The nongovernmental human rights organization Amnesty International does some valuable work around the world. This includes bringing attention to human rights abuses such as China's genocide against its Uyghur Muslim population, for example. Unfortunately, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Amnesty's work often fails the truth test.
A new report released on Monday emphasized as much. Focused on Israel's recent mid-May conflict with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or the PIJ, Amnesty's report misreads both the laws of war and the nature of the battles.
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For a start, the report offers stunning disinterest in the causal factor for this outbreak of violence. Namely, the PIJ's launching of dozens of rockets against southern Israel and the escalating terrorist plots by PIJ and its sponsor, Iran. It was only in response to those actions that the IDF air force was deployed. Rewriting history, Amnesty declares that Israel began the conflict. Nor is there much concern here for the Israeli civilians left to live under an onslaught of rockets. Amnesty's Heba Morayef admits that the PIJ's rockets are "indiscriminate" but adds only that Israeli "victims be granted prompt and adequate redress."
Of what redress doth thou speak?
We're not told. This is thus textbook anti-Israel rhetoric. Terrorist attacks are condemned, but Israel's right to self-defense and/or justice is abandoned to an utterly impractical legal recourse. Amnesty seems to want us to believe that Hamas would turn over PIJ operatives if only Israel requested their extradition. It's silly. Regardless, the Israeli government has neither the luxury nor the moral right to such delusion. Its responsibility is to defend its people.
Amnesty's propaganda has only just gotten started.
The report singles out three IDF airstrikes that targeted three PIJ commanders who were hiding in densely populated civilian areas. One strike targeted an apartment in a two-story building. Amnesty decries that this attack killed two teenage girls living in a neighboring apartment. With dripping disdain, the report observes that the IDF used a GBU-39 bomb in the strike, a weapon "exported to Israel from the United States."
To be clear, the loss of those innocent girls is a tragedy. As are the losses of other innocent Palestinians and Israelis. It's why a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should continue to drive U.S. foreign policy. It's also true that the IDF ground forces have, on occasion, exploited their rules of engagement at excessive cost to civilians. Still, a few other points are also highly relevant here.
For one, why is it bad that the U.S. exported the GBU-39 to a close ally? That bomb is especially designed, after all, to limit collateral damage by focusing energy on a limited target radius (hence why Israel likes using it in Gaza — to mitigate risks to civilians). Israel could easily use larger weapons, which offer a higher confidence in mission success. It does not do so because more civilians would be put at more risk.
Second, why does Amnesty excuse PIJ commanders for hiding among civilians? No Israeli military officer would have such callous disregard for their fellow citizens as to hide among civilians. In contrast, PIJ commanders hide among civilians very deliberately, hoping Israeli fears of civilian casualties will deter an attack upon them. In the worst case, these commanders take solace that their death will likely join that of civilians, thus jeopardizing Israel's international standing.
The basic point here is that Amnesty isn't interested in covering this conflict seriously. We learn as much with the report's partisan conclusion. We're told that the "root cause of this unspeakable violence is Israel’s system of apartheid."
Actually, it's the PIJ's desire to push Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea.