Amnesty’s US director: Israel shouldn’t exist ‘as a state for the Jewish people’

[yankeedoodle]

Amnesty's US director: Israel shouldn't exist 'as a state for the Jewish people'
Paul O'Brien also says he doesn't believe polls showing vast majority of American Jews back Israel, prompting condemnations and calls to apologize
https://www.timesofisrael.com/amnestys-us-director-israel-shouldnt-exist-as-a-state-for-the-jewish-people/

An Amnesty International official said that the organization is opposed to Israel continuing to exist as a Jewish state.

"We are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people," Paul O'Brien, the human rights monitor's US director, said in a luncheon this week with the Women's National Democratic Club in Washington.

Jewish Insider first reported the remarks. O'Brien also said he did not believe polls showing overwhelming US Jewish support for Israel.

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'Brien's comments immediately drew a torrent of condemnation from Jewish groups.

"If there was any doubt about Amnesty's 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," William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Friday in an interview, Earlier he had tweeted that O'Brien's remarks were outrageous. "It is clear that their true vision is a Middle East without Israel as a Jewish state."

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called on O'Brien to apologize to Jews.

"Your obsessive, relentless focus on Israel, and the erasure of the Jewish right to self-determination illustrates a dangerous degree of bias," he tweeted.

O'Brien said he did not believe polls that showed the vast majority of American Jews back Israel.

"I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there's a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home," he said, apparently referring to a theory advanced by a small cadre of intellectuals that imagines a binational Jewish-Palestinian state that would act as a safe haven for Jews.

Jewish groups, including groups that are often critical of Israel, were especially offended by O'Brien's assumptions about what Jews think.

"Polling shows the vast majority of American Jews, like J Street, support Israel's future as a democratic state and homeland for the Jewish people," J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group said on Twitter. "Amnesty USA would be well-served to stick to its expertise in human rights + international law — and not try to assess Jewish public opinion."

Americans for Peace Now praised Amnesty's human rights advocacy, but also advised the group to stay within the normative bounds of a human rights watchdog.

"Amnesty International plays an important role in documenting human rights violations worldwide, not in interpreting public opinion or in prescribing the collective conversation within America's Jewish community," Ori Nir, the group's spokesman, said in an email.

[yankeedoodle]

Oh, dear, they all got together, which the title says is "rare."  Ain't that funny?    

In rare show of unity, all 25 Jewish House Democrats blast Amnesty director's comments on Israel
https://www.jta.org/2022/03/14/politics/in-rare-show-of-unity-all-25-jewish-house-democrats-blast-amnesty-directors-comments-on-israel

All 25 Jewish Democrats in the House, a fractious caucus that rarely unanimously agrees on issues of Jewish interest, signed onto a statement slamming recent comments by Amnesty International's U.S. director, who said he believes polls showing overwhelming U.S. Jewish support for Israel are inaccurate.

"As Jewish Members of the House of Representatives, we represent diverse views on a number of issues relating to Israel. However, we are in full agreement that Mr. [Paul] O'Brien's patronizing attempt to speak on behalf of the American Jewish community is alarming and deeply offensive," the statement released on Monday reads.

Last week, in an address first reported by Jewish Insider, Paul O'Brien defended Amnesty's recent report designating Israel as an "apartheid" state. Someone at the event, at the Women's National Democratic Club in Washington D.C., asked him about a 2020 Ruderman Family Foundation poll that showed eight in 10 American Jews identify as "pro-Israel." The poll is commensurate with findings of multiple polls over the years.

"I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there's a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home," he said, a status short of a Jewish state, which O'Brien had said in the same address Amnesty rejected.

"We are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people," O'Brien had said earlier in his comments.

O'Brien tweeted Friday that his remarks were removed from context, although he did not dispute the contents of the quote. "I did not and Amnesty takes no position on the legitimacy of any state," he said.

Such unanimity is rare among Jewish Democrats, especially on issues of Jewish import. For example, Reps. Elaine Luria of Virginia and Dean Phillips of Minnesota have condemned comments by fellow caucus member, Ilhan Omar, as antisemitic, while Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois has joined with Omar to combat antisemitism. Luria and Rep. Josh Gottheimer last week spearheaded a letter saying they would likely oppose any bid by the Biden administration to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, while Reps. John Yarmuth of Kentucky and Alan Lowenthal of California have decried former President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the deal as catastrophic.

Jewish staffers on Capitol Hill who watched as the Amnesty statement accrued the names of every Jewish member told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said they were amazed to see the members overcome differences large and small.

The only Jewish members of the House missing from the statement were its two Republicans, David Kustoff of Tennessee and Lee Zeldin of New York. Spokesmen for each said they were not approached to sign onto it.

A staffer involved in shaping the statement, requesting anonymity to speak freely, said the feeling was that each side should take care of offenses on its own side, and statements by a liberal group like Amnesty International would be on the Democratic side of the ledger.

The staffer said Republicans should work to isolate and condemn those in their party who make statements offensive to Jews, singling out Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona. Republicans have condemned remarks by Gosar and Greene and others but have resisted imposing penalties on them.

"We're trying to set an example for our Jewish Republican colleagues," the staffer said.

[abduLMaria]

It's always useful when the J-Whiner Parasites show their True Nature.

[yankeedoodle]

grovel GROVEL GROVEL

Amnesty USA chief to lawmakers who criticized him: 'I regret' speaking for US Jews about Israel
https://www.jta.org/2022/04/01/politics/amnesty-usa-chief-to-lawmakers-who-criticized-him-i-regret-speaking-for-us-jews-about-israel

The director of Amnesty International's U.S. branch apologized to Jewish lawmakers for claiming to speak on behalf of American Jews.

"I regret representing the views of the Jewish people," Paul O'Brien said in a March 25 letter, first reported by Jewish Insider, to all 25 Jewish Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, who had joined to condemn his remarks at a Washington D.C. luncheon in which he rejected polling that showed the vast majority of U.S. Jews are pro-Israel.

"What I should have said," he added, "is that my understanding from having visited Israel often and listened to many Jewish American and Israeli human rights activists is that I share a commitment to human rights and social justice for all with Jewish Americans and Israelis."

The Jewish Democrats, in a rare show of unity on Israel, last month rebuked O'Brien for his comments about Israel in which he said, "My gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there's a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home."

O'Brien told a reporter at the luncheon that Amnesty did not believe Israel should exist as a Jewish state. In the letter, he clarified that Amnesty was not taking a position on Israel's Jewish status, but was referring to its 2018 Nation-State law, which he said "explicitly denies the right of self-determination to a part of Israel's citizenry."

The human rights group's international secretary-general, Agnès Callamard, wrote separately to another 11 Jewish Democrats who had raised concerns about O'Brien's remarks, saying that Amnesty had no objections to Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state.

"There is nothing under international law to prevent the state of Israel from identifying itself as Jewish, as long as the government does not discriminate between its citizens on the grounds of religion or race," she said in her March 25 letter.

O'Brien's remarks came after Amnesty in a report said it determined that Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank amounted to apartheid.