important background knowledge needed for his job - including military realities concerning the death of civilians, the responsible use of the highly charged, so often misused word 'genocide.' For this reason, I include in this section, and in the section 'Excesses in war,' basic information, with images.
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/kristyan-benedict
includes the information about his role and responsibilities at Amnesty and also gives an insight into some of his interests. An extract from the section 'About Me,'
Likes - Traveling, footy, dogs (mine), good food, climbing, drumming, good music (jazz, funk, unclassified and my own, floating in the sea, not getting caught.
His views on very different matters, Israeli-Palestinian issues are simply his 'Likes,' are about himself, uninformed by deeper knowledge.
Kristyan Benedict wrote (in a comment published on 'X', 4 September, 2024) 'The failure of the UK government to suspend all arms transfers to Israel ... means that it remains complicit in the death and destruction that Israel's assault and siege have wrought on Palestinians in Gaza.' I present argument and evidence against his view, with images.
Kristian Benedict - and others at Amnesty - the territory now occupied by Israel (which, unlike the Palestinian territories and Iran, never inflicts the death penalty, which does not criminalize homosexuality and which has so many other liberal policies) could be occupied instead by the Hamas which launched its atrocities against Israel, or by Hezbollah, or Iran itself, or a variety of terrorist forces. What kind of regime would replace Israel? One more in accordance with Amnesty ideals - or barbaric regimes.
To deny arms to Israel would make this barbarism more likely, but what of the 'death and destruction ... wrought on Palestinians and Gaza?
Kristian Benedict obviously has not the least understanding of the difference between civilian casualties in war and genocide. I outline the differences in the second column of my general page on Israel.
This is an extensive extract, with images, from the first column of my page on Cambridge University and other universities, from a section where I criticize Oxford University and academics who signed a document critical of Israel.
Human values, humane values can sometimes only be safeguarded by harsh action, including harsh military action. This was the case during the Second World War, a conflict which was obviously more wide ranging by far. But the savagery displayed in the Hamas attack on Israel of 7 October 2024 was as bad as any of the atrocities which took place during the Second World War.
This is an image of an event on that day which can be shown. The beheadings, mutilations and gross sexual abuse perpetrated then were no doubt recorded then, many of them, but couldn't possibly be shown.
Those acts, and the hostage taking, were unambiguously war crimes, as were the episodes of rocket firing into Israel - and there have been many of those episodes.
The V2 attacks on London and other places during the Second World War were also war crimes. Below, buildings in Whitechapel after the attack of 27 March, 1945, the last but one attack of the war. It killed 134 people.
Allied forces defeated genocidal Nazi Germany not by displays of naive, utopian, superficial thinking but by tactical and strategic thinking which resulted in hard military action, including the use of bombardment.
After D-day, villages, towns and cities in France, Belgium and the Netherlands were liberated by British and other allied forces. Very often, they were liberated by military action which included bombing and artillery fire and very often with civilian casualties. For example, Caen in Normandy was liberated only after being heavily bombed. About 80% of the town was devastated and 3000 civilians were killed. The killing of these civilians was not a war crime. War crimes are determined by, amongst other factors, intentionality, the intent underlying the military action.
Above, A Handley Page Halifax bomber flying over Caen, one of 467 aircraft taking part in a ddaylight raid to assist the Normandy land battle. The aircraft were originally intended to bomb German strongpoints north of Caen, but there were Allied troops near to the targets, so the bombing area was moved nearer to the city, causing massive damage to the northern suburbs.
Around 60,000 French civilians had been killed by allied bombing by the time France was liberated. To use only ground forces was out of the question. Nazi occupied Europe could never have been liberated in this way. Anyone who claims that allied forces were 'no better than Nazis' for frequent killing of civilians is failing to take into account Nazi killings of civilians, which belonged to a different order of reality - reprisal executions, the mass executions of the Einsatzgruppen and, of course, the Holocaust, the worst set of war crimes in human history.
In extreme circumstances, to overcome fanatical opposition, the armed forces of democratic states often have no alternative but to use extreme force – but not ‘extremist force,’ the methods used by fanatics. To use slight force would be to guarantee defeat. Although technological advances have vastly increased the precision of bombing, these cannot overcome all difficulties, for example those arising in very densely populated neighbourhoods such as Gaza.
A stark fact: the families of all the terrorists killed or injured in these horrific attacks in Israel will receive large cash payments from the Palestinian Authority, which calls them ‘Martyr payments.’ The families of Palestinian terrorists killed or injured whilst committing previous acts of terrorism already receive these payments, a reward for spreading death and destruction. ‘Martyr payments’ are also made to the families of terrorists imprisoned by Israel for politically motivated violence, often lethal violence.
