Amnesty International Investigation Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide

[al bupp]

From: https://zeteo.com/p/amnesty-concludes-israel-genocide-gaza

Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International said for the first time on Wednesday, calling on countries, especially those with influence over Israel, such as the US and Germany, to take action to bring the violence to an end.

“The Palestinian people will not recover from this in our lifetimes as a people, and we're failing to call it what it is,” Amnesty International executive director Paul O’Brien told Zeteo.

“I think there's this misunderstanding that it's impossible to watch a genocide unfolding before your eyes. But that is precisely what is happening, and I am convinced that we will look back in years to come and say, ‘Why did we not do more earlier?’” he added.

Amnesty International reached its conclusion after examining Israel’s actions and statements over a nine-month period from Oct. 7, 2023, and early July and interviewing more than 200 people, including Palestinian victims of Israeli air strikes, displacement, and detention; local authorities in Gaza; and healthcare and aid workers.

Of course, AM is infamously antisemetic, so we needn't pay any attention to them.

[al bupp]

1. Israel's Claims Are 'Not Credible'

Amnesty’s intensive 296-page report covers everything from airstrikes and aid sieges to agricultural decimation and destruction of cultural and religious sites. On multiple occasions, Amnesty notes, the organization shared its findings with Israeli authorities but received no substantive response.

The Israeli government has repeatedly balked at charges of genocide, claiming it takes great efforts to protect civilians while Hamas deliberately puts Palestinians in danger. The US has made similar defenses, and, when pressed, often defaults to its line that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

Amnesty found such claims are “not credible,” saying that the presence of Hamas does not absolve Israel from its obligation to avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.

From “the clear pattern of causing intergenerational harm by dropping bombs on residential areas at night where children, infants, parents and grandparents are sleeping,” to “the constant forced movements of populations that are already traumatized by having been displaced and then attacking them once they have been moved,” O’Brien said it is “absolutely not the case” that Israel’s violence can be “understood exclusively as an attempt to defeat Hamas.”

[Beastly Boy]

22. Then,

the US claims to the same are not credible (https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjvqmuynjx)

and Amnesty's own members' claims to the same are not credible (https://www.barrons.com/news/amnesty-israel-branch-rejects-genocide-report-calls-to-probe-serious-crimes-aee7ad58)

But what do they know, right?

[al bupp]

23. Amnesty Israel has no credibility on the topic of genocide in Gaza

from: https://forward.com/opinion/681370/why-i-resigned-as-chairman-of-amnesty-israel/

Entitled: Why I resigned as chairman of Amnesty Israel

After Amnesty International released a report last Thursday calling the war in Gaza a genocide, Amnesty’s Israeli branch quickly issued a statement saying most of its members don’t believe genocide has occurred. Some in Amnesty Israel alleged the report was biased, arguing for a forgone conclusion. Others went further, claiming that the international movement abandoned its commitment to equality in the first place.

But even before the report came out — one week before, to be exact — I resigned my position as chair of the board of Amnesty Israel. I didn’t step down because of the imminent controversy over the conclusions of Amnesty International’s report. I resigned because I could no longer chair a branch that did not treat Palestinians as equal partners, and I could not sign off on a critique of Amnesty International’s report that pretends to be an expert minority opinion, but is instead little more than the expression of an Israeli-Jewish worldview, to the exclusion of Palestinian voices.

Let’s start with the Amnesty International report itself. It was written by a diverse set of legal experts, and was revised multiple times to adhere to stricter standards of proof. It is far from the first report prepared by legal experts to reach the conclusion that genocide occurred, but it is by far the most in-depth legal analysis on the issue. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the report’s conclusions, the critique of it ought to be the kind that is commanded by serious scholarship.

Amnesty Israel’s position on the report was prepared by two Israeli Jewish staff members who are not legal scholars, with external assistance from Israeli legal experts. What Amnesty Israel was lacking in legal expertise it could have perhaps offered with an analysis that is instead rich in its diversity of perspective, having had Palestinian staff and board members working together with the Israeli Jewish ones to write something truly unique on this issue and contribute a perspective that would be difficult for outside experts to replicate. But instead, no Palestinians had any input on Amnesty Israel’s analysis of the genocide report.

There's more at the link.

[Beastly Boy]

24. Daniel Brodsky has no credibility

He is a 24 year old self-described self-employed strategist, fresh out of college with a whole of two years of job experience outside of volunteer work, all of it involving pro-Palestinian advocacy. This includes a whole of eight months working for Amnesty Israel.
https://il.linkedin.com/in/daniil-brodsky-6385091b5

His preamble to the article you linked to is telling: “Israeli human rights groups can’t advocate for Palestinians without Palestinians. ” he is making no secret that he is advocating. For Palestinians. Not even a pretense of impartiality.

