r/JewsOfConscience • u/AH_Sam Israeli for One State • 14d ago
News Chair of the board of Amnesty Israel resigns following treatment of Palestinians within group, biased critique of genocide report.
https://forward.com/opinion/681370/why-i-resigned-as-chairman-of-amnesty-israel/Daniil Brodsky, chair of Amnesty’s Israeli branch resigns after witnessing unjust treatment of Palestinians within the group, and unscholarly criticism of Amnesty International’s genocide report.
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u/AH_Sam Israeli for One State 14d ago
Daniil’s also a friend of mine, might get him to do an AMA if there’s a demand :)
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u/Carlsen021 Anti-Zionist 13d ago
Pity he did not stay and impose changes. I expect he was hounded out by particular staff members.
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u/AH_Sam Israeli for One State 13d ago
I think it’s a question for Danny but from my convos with him that’s the exact reason he was there in the first place. Once he witnessed the systematic mistreatment of Palestinians within Amnesty Israel, and saw how they can just ignorantly dismiss complex academic reports because it doesn’t fit their personal agenda, it was the breaking point where he realized he is powerless there, and being part of it is being part of the problem.
His only way to impose changes was resigning and publicizing this story, and it has lead to some actual consequences Amnesty Israel has been bearing from their superior Amnesty International. IMO this was definitely the correct move.
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u/andorgyny Anti-Zionist Ally 13d ago
Omg!!! That would be amazing! I hope he gets poached by another organization that actually lives up to the mission of the organization.
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u/Zellgun Non-Jewish Ally 14d ago
I’m a Muslim from a Muslim majority country and I’ve noticed something incredibly interesting.
In the western mainstream media, we often get exposed to the powerful and important progressive voices and human rights defenders risking personal safety to fight for the rights of the marginalized in Islamic countries. However, it seems to be the opposite for Israel where we rarely hear about the Israelis fighting tooth and nail to highlight and end the injustices happening in their country. It’s really interesting to observe.
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u/AH_Sam Israeli for One State 14d ago
I mean yeah, the ceasefire movement within Israel that has been protesting is getting 0 coverage in mainstream media. Most people in the West aren’t aware that is a thing, there are people that are committing a hunger strike outside the Knesset for 60+ days. 0 coverage on both local and international mainstream media.
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u/StoneyPicton 13d ago
Bit hasn't foreign media been severly curtailed in isreal now? Not saying it wouldn't have happened anyway.
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u/joe_the_insane 13d ago
Is there anyway to know how much of the israel population wants the war to stop because of the poor treatment of palestinians?
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u/ComradeTortoise Jewish Communist 13d ago
That's because in the West, our media is mostly owned by large media conglomerates which are in turn owned by our Military Industrial Complex, which for obvious reasons wants to manufacture consent for war and conflict with America's self-described enemies in order to pad their own bottom lines. As a result, while individual journalists can be very good, what gets covered and what does not typically has not only a pro-capitalist bias, but also an imperialist bias. Which means highlighting stories portraying Muslim countries poorly, while ignoring the crimes of US allies. Highlighting or even outright manufacturing dissent in nations opposed to the United States (such as portraying a protest in Gaza as being a protest in Havana), while downplaying or completely ignoring dissent within allied Nations like Israel.
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u/PlinyToTrajan Non-Jewish Ally (Jewish ancestry & relatives) 13d ago
The local Jews where I live in America feel very protective of Israel and want to secure its existence, and they portray Hamas as nothing but evil terrorists, but at the same time they have nothing but harsh words for the Netanyahu government. Most of them are Democratic Party members and they recognize Netanyahu's government as a far-right government akin to the Trump administration or Viktor Orbán's government in Hungary.
FYI I don't mean every single individual, but the prevailing sentiment amongst the local Jewish community. I have a few local, Jewish friends who openly say that Israel is committing a genocide.
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u/Carlsen021 Anti-Zionist 14d ago edited 14d ago
Have you any examples of in-country groups in Muslim countries fighting vocally for the rights of gays? Are they having any effect?
Genuine question.
In Yeezreal they are allowed, and can function if they are Jews. If they are solely Arab organisations they get shut down.
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u/Altaltshift Jewish Anti-Zionist 14d ago edited 14d ago
All that information is a quick search away, here's a place to start: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_feminism (edit: the comment said women until it was edited, so that's what I was responding to)
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u/Carlsen021 Anti-Zionist 14d ago edited 14d ago
My question was addressed to u/zellgun…
‘Google it’ is not the answer I was looking for.
I was looking for an indication of effectiveness with the authorities.
Particularly as regards gay rights. Women are not such a problem, they have a place in many countries like Iran, Morocco, Indonesia within power structures.
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u/Altaltshift Jewish Anti-Zionist 14d ago
Well I'm still not that person but I googled it for you again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_the_Middle_East
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u/Carlsen021 Anti-Zionist 13d ago
Thank you. Cyprus, Yeezreal, Jordan and Turkey allow LGBT same-sex relationships. In most countries in the ME it’s jail or death penalty
Let me explain why I asked the question:- I was curious as to the freedom of minority groups to influence government policy, and to the extent they were allowed to do this. Particularly LGBT due to the mores within the Islamic religion.
Curiously there is still, in India, a law on the statute books going back to the 19th century and introduced by the British that makes gay relationships jail-able. I don’t know if that has been overturned but I do know LGBT groups were fighting to have it rescinded. Don’t know what the status is now. But gay groups were not stopped from fighting that bit of archaic injustice in that country.