Basem Naim, Head of Political and International Relations for Hamas, claimed in an interview not long after the attacks on Israeli civilians that none of the people taken hostage at the time by the terrorists (obviously, he never used the word ‘terrorists’) are civilians! According to this tainted source of information, the child hostages are not civilians and neither are the children killed! This is a claim that deserves to be treated with contempt and revulsion.
He also claimed that it was an absolute necessity to attack Israel. The alternative, he said, would be ‘to die silently by malnutrition.’ Later in the interview, he claimed a Palestinian malnutrition rate of 55% He intended to present a deeply distressing picture of starving Palestinians, deprived of food by the Israelis, but he surely knew that the Palestinian malnutrition problem is obesity, not starvation. There have been a number of studies. A study of 2019 found that among adults 18 years and older, 64% of males and 69.5% of females in the Palestinian territories were overweight. Hamas has a record of using distortion, exaggeration, selectivity, general falsification, often taking grotesque forms - tactics which appeal to credulous people.
Badly needed: a deeper and wider understanding of the Palestinian society which gives such widespread support to Hamas. A clear sighted, fair-minded and comprehensive view of Palestinian society should amongst other things take into account information such as findings of the Pew Research Center. A few examples: stoning to death for adultery may not be practised in the Palestinian territories but 84% of Palestinians support the punishment. The conviction that a woman must always obey her husband is widely held, with 87% support in the Palestinian territories.
Homosexuality is illegal in Gaza, although not in the West Bank. Homosexuality isn’t illegal in Israel, of course. The Gay scene in Israel is a very flourishing one. The Tel Aviv Gay Pride event is one of the largest in the world. As for Iran, the supporter of Hamas, this is a country in the grip of a horrific regime. Homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and political dissidence are amongst the many offences which can be punished with the death penalty.
A society which is liberal, tolerant and open has to have a whole range of other strengths. Essential: alertness to forces that can damage it very severely, perhaps irreparably. A society has to be willing and able to defend itself or risk being damaged or destroyed by ruthless outside forces - with the exception of states which rely upon other states for their defence, generally mistakenly, but not in the case of very small states such as San Marino.
If, hypothetically, Palestinians were granted a state, is it likely that their relations with their neighbour Israel would be harmonious? If, hypothetically, Israel were ever to be wiped out, the new state would be very vulnerable. Its survival could never be guaranteed. It could easily be invaded by a powerful and ruthless adversary that would like to take its territory. As it is, superior Israeli military power guarantees the security of the Palestinian territories, just as the neutral Republic of Ireland was protected against German invasion by the military power of Britain and its allies during the Second World War. The protection against potential aggressors provided by Israel's superior power is a massive advantage for the Palestinians.
The practical problems confronting Hamas were avoidable but Hamas chose not to avoid them. In fact, the problems can only be solved if Hamas is eliminated. Democratic states and organizations should do nothing which helps to save Hamas, directly or indirectly. There are many, many countries in the world facing acute problems to do with basic needs. It’s impossible to give effective help to all of them. The basic economic problem is the problem of scarcity: unlimited wants and finite resources.
Why should Gaza be regarded as not just a deserving cause but a deserving cause which should have absolute priority? Israel and Ukraine deserve the support of the free world, not so Hamas-controlled Gaza. The international community's contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza should only be offered under the most stringent conditions.
Hamas is a basket case and has ruined Gaza, with the support of far too many Palestinians. But in general, they don't deserve a regime as bad as Hamas. The 'they' is a generalization, of course, There are deserving and undeserving Palestinians.
If, with the aid of the horrific Iranian regime (which sentenced 51 people to be stoned to death for adultery in 2022), Palestinians in Gaza had been able to amass a formidable force of multirole combat aircraft, then there can't be the least doubt that they would have done everything in their power to use them for the destruction of Israeli hospitals, homes and schools, as well as Israeli Defence Force positions, without the least concern for 'International Law.'. They have been able, with the aid of the horrific Iranian regime, to equip themselves with rockets and they have used them to attack Israeli civilians on many occasions in previous years and now on a much bigger scale.
The damage from Israeli counter-attacks against Gaza after these previous rocket attacks should have taught Hamas this simple lesson. If you don't want war damage in Gaza and want to protect civilians in Gaza, stop firing rockets and stop breaking ceasefires. But Hamas are very slow learners.
If it wanted to, Iran, a big country, could aid the Palestinians not just by providing them with supplies but by offering them some Iranian territory for a new Palestinian homeland. Would the Palestinians be glad to go there, to live in a place free of Israeli influence? I doubt it. If the barbarity of Hamas (and the Iranian regime) is obvious to anyone with any sense, the stupidity of Hamas (and the Iranian regime) should be obvious to anyone with any sense too.
