Amnesty International and Balaam’s Talking Ass by Seth Mandel
It’s hard not to take some enjoyment in the absolute disaster of Amnesty International’s new report on Israel, in which the infamous NGO blew the biggest moment of its nefarious existence. Surely one can appreciate a modern reenactment of the biblical tale of Balaam’s Talking Ass.
In that story, the Moabite king hires the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites. Along the way, God sends an angel to stand in his way, but only Balaam’s she-donkey can see the angel. The donkey swerves and Balaam beats the animal. On the third attempt, the angel successfully blocks them and the donkey lays down in surrender. Balaam beats the donkey again, but this time she speaks: “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?”
They argue, and God’s angel reveals itself to Balaam, who is embarrassed by the whole ordeal. When Balaam ultimately tries to curse the Israelites, he finds that God has put only words of praise in his mouth.
Balaam, then, is unable to execute the sole purpose of his mission. To add insult to injury, his own donkey observed God’s messenger before he did.
Amnesty International’s leaders came to curse the Jews, failed, and were revealed to be sub-donkey intellects in the process.
Here’s what happened. Amnesty has produced a report accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. It was intended to be the capstone of the organization’s work. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.
Key parts of Amnesty’s report were leaked ahead of time to people one would normally consider oppositional to the organization. (I received it from multiple sources well ahead of time.) This happened because there are sufficient numbers of those in Amnesty’s orbit—current and former employees, advisory figures, people in the NGO donor network—who are ashamed of what Amnesty has become. These are allies of the organization, mind you—but they understood that Amnesty’s report was so preposterous as to ruin the credibility of anyone associated with the group from here on out.
Thus Amnesty’s attempt to ambush Israel and its defenders became the opposite.
But that was nothing compared to what happened when the report was finally released this week. Amnesty International’s Israel branch—that is, the part of the organization that works on the ground in the country at the center of a 300-page report—disavowed the report. Amnesty’s Israel-based team says they were not involved in the report—that is damning enough—and that the crew “does not accept the claim that genocide has been proven to be taking place in the Gaza Strip and does not accept the operative findings of the report.”
There’s a reason for that. The report is a joke. It didn’t take long for people to find the part where Amnesty explained that in order to find Israel guilty of genocide, the organization had to literally redefine genocide.
The crime of genocide requires intent, which is difficult to prove. Raphael Lemkin, the father of the term, had in mind “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves” (emphasis added).
The fact that Israel, for example, moved a million civilians out of Rafah before killing a bunch of Hamasniks with very few civilian casualties is representative of Israel’s approach to this war and cannot under any reasonable circumstances even be mentioned in the same breath as “genocide.” Moving civilians out of harm’s way and allowing in regular caravans of food and medicine and other humanitarian items are actions that are mutually exclusive to genocidal intent. Without proof of genocidal intent, such intent can be determined if the only plausible explanation of the state’s actions is genocide. Obviously Israel’s conduct comes nowhere close to meeting that standard.
So Amnesty just changed the definition, insisting that “Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict.”
So Amnesty International dissents from international law. That’s fine. Just be up-front about it: Amnesty is not accusing Israel of “genocide,” it is accusing Israel of a different crime which Amnesty has named “genocide,” just so it could use that word.
Amnesty International accused Israel of genocide and in the process acquitted Israel of committing genocide. It’s an age-old story—just less fun without the talking donkeys.
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