Obviously, he has little to contribute to the topic other than his opinion. He has many years ahead of him before he establishes any kind of credibility on any topic. His ability to hold a job doesn’t look promising either.

[al bupp]

25. Why shouldn't he advocate for Palestinians?

Attacking the messenger w/o addressing the issues being raised is a sure sign of a weak argument.

[Beastly Boy]

26. He should if he wants to.

But that makes him a partial advocate, not an impartial arbiter he pretends to be. (Actually he does a shitty job pretending that he is anything other than an agenda- driven activist).

And blatant partiality is exactly what Amnesty Israel criticized in the report issued by their parent organization.

Clearly, being a partial advocate made him ill-suited for the position he held at Amnesty Israel. So did his rather unimpressive credentials and employment record.

[al bupp]

27. If that's true

Then the blatant partiality of the authors of Amnesty Israel's report, which included exactly zero people Palestinian descent, has to also be true.

Referring to what Daniil Brodsky says in his rebuttal to Amnesty Israel's report (linked once more here):

The lack of any Palestinians members being involved in writing it...

" isn’t because there were no Palestinians present. Amnesty Israel had skilled Palestinian staff and board members ready to contribute. It wasn’t because the Palestinians in Amnesty Israel have no legal expertise — after all, the Israeli staff doesn’t either. It’s because, as Palestinian activists and scholars Haneen Maikey and Lana Tatour have pointed out, a common pattern in progressive Israeli spaces is that Palestinians can provide labor, translation, lived experience and trauma to feed the analysis of Israeli Jews, but cannot be equal partners (emphasis mine) who get to do the analysis side by side and set the agenda together."

"Amnesty Israel finds itself in the awkward position of being neither a source of legal expertise, nor providing a diverse human rights perspective of Israelis and Palestians. It is just another place for Israeli Jews to express themselves."

As for Daniil's short tenure at Amnesty Israel, it was cut-off not due to being "ill-suited", unless that's a euphemism for objecting racist practices, but because he resigned, for the reasons laid out in his opinion piece. Arguing that his short tenure there demonstrates his incompetence is a circular and obviously self-serving argument. If Amnesty Israel's wasn't so clearly biased towards the perspective of only Israelis, then he might have remained as their chair of the board for who knows how long. By the way, what do his so-called "rather unimpressive credentials" say about Amnesty Israel in selecting his the chair of their board?

About the partiality of Amnesty Israel, in Daniil's own words:

"When I became chairman of Amnesty Israel in January 2024, there were no Palestinians on the board of managers or in managerial positions on staff. By way of comparison, this is a lower standard than the one found in Israeli public service and government-owned corporations (emphasis mine), which are, according to the attorney general’s guidelines, at least obligated to have a proper representation of Arabs “in all ranks and professions, in every office and auxiliary unit,” including the board of directors."

The "shitty" job that was done was Amnesty Israel's report, which was obviously and partial and "agenda-driven". Again in Daniil's words:

"I insisted on Palestinian representation in managerial roles, but nothing changed. Members of management and the board were reluctant to make the necessary structural adjustments. Staff told me that there was a rule that says a Palestinian staff member must be consulted on issues pertaining to Palestinians, something Amnesty Israel pointed out in their defense recently."

So, it turns out that Amnesty Israel didn't even follow its own rules in writing the report. Seems like evidence of an "agenda-driven" argument to me.

[Beastly Boy]

29. If what you say were true, then

The Nuremberg trials would have been blatantly partial: not a single German on the prosecution teams or among the judges. And then, Goering’ s defense at his trial would have been the only valid argumentation you would have accepted.

The composition of membership of Amnesty Israel, as with any group of people, doesn’t speak of its decision making. Only the outcomes do. And in this respect, the author’s activist opinions are a piss poor benchmark to make any judgements in this respect.

You have taken the judgemental opinion of an admittedly partial adversary as the only basis for critique of the people he is partial against.

You can see how your entire argument is based on a fallacious presumption, can’t you?

[al bupp]

32. Your comparison of the report to the Nuremburg trials is spurious at best and ridiculous on its face

You condemn someone as partial when they call out the partiality of the writers of that report. These are playground tactics, you see that, don't you?

[Beastly Boy]

33. It is Daniel Brodsky who is calling himself partial, not me.

“Israeli human rights groups can’t advocate for Palestinians without Palestinians.” Thats how Daniel Brodsky begins his rant. It is he, in his statement that he subheaded his article, who rendered my admittedly tongue in cheek reference to the Nuremberg trials inescapable.

Yes, his proposition is indeed ridiculous on its face. Funny how you noticed it when I mimic it, but not when it was originally proposed.

In a conversation full of flippant fallacies, one after another after another, I can only keep up a straight face for so long before the futility of the effort becomes inescapable.

