Exerting pressure

Last Week’s Amnesty International report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza is unprecedented. This is the first time a major global human rights organisation issued such a finding, and the first time Amnesty took this step during an ongoing conflict. Amnesty’s objective was to exert pressure on the Western powers to halt the flow of arms to Israel and end the war.

In the 296-page report, entitled, “You Feel like You Are Subhuman. Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty documented the impacts of Israel’s military offensive launched in response to the Oct.7, 2003, attack on southern Israel by Hamas which killed around 1,200 and abducted 251. Since then, Israel has killed 44,500 and wounded 105,500 Palestinians.

The title of the report was suggested by Mohammed whose family was displaced from Gaza City to Rafah in the south and then to Deir al-Balah in the centre of the strip. He said, “Its like an apocalypse…You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat. And there is no clean water, no toilets, all the while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.”

The report documents Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention adopted in 1948 in the wake of World War II and the Nazi Holocaust. The Convention defines “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These acts include harming, traumatising or killing members of the group, imposing living conditions meant to destroy the group, preventing births, and abducting the group’s children.

Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard specifically mentioned the first three: “These acts include killings, causing serious bodily harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.”

It is hardly surprising that the US and Germany reject the Amnesty report. “We have said previously and continue to find the allegations of genocide to be unfounded,” State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel stated. He downgraded Amnesty’s well documented findings as “an opinion.” The US provides Israel with 69 per cent of the arms and munitions it imports, including the 900-kilogram bombs dropped on densely populated neighbourhoods in Gaza which have contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

German foreign ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer said: “The question of genocide presupposes a clear intention to eradicate an ethnic group. I still do not recognise any such clear intention and therefore I cannot share the conclusions of the report.” Germany supplies Israel with 39 per cent of imported weapons.

The Israeli military refuted the report by saying it is fighting in self-defence and the accusation of genocide is “entirely baseless.” Once made, however, the accusation is likely to stick.

Despite the dismissals of Washington, Berlin, and Tel Aviv, the Amnesty report could intensify push Israel to temper its military assault on Gaza and on Israel’s friends and allies to boost efforts to halt the war.

Amnesty is not a favourite with the US which has been accused of grave human rights violations during its stewardship of Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021 as well as partnering with serial abusers outside the US and violating domestic activists’ rights.

Amnesty emerged in 1961. Its birth was proclaimed in an article in “The Observer “newspaper by Peter Berenson in an appeal for amnesty for Portuguese student activists who dared challenge the dictator-ship of Antonio Salazar who had ruled the country since 1932. Amnesty’s initial campaigns aimed at obtaining freedom for “prisoners of conscience.” Among the well-known figures were Israel’s Mordechai Vanunu who publicised its nuclear weapons programme, Czech activist Vaclav Havel, Bangladesh’s Khaleda Zia who was jailed for corruption after a criticised trial, Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim who was accused of corruption, Russia’s political activist Alexei Navalny, and US soldier Kimberly Rivera who was imprisoned for fleeing to Canada after for refusing to serve in Iraq. South Africa’s Nelson Mandela was rejected by Amnesty because he advocated and took part in violent resistance to the apartheid regime.

In addition to campaigning for freedom for prisoners of conscience, Amnesty aided their families, dispatched observers to trials, and found asylum and jobs for prisoners. Due to its expanding activities, Amnesty was granted consultative status by the United Nations, the Council of Europe and UNESCO.

In 1966, Berenson resigned as chairman after accusing British intelligence and the US Central Intelligence Agency of bugging Amnesty offices and charged senior members with colluding with them. During the 1970s and 1980s, Amnesty exerted pressure on governments to apply standard regulations for the treatment of prisoners and urged the ratification of UN human rights conventions. To secure financial independence, Amnesty was aided by top British comedians to stage entertainments dubbed “Secret Policemen’s Balls” and organised “Conspiracy of Hope” concerts in the US. Amnesty won the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978.

During the 1990s, Amnesty joined the battle against the South African apartheid regime, Nigeria’s arrest and execution of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who sought to avoid extradition from Spain over his brutal crackdown on opponents following his coup against leftist Salvador Allende in 1973. Amnesty faced a serious challenge following al Qaeda’s 2001 attack on New York and Washington when the US opened its prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba which Amnesty compared to a Soviet Gulag.

 As Amnesty’s role has expanded and global support has grown to embrace millions, the movement has tackled major violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes. opening a fresh line of investigation. in 2009 and 2014, Amnesty accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during offensives in Gaza, preparing the precarious ground for the 2024 allegation of genocide.

Photo: TNS