Amnesty-UK

Recent Amnesty-UK events:

• “The Denial of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” – April 12, 2011. Without providing any independent evidence, one speaker accused Israeli soldiers of using glass shards to carve a Star of David into the arm of a Palestinian boy’s arm.
• Events with Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide: (For example, “Capital Murder: Inside the Israeli authorities’ regime of discrimination and control in Occupied East Jerusalem” – May 12, 2010;
• “Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy” – launch of Ben White’s book, attacking “Israel’s definition not as a state of its citizens, but as a Jewish state,” January 26, 2011
• On April 21, 2012, ICAHD-UK held its Spring Conference and Annual General Meeting at Amnesty-UK’s Human Rights Action Centre. ICAHD leads BDS campaigns, including accusations of “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” etc.
• Amnesty-UK hosted three events for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine – another core BDS organization.

Kristyan Benedict

Benedict has a strong anti-Israel obsession, fuelled by global conspiracy theories, (interview with Labour Friends of Palestine (February 9, 2011):

• “The USA plays both Arab and Israel sides to generate money, power and control. The main reasons are: The Arms Trade: The conflict makes loads of money for the ‘weapons trade’. Israel always pushes the buttons to make all the surrounding Arabic states such as Syria, Lebanon feel insecure.  So they then buy weapons off other states and this is a great profit-making industry.”
• “Israel is now included in the list of stupid dictatorial regimes who abuse peoples’ basic universal rights – along with Burma, North Korea, Iran and Sudan, its government has the same wanton attitude to human beings…. Also, it seems that many in the current coalition are driven by a feeling of ‘ethnic supremacy’.”
• “I also agree with the sentiment of Justice Richard Goldstone in his 2009 UN fact finding mission: ‘The treatment of Palestine is meant to punish, humiliate and terrorize’”
• “The Occupation regime is illegal and unsustainable. Apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union fell and many people thought they never would.”

On July 30, 2015, Benedict retweeted the Hamas Twitter account, which had posted an Amnesty publication and added: “As evidence of Israel’s war crimes amass, tangible steps towards accountability are needed.”

Tweet (April 6, 2012): “What Must Be Said”, Günter Grass’s poem in Englishhttp://j.mp/HPzT4Y #israel #Iran #hypocrisy

When asked if Amnesty would hold an event on kidnapped Israeli Soldier Gilad Shalit, Benedict answered, “Could do, why not? We will also talk about the thousands of Palestinian prisoners as well. We will have to do that if we want to be consistent.”

Regarding the Amnesty-UK event where a speaker accused Israeli soldiers of carving a Star of David into a child’s arm: an audience member reported that, after he challenged the source of the image depicting the Palestinian boy’s arm, Benedict said he would, “smack me in my little bald head.”