A few months after war broke out, an acquaintance suggested I join Amnesty Israel's board of directors. "I recently joined, and I believe it is important that you will be there," he said.
I replied that the only reason to consider joining is the wish to strengthen the Palestinian voice in the organization. This was no idle response. Since the beginning of the war I spoke with several Palestinian friends, employees and board members at Amnesty Israel, and the talks conjured a grim image of the organization's internal conduct, particularly toward Palestinian personnel. A few weeks after October 7, eight of nine Palestinian board members resigned.
The acquaintance set up an introductory meeting for us, by Zoom, with the management and the board; you could sense the tension. This had to do with the Israeli branch being up in arms about the resignations and worldwide criticism.
As for myself, I was angry and disappointed at their conduct. The organization's people introduced themselves and their commitment, while I introduced myself and my commitment. "Why do you wish to join Amnesty Israel?" I was asked. "To strengthen the Palestinian voice," I said, adding that I was aware of what has been going on backstage.
The conversation concluded, and I was told they need to discuss the matter with the rest of the board members and make a decision together. To the best of my recollection, at the time, there were only Jewish members on the board. The acquaintance told me that the interview was "Almost perfect. You could have maybe been more diplomatic." Amnesty Israel never called me back.
So news of the suspension of the Israeli branch by the international organization for disagreements and for the Israeli branch's attempts to publicly undermine the credibility of the organization's human rights studies and positions, as well as allegations of racist conduct toward Palestinians in the Israeli branch – did not surprise me.
The conduct of Amnesty Israel nowadays very much reflects the tension discussed by Edward Said in his theory of patriotism and distance. In this case, the crisis is evident in the tension between Amnesty Israel members' commitment to the values of universal human rights and their need to defend the state of Israel on the international stage. Members of Amnesty Israel chose patriotism over the values of protecting human rights.
Obviously, the Israeli branch sought to defend the state of Israel rather than the Israeli regime, because by defending Israel, its members are defending themselves, their brothers, their soldiers, their own flesh and blood. But here lies the reason for the crisis: defending the state of Israel has led them to deny and understate its crimes.
This was a grotesque show. It is called patriotic blindness. I do not believe that all Amnesty Israel members are necessarily racist, but their national commitment has resulted in a distortion of the values of the Israeli branch, in giving up on pursuing truth and justice and in downplaying the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian victims.
And if Amnesty Israel behaved this way, what is there to say about most Israelis, who care nothing at all about human rights, and for whom the notion of listening to the Palestinian voice and lending it weight seems disloyal, sometimes to the point of treason.