Amnesty Int’l, an organization once respected around the world, has hit a new low in comparing Israel to ISIS.
• The director of Amnesty International Finland, Frank Johansson, called Israel a “scum state” on his blog in August 2010.
• Amnesty International Australia has had to repeatedly apologize for anti-Semitic Facebook posts praising Hitler, calling Jews cancer, and calling for death to Jews.

By David Lazarus

On November 5, 2014, Amnesty International published its latest assault on Israel in yet another tirade accusing the Jewish state of genocide and other war crimes.

Later that same day, in a Twitter post by a senior Amnesty official, Israel was directly equated with ISIS, the barbaric jihadist terrorist organization. Amnesty International is now comparing the democratic State of Israel with rapists, decapitators and genocidal murders.

How did such a highly respected organization fall into such deep moral confusion?

Amnesty International began as a movement assisting prisoners of conscious to obtain “amnesty” from oppressive governments. They became renowned for exposing the horrible conditions suffered by political prisoners in the former Soviet Union. At that time, Amnesty was a powerful force drawing international attention to many well-known refuseniks, including Jewish prisoners Natan Sharansky and Ida Nudel.

With the fall of the Soviet empire, Amnesty lost its raison d’être and financial support for the organization plummeted. It needed another international concern that could raise support, and Israel provided an easy and profitable target. Their recent account of Israeli war crimes is just another example of Amnesty’s exploitation of international hatred towards the Jewish state.

Amnesty’s moral collapse truly became evident in 2002, when, at the infamous UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, Amnesty officials exclusively targeted Israel.

In spite of all the blatant examples of racism and human rights abuses around the world, Amnesty officials found it necessary to single out just one nation – Israel. Amnesty’s Secretary General later conceded that the organization should have named other countries as well, but the damage had been done. The conference published an outrageous anti-Israel statement tagging the Jewish state as evil, more so than every other nation in the world.

Amnesty’s descent into moral absurdity deepened when, in 2006, they bashed Israel for crimes against humanity, while refusing to even criticize Hezbollah, which had fired 3,900 rockets into Israeli towns and cities, killed 44 Israeli civilians and wounded 1,400 more. Hezbollah was using human shields and murdering hundreds of their own people, but for Amnesty it was beneficial for their agenda to criticize only Israel.

Now, confident in their new role as leading Israel-basher, Amnesty has begun hiring anti-Semitic staff. In 2010, Amnesty hired anti-Israel activist Deborah Hyams as a researcher for their “Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Palestinian Authority” section. Hyams has an extensive background in radical anti-Israel activism. She is signatory to a letter claiming Israel is “a state founded on terrorism.”

The director of Amnesty International Finland, Frank Johansson, called Israel a “scum state” on his blog in August 2010. Amnesty International Australia has had to repeatedly apologize for anti-Semitic Facebook posts praising Hitler, calling Jews cancer, and calling for death to Jews. In 2013, Amnesty awarded its Ambassador of Conscience award to Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd musician who tirelessly calls for boycotting the Jewish state, and who features a giant inflatable pig wearing a Star of David in his shows.

Amnesty Campaign Manager Krystian Benedict told a journalist that “Israel is included in the list of stupid dictatorial regimes who abuse people’s basic human rights – along with Burma, North Korea, Iran and Sudan, it’s government has the same wanton attitude to human beings.” On November 5, 2014, after Israel objected to Amnesty’s latest biased report, Benedict tweeted that Israel is equivalent to the vicious terror group ISIS.

Amnesty International has also admitted that they cooperate with a Swiss-based human rights group whose Qatari co-founder has been accused of financing Al Qaeda.

Many more examples could be given, but the picture is clear. Amnesty International has lost the moral compass it once followed, and has fallen into deep muck. Avoid all contact.

View original Israel Today publication at: http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/25523/Default.aspx