‘Predetermined conclusions’: Amnesty Israel workers slam parent group’s ‘genocide’ charge

Amnesty Israel, the local branch of the Amnesty International organization, rejected a report released Thursday by its parent group that accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, with some members accusing the report’s authors of reaching a “predetermined conclusion.”

Amnesty Israel said that although the death and destruction in Gaza had reached “catastrophic proportions,” its own analysis did not find that Israel’s actions met the definition of genocide.

The Israeli branch of the international rights group asserted, however, that Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas following the terror group’s massacres of October 7, 2023, “may amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.”

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Gaza’s Hamas health ministry claims that some 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Strip since the war began — figures that cannot be verified and that don’t differentiate between civilians and members of terror groups — while Israel estimates that it has killed 18,000 combatants.

The death and destruction has led accusations of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice and to the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for its leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Jerusalem rejects these charges, saying it only attacks military targets and that civilian casualties are largely the result of Hamas embedding its military installations and personnel deep within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.

In the statement released by Amnesty Israel on Thursday, the group stated that it was not involved in the research, funding or writing of the Amnesty International report and that it “does not accept the claim that genocide has been proven to be taking place in the Gaza Strip and does not accept the operative findings of the report.”

It contended that although “the scale of the killing and destruction carried out by Israel in Gaza has reached horrific proportions and must be stopped immediately,” it does not believe that the events “meet the definition of genocide as strictly laid out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

Amnesty Israel noted that the Genocide Convention requires proof that these actions were carried out with the “specific intent” to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza “in whole or in part.”

“Based on our analysis, put together in consultation with external experts, many of us have doubts regarding the possibility of proving unequivocally, and beyond any reasonable alternative explanation, the element of intent,” Amnesty Israel stated.

It also noted that “there are diverse voices within Amnesty Israel,” though “the majority position… believes that the claim that Israel is committing genocide is unfounded.”

A “minority of Amnesty Israel members believe that, based on the available information, it can be determined that Israel is committing or has committed genocide in Gaza,” it said, but stressed that “this is not the position of Amnesty Israel.”

Despite rejecting the claim of genocide, Amnesty Israel nevertheless asserted that Israel’s actions in Gaza “raise suspicions of widespread and serious violations of international law and crimes against humanity,” and called for steps to be taken that will bring an immediate end to the war in Gaza.

The statement also appeared to criticize the double standard adopted by Amnesty International with regard to Israel and Hamas.

“There have been allegations that both the massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7 and the Israeli attack on Gaza following the massacre were genocide or attempted genocide,” Amnesty Israel stated. “It is imperative and correct to investigate these allegations and to ensure that the standard required to prove intent to commit genocide is universal and consistent for all parties, as well as in any other case in the world where similar concerns are raised.”

The United States also rejected the characterization of the war as genocide, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said during a press briefing Thursday.

“We disagree with the conclusions of such a report. We have said previously and continue to find the allegations of genocide to be unfounded,” Patel said.

He stressed that the US still believes that rights groups play a critical role in providing analysis on what is happening in Gaza, even if Washington disagrees with their findings in this particular instance. Patel also said the US disagrees with the Foreign Ministry’s characterization of Amnesty International as “deplorable.”

And while the US doesn’t view the war in Gaza as a genocide, it remains very concerned about the humanitarian situation there and will continue to remind Israel that it has a moral and strategic responsibility to comply with international law, Patel said.

In a separate statement obtained by the Haaretz newspaper, several members of Amnesty Israel and Jewish members of Amnesty International went one step further and accused the report of producing an “artificial analysis” of the situation in the Gaza Strip.

“From the outset, the report was referred to in international correspondence as the ‘genocide report,’ even when the research was still in its initial stages,” Haaretz cited the Amnesty members as saying.

“This is a strong indication of bias and also a factor that can cause additional bias: Imagine how difficult it is for a researcher to work for months on a report titled ‘genocide report’ and then to have to conclude that it is ‘only’ about crimes against humanity,” they added. “Predetermined conclusions of this kind are not typical of other Amnesty International investigations.”

They accused the report of having been “motivated by a desire to support a popular narrative among Amnesty International’s target audience” that stemmed from “an atmosphere within Amnesty International of minimizing the seriousness of the October 7 massacre. It is a failure – and sometimes even a refusal – to address the Israeli victims in a personal and humane manner.”

The statement said efforts by Jewish staff to raise these concerns with Amnesty International were ignored.

The reported statement called for the organization to “critically reconsider the working procedures and methodologies that led to the publication of this flawed report.”

The Amnesty International report has generated severe reverberations inside Amnesty Israel, with four of its nine-member board of management having resigned in recent days, according to Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister website.

According to the Zman report, three of the board members resigned on the grounds that the organization’s representation of Palestinian voices is insufficient, while the fourth board member stepped down on the grounds that Israel’s perspective is not adequately represented within the organization.

Amnesty Israel, at the end of its formal statement, called for five measures to be taken as a result of the current war, including international pressure to bring about a ceasefire and secure the release of “all Israeli hostages” alongside “the release of Palestinian detainees who were imprisoned without due process.”

It also called for the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza to satisfy the needs of the civilian population, which many aid organizations assert is currently not being provided at a sufficient scale — Israel says it isn’t hindering aid and accuses international groups of failing to deliver it — as well as “active involvement of the international community” to resolve what it said was the root causes of violence, including “the occupation, siege, and apartheid in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967,” as well as tackling the activities of “armed actors in the region including Iran and Hezbollah.” PJC