Wells Amnesty International, Wells Cathedral, Ed Standhaft: praying for the work of Amnesty
The Revd Ed Standhaft is the Group Chair of Wells Amnesty International. He writes the so-called 'Amnesty International Blog'
https://www.wellscathedral.org.uk/archives/111983
which should make it far more clear that the opinions expressed are the views of a Christian believer, someone who isn't entitled to promote Christian views to non-Christian readers. This is an extract:
January update
At the beginning of a new year, the Wells group of Amnesty International wish to thank the Cathedral for the continual support of the work of Amnesty International, particularly in the Saint Catherine Chapel where we are all encouraged to pray for prisoners of conscience and to work for their release.
If you would like to help the work of amnesty and are interested in working for prisoners of conscience, please contact the Reverend Ed Standhaft at edstandhaft@sky.com
Ed will be able to give further details about the Wells Amnesty group, its prisoners and meetings of the group.
The recommendation that all should pray for prisoners of conscience and their release is completely out of order. Members of the Wells group may or may not be thankful to Wells Cathedral. Amnesty International members may be non-Christians and anti-Christians as well as Christians, or, of course, members of other religions. He may believe that prayer makes a difference in these cases but prayer can't possibly be a means of activism for the majority of Amnesty members. But I take the view that so many of the methods used by Amnesty International and its members are no more realistic.
Do the letters and messages sent by Ed Standhaft reflect his Christian views, distort these communications? It's entirely possible. Christian views, like other views, including the vicious ideological views which are now dominant in Amnesty's policy and practice as regards Israeli-Palestinian issues, may well be intrusive in the letters and messages these people send. This is a serious weakness. Amnesty may make recommendations to letter writers regarding etiquette and other matters but has no effective control over gross bias in letter writing. Amnesty International exercises no effective control over its own gross bias.
There are many linkages between Amnesty International and the Church of England, as well as striking differences. Naive views run rampant in both of them. Both like organizing striking or not in the least striking little events intended to have publicity value - generally negligible, and a substitute for far more effective action, such as rganizing an Amnesty vigil or a Church of England vigil. There are many other examples. The flows of funds into the organizations from well-meaning (or calculating) people who could find much better uses for their money. The Church of England is incomparably more wealthy than Amnesty International but Amnesty is far above the poverty line. It rakes in millions of pounds. The failures in oversight. Amnesty International should have detected this particular blunder by this vicar. With its (bloated) staff numbers, it should be easy to scan published material to detect anything which reflects badly on Amnesty. But the local faults are often simply reflecting the gross faults of the national and international organization. The failures of oversight in the Church of England have allowed enormously serious faults and blunders to go unchecked for long periods of time, including very serious sexual abuse.
Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty: a failure of judgment. Amnesty International: an inexcusable delay
Peter Benenson is, of course, the founder of Amnesty International. On this page, I concentrate my attention on the failings of present day Amnesty, but Amnesty was flawed in its origins. As is well known, Peter Benenson was led to found this new organization after finding that some Portuguese people had been sentenced to imprisonment for subversion during the authoritarian regime of Estado Novo. An organization to oppose such acts was founded, using letter writing as a tactic to bring change, or attempt to bring change.
He was right to oppose the treatment of these Portuguese 'prisoners of conscience,' to use the description used by Amnesty, but wrong, very wrong, to have ignored one particular aspect of the case, which reflected badly on the British society of the time, even though it did not outweigh the strengths of British society.
Amnesty was founded in 1961. The last British hangings took place in 1964. At the time Amnesty was founded, a campaign to abolish the death penalty was an urgent necessity. Peter Benenson was indifferent, obviously. It never occurred to him that hanging could be questioned, that hanging should be abolished.
The contrast with Portuguese practice was stark. From the Wikipedia account:
Portugal was the first country in the world to begin the process to abolish the death penalty,abolishing it in stages. For political crimes capital punishment was abolished in 1852, for all crimes except the military in 1867, and for all crimes in 1911. In 1916, Portugal entered in World WarI and it was re-established for military crimes in wartime with a foreign country in the theatre of war.
With the new Constitution in 1976, capital punishment was again abolished for all crimes.
The last execution in Portugal took place in Lagos [in Southern Portugal, not the city in Nigeria] in 1846.
It took a long time before Amnesty International began to work against the death penalty. Work started only in 1977: This long delay can't be excused.
See also my page on the death penalty
www.linkagenet.com/themes/deathpenalty.htm
