{"id":93856,"date":"2022-03-14T17:05:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T15:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=93856"},"modified":"2022-03-14T10:25:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T08:25:45","slug":"22-05-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=93856","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty International official is \u2018opposed\u2019 to Israel as a Jewish state"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Amnesty International official is \u2018opposed\u2019 to Israel as a Jewish state<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

RON KAMPEAS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Amnesty International logo is seen in their office in Hong Kong, October 2021. (Isaac Lawrence\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (JTA<\/a><\/strong><\/span>) \u2014 An Amnesty International official said that the organization is opposed to Israel continuing to exist as a Jewish state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are opposed to the idea \u2014 and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate \u2014 that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people,\u201d Paul O\u2019Brien, the human rights monitor\u2019s U.S. director, said in a luncheon this week with the Women\u2019s National Democratic Club in Washington D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jewish Insider first reported the remarks.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien said late Friday on Twitter that his remarks had been removed from context, although he did not contest the quotes themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJewish Insider\u2019s headline claims that I and Amnesty questioned the right of Israel to exist,\u201d he said. \u201cI did not and Amnesty takes no position on the legitimacy of any state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien also said on Twitter that \u201cI said that while we recognize the right of self-determination for Jewish and Palestinian people as a basic human right, we take no position on the legal or political solutions that any people may take to exercise that right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Taking a position on whether and how an established state should continue to exist is unusual for organizations with responsibilities limited to monitoring compliance with international laws governing freedoms and human rights. O\u2019Brien\u2019s comments immediately drew a torrent of condemnation from Jewish groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was any doubt about Amnesty\u2019s credibility as a legitimate voice of authority, it is now abundantly clear that they are firmly entrenched in the cadre of extremist anti-Israel provocateurs,\u201d William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Friday in an interview, Earlier he had\u00a0tweeted that O\u2019Brien\u2019s remarks were outrageous<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. \u201cIt is clear that their true vision is a Middle East without Israel as a Jewish state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called on O\u2019Brien to apologize to Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYour obsessive, relentless focus on Israel, and the erasure of the Jewish right to self-determination illustrates a dangerous degree of bias,\u201d he tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien also said at the event covered by Jewish Insider that he did not believe polls that showed the\u00a0vast majority of American Jews back Israel<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there\u2019s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home,\u201d he said, apparently referring to a theory advanced by\u00a0a small cadre of intellectuals that imagines a binational Jewish-Palestinian state\u00a0that would act as a safe haven for Jews<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his Twitter comments, O\u2019Brien cited a poll that last year that showed a substantial minority of American Jews believe Israel \u201cis an Apartheid state.\u201d That poll\u00a0also showed overwhelming majority support for Israel\u2019s existence.<\/a><\/span>
\nJewish groups, including\u00a0groups that are often critical of Israel, were especially offended by O\u2019Brien\u2019s assumptions about what Jews think.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPolling shows the vast majority of American Jews, like J Street, support Israel\u2019s future as a democratic state and homeland for the Jewish people,\u201d J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group said on Twitter. \u201cAmnesty USA would be well-served to stick to its expertise in human rights + international law \u2014 and not try to assess Jewish public opinion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Americans for Peace Now praised Amnesty\u2019s human rights advocacy, but also advised the group to stay within the normative bounds of a human rights watchdog.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmnesty International plays an important role in documenting human rights violations worldwide, not in interpreting public opinion or in prescribing the collective conversation within America\u2019s Jewish community,\u201d Ori Nir, the group\u2019s spokesman, said in an email.<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien\u2019s remarks appear to signal a shift. In a controversial report in January accusing Israel of practicing apartheid in the West Bank, Amnesty was careful\u00a0to remove passages before publication that would have suggested that Israel itself was an apartheid state<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Amnesty International official is \u2018opposed\u2019 to Israel as a Jewish state RON KAMPEAS The Amnesty International logo is seen in their office in Hong Kong, October 2021. (Isaac Lawrence\/AFP via Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) \u2014 An Amnesty International official said that the organization is opposed to Israel continuing to exist as a Jewish state. \u201cWe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93856"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93861,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93856\/revisions\/93861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}