Amnesty International suspends Israel branch for rejecting NGO’s reports, ‘anti-Palestinian racism’
The International Board of Amnesty has suspended Amnesty International Israel’s (AI) membership with the non-governmental organization’s network for two years in response to the Israeli branch’s criticism of the international body’s recent reports on Israel and allegations that the Israel branch systematically excluded Palestinians, according to leaked internal memorandums issued on Monday.
Insiders say, however, that evidence of racism may have been orchestrated by AI leadership and the international body has its own obsession and bias against Israel.
“We take this action in response to evidence of endemic anti-Palestinian racism within AI Israel, which violates core human rights principles and Amnesty values, and evidence of AI Israel’s misalignment with and hostility to Amnesty positions,” said a Monday email from the IB Amnesty International interim chair Tiumalu Lauvale Peter Fa’afiu.
Fa’afiu asserted that Amnesty Israel had taken action against Amnesty International’s research publicizing differing opinions against the 2022 report Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity and the 2023 report You Feel Like You Are Subhuman:’ Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.
“AI Israel has sought to publicly discredit Amnesty’s human rights research and positions,” said Fa’afiu. “Its efforts to publicly undermine the findings and recommendations of Amnesty’s 2022 report on Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians and, more recently, Amnesty’s 2024 report on Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, have been deeply prejudicial to Amnesty’s human rights mission, threatening our credibility, integrity and operational coherence.”
Amnesty Israel in December had rejected AI’s findings accusing the State of Israel of committing genocide during the war against Hamas in Gaza, arguing that the allegation of genocide had not been “sufficiently substantiated.” The Israel branch did express that it believed that there was possible widespread international law violations, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Amnesty Israel also noted that a minority of its team did believe that there was enough information to establish that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
Fa’afiu cited an article by former Amnesty Israel members Amal Ourabi and Muhammad Abdel Kader, who wrote in a December 16 Mekomit opinion piece that there was an internal crisis in the branch due to the report. Other Israeli members reportedly expressed harsh criticism for investigations of racism in the local branch while turning a blind eye to antisemitism within the movement. The whistleblowers related that Israeli branch members also alleged that AI leadership was politicizing human rights discourse and promoting anti-Israel policies.
Amnesty Israel reportedly threatened to close their own branch if the global movement didn’t take steps to improve. Ourabi and Kader said that they left because Amnesty Israel supposedly ignored Israeli human rights violations, and was focused on the impact of October 7 when a year later the war barely impacted Israelis as Palestinians continued to suffer.
Former Amnesty Israel director Yonatan Gher supported the article in a December 17 social media post, asserting that the Israeli branch served as “the guardian of the Israeli government against the human rights movement.”
Amnesty Israel criticized the 2022 report for painting the country in broad strokes, ignoring the differences between different groups and exaggerating some of the framing, Times of Israel reported.
Anonymous sources within Amnesty International disagreed with claims that the Israel branch’s characterization as “hostile” to criticism of the country, contending that the local group had been critical both of the Israeli government as well as Palestinian bodies, addressing human rights issues regardless of where they arose.
One source shared with The Jerusalem Post that Amnesty International didn’t allow local branches to review the 2023 genocide allegation report, limiting access to the executive summary. This was reportedly a unique practice.
Amnesty International also claimed that it was suspending the Israeli branch because of “endemic anti-Palestinian racism.”
“AI Israel has failed to respond effectively to findings of endemic anti-Palestinian racism — a situation which led to complaints from Palestinian board members to the International Board in 2022, and to successive resignations in 2022, 2023 and 2024,” said Fa’afiu.
“Palestinian voices low on the agenda” – then-Amnesty Israel chair
The international board shared a notice from then-Amnesty Israel chair Daniil Brodsky announcing his resignation on November 29, as well as the resignation of his vice chair and another board member ahead of the genocide allegation report.
“During the last members’ assembly, it quickly became apparent that Palestinian voices are not just something low on the agenda, but that they are actively silenced,” said Brodsky. “One of the Palestinian board members was humiliated in a racist and disgusting way at the assembly. We could not respect the decisions made by the assembly, and certainly not represent them. We could not condone a space hostile to Palestinians, and a human rights space for Israeli Jews only is one that I can scarcely justify.”
Brodsky claimed in the letter and a December 10 Forward article that he had attempted to introduce more Palestinian representation in managerial roles, but to no avail. Brodsky asserted that not only did Amnesty Israel not have the legal experts to criticize the genocide report, but it didn’t have Palestinian input into its analysis. This was part of an alleged systemic problem in the group in which Palestinians were ignored.
“Amnesty Israel finds itself in the awkward position of being neither a source of legal expertise, nor providing a diverse human rights perspective of Israelis and Palestinians,” wrote Brodsky. ‘It is just another place for Israeli Jews to express themselves.”
Yet Amnesty International insiders told the Post that they didn’t believe reports about anti-Palestinian racism in the Israel branch, noting its commitment to Palestinian human rights issues. The sources were also suspicious about the proliferation of the allegation and material like Brodsky’s article, with one source going so far as to assert that AI leadership had laid the groundwork for the racism allegation to justify the suspension.
Amnesty’s “obsession” with Israel
The anonymous sources also expressed concern about Amnesty’s own “obsession” with Israel, devoting significant portions of the organization’s international, regional, and local resources to the Levantine conflict. One source said that activists were using their positions to pursue personal campaigns against Israel, noting one researcher in the 2022 apartheid report later transitioned to working in a BDS group.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a leaked Monday email that the organization would discuss the suspension at a January 21 “cluster call,” and Fa’afiu said that a Review Committee would be mandated to “determine whether Amnesty International Israel has a future within the Amnesty Movement” and what the process would be to address concerns with the branch.
One Amnesty International insider said that the Israel branch hadn’t been notified and consulted ahead of the suspension decision in a manner that allowed for meaningful appeal. The source also noted that the suspension also came the same month that Amnesty International was supposed to issue its October 7 Massacre report, bringing its development into question.
The document will reportedly not be apply a genocide standard, and focus on other crimes. The suspension of a local affiliate is reportedly of little direct impact to the operation of the Israel branch, the source shared, as they largely act autonomously — the matter was mostly about the AI brand.
“This action is taken under the authority of Article 34 of the Statute of Amnesty International (POL 20/8464/2024) and is necessary to protect the reputation, integrity and operational coherence of the Amnesty Movement at large,” Fa’afiu said in the Monday email.
One whistleblower criticized the current financial troubles of Amnesty Israel, saying that there was no transparency about how the movement’s reports and actions impacted membership. The source pointed to management issues as being the main issue that led to finance crises, with interim leadership in key positions. It was a point of criticism from the source that key roles were not yet finalized, but the organization had prioritized the suspension of one of its affiliates.
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