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u/EmmThem Non-Jewish Ally 13d ago
You’re presenting an argument and asking everyone else to defend it for you when the actual googled responses contradict your claim.
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u/Carlsen021 Anti-Zionist 13d ago
I am not presenting an argument. I am asking a question. Pls read my post again.
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u/GlitteringPotato1346 Non-Jewish Ally 13d ago
No they are not having much of an effect right now, activism is very much a sudden thing where you must work for YEARS with no progress before suddenly your small growth in public opinion and historical length of the movement reaches a critical mass where rapidly laws get changed and protests occur on large scales
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u/bonic_r 14d ago
Have you any examples of Muslim countries using their air forces to bomb Israel while claiming it is self-defense over the past 20 years?
Genuine question.
In yekhraelz they bomb foreign, non-invading countries hundreds of times per year but claim it is self-defense. Not being bombed is a basic human right that supersedes being able to freely exercise your sexual orientation.
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u/Carlsen021 Anti-Zionist 13d ago
No there are no Muslim countries bombing Yeezreal / yechraelz. The latter are the serial aggressors of course.
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u/daudder Anti-Zionist 14d ago
This is why Amnesty normally does not cover countries in-country with local people.
That said, these people are clearly racist Zionists and Amnesty is best rid of them.
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u/OrganicOverdose Non-Jewish Ally 14d ago
It's pretty hard to do a clean-out of an established entity, I would think. Like, does Amnesty now sever all ties with its Israeli branch? Start a new branch with a selected board? It's difficult to spin this for Amnesty, and I agree, this article is the best case scenario for them, essentially internally publicizing that the branch is corrupt on this issue.
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u/Correct_Brilliant435 14d ago
One of the many problems is that Israeli Jews are both ostracized if they express actual support for Palestinians and opposition to the genocide or to Israel's apartheid policies, AND it seems that many are in denial about what is happening and are clinging to all sorts of explanations about why it is not really a genocide.
The most powerful explanation they are using is that the accusations of genocide are just antisemitism. Yes, of course that is utter nonsense but denial is very powerful for a reason - it is protecting them against the utter horror of the reality that they are complicit in a genocide.
You see this issue even in Israel's leftwing (so called) NGOs who attempt to create projects that "help" Palestinians (or Arab Israelis as they call them). They recognize there is a problem in Israel with immense discrimination against Palestinians. But they cannot let go of their own hegemony. So the result is a very patronizing situation like the one you describe, where Palestinians are used as props to make them feel better, but they will not countenance any sort of one state solution.
There are some Israelis who are "fighting tooth and nail" for the end of the occupation - the ones who go to the West Bank and act as shields to try to stop the IDF from harming / killing Palestinians there. Breaking the Silence. Yesh Din. But this issue, where "liberal Zionists" want more rights for Palestinians but not EQUAL rights, oh no -- is a massive obstacle.
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u/EducationalBunch9291 Anti-Zionist 13d ago
"The most powerful explanation they are using is that the accusations of genocide are just antisemitism. Yes, of course that is utter nonsense but denial is very powerful for a reason - it is protecting them against the utter horror of the reality that they are complicit in a genocide."
As a psychologist, what you said here is spot on. At this point if they don't use denial and any mental gymnastics possible to justify what is going on... everything from killing innocent civilians to being completely comfortable of starving an entire population including innocent children... if they don't use all mental gymnastics possible to justify deny these things... it would be very difficult for them to live with themselves as human beings.
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u/velvetjacket1 14d ago edited 13d ago
A very meaningful move that I hope will be widely reported on.
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u/Gilamath Non-Jewish Ally 13d ago
What strikes me is the sheer kindness here. It really makes a person think. Imagine being immersed in an environment where your very survival as a individual, a member of a community, and as part of a historically oppressed ethic group has been connected for your entire life to the notion that constant warfare and oppression is necessary, but also that all the warfare is defensive and all the oppression is actually just trying to keep order. Imagine having a life molded for you such that you never have to see the people your country is killing and oppressing. It would be so easy, so effortless to build a life for yourself where that's all you ever know or believe in
And yet in the midst of all that, you someone like this who not only went out of his way to see a truth that goes against a major portion of your upbringing, but also joined and became chair of the board of an organization that seeks to set right some of the injustice inherent to the reality that he never had to think about if he really didn't want to. And then, he gave up that chair, because he recognized that the organization he was chairing wasn't doing right by the people it claims to be fighting for. How did he even come to a point in his life where he could recognize that? It's a remarkable thing for such a person to do. It requires an exquisitely honed morality that can only come from years of service and dedication
Would I have come to be like him, were I born into the life he was born into? Would I have been able to recognize the nuances he recognized, if I were raised in a way explicitly designed to keep me from even thinking of Palestinians as fully human? Would I have seen so clearly the way in which Palestinian voices were excluded from the room, if nearly every room I'd ever been in had been purposely designed to exclude Palestinian voices? What a remarkable moral feat
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u/AH_Sam Israeli for One State 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you for this comment, I'll make sure Danny reads it. TBH this comment even made me emotional... It's powerful to look at your life from an outsider's ally perspective, reminds me that we're on the right track no matter how much of a minority we are. It also makes me envious to live in a society where my view is not a considered an infidelity.
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