[al bupp]

37. Maybe it's "rant" to you

But not to me, rather it's a reasoned opinion. Sir, we will simply have to agree to disagree.

[madaboutharry]

2. Actually, al bupp, Amnesty International has a long and sordid history of demonizing Israel.

It singles Israel out for its most virulent criticism. So yes, it is in fact, infamously antisemitic.

Here is a bit of information from an article written in 2022. A simple google search provides a wealth of information of Amnesty's constant campaign of demonization of the Jewish state.

https://www.ajc.org/news/amnestys-outrageous-lie-its-big-problem-with-jews-and-the-truth-about-israel

[ColinC]

3. Amnesty International is a highly credible human rights organization.

That generally back up their claims with hard facts.

[Beastly Boy]

7. Was a highly credible organization. That was last century.

[ColinC]

16. Just because you don't like what they say doesn't suddenly change their credibility

But alas their concerns over Israel's actions and the evidence they have to support it, also hasn't changed much since the last century.

[Beastly Boy]

19. It's not what I like. It's what they say and how they say it.

And it is not just what they say about Israel.

Their reputation is in tatters. Note the dates of the instances reported in this Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_International

None of them are older than 20 years.

[peregrinus]

4. Here we go

[al bupp]

5. When all criticism of Israel is deemed antisemitic

It renders the charge meaningless.

The article you shared is interesting, yet in the end it boils down to this at the end:

"Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis," the Amnesty report states.

According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination or claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor, constitutes antisemitism.

I hardly think AM is "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination". Rather, it's offering evidence-based assertions that many of ways it chooses to exercise its self-determination (such as whole sale leveling of large areas of Gaza, preventing food & aid deliveries, among others) crosses several lines.

[Beastly Boy]

8. What happens when only certain criticism of Israel is deemed antisemitic, and others are not?

For Instance, what if a certain NGO were to say ""Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis," while disregarding the essentially multicultural permissive nature of Israel and discounting that Israel's control over land (with no distinction to what land the statement refers) equally benefits all Israelis, Jewish or not, and some control of land benefits Israel's minorities more than it does the Jewish majority?

Imagine Amnesty accusing France of committing genocide on the basis of "an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a French demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit the Catholic citizens of France"

Wouldn't that be ridiculous?

Didn't stop Amnesty from getting ridiculous with accusations against Israel, did it?

Would you prefer "patently biased" to "antisemitic"?

[al bupp]

9. I think AM would make similar accusations against any country

that was doing what Israel is to Gaza and the West Bank.

And I suppose that all the hundreds of Jews occupying a parliamentary building in Ottawa to protest the war on Gaza are also antisemitic, no, sorry patently biased:

Link to tweet

[Beastly Boy]

10. I am not holding my breath waiting for Amnesty to hurl an analogous accusation against any other country.

And bringing up a false equivalency instead of addressing my question is not what I expected...

On second thought, yes, this was exactly what I expected.

[al bupp]

15. Since the UK and US give so much to Israel

In both money and weaponry, I think it's justified to hold the country to a higher standard than, say Sudan.

As detailed down thread, it's laughable to assert that Arab Israelis (really Palestinians) have equal rights to Jewish citizens.

[Beastly Boy]

20. Another false equivalency, as expected

Are we now measuring standards that Amnesty applies by the amounts of foreign aid a country receives from the US and Britain?

Oh, and just for kicks anf giggles, try to click on the link to the policies that HRW refers to as discriminatory in the cited article.

Try it, I'll wait.

For reference, this is the link to the HRW article cited down the line:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians

and this is the link to the alleged discriminatory policies HRW based its conclusions on:
https://www.kkl-jnf.org/about-kkl-jnf/kkl-jnf-id/jewish-people-land/

Find any policies there?

[al bupp]

28. Let's see...

The HRW link cites:

* "Decades of [Israeli government] land confiscations and discriminatory planning policies have confined many Palestinian citizens to densely populated towns and villages that have little room to expand"

* "Many small Jewish towns also have admissions committees that effectively bar Palestinians from living there."

* "The Israeli state directly controls 93 percent of the land in the country, including occupied East Jerusalem."

* "Palestinian citizens of Israel constitute 21 percent of the country’s population, but Israeli and Palestinian rights groups estimated in 2017 that less than 3 percent of all land in Israel falls under the jurisdiction of Palestinian municipalities."

* "Beginning in 1948 and in subsequent decades, Israeli authorities seized hundreds of thousands of dunams of land from Palestinians (10 dunams equals 1 hectare). Much of the confiscation took place between 1949, when Israel placed most Palestinians in Israel under military rule, and 1966, when military rule ended."

* "During this period, Israeli authorities confined Palestinians in Israel to dozens of enclaves and severely restricted their movement."

* "Since 1948, the government has authorized the creation of more than 900 “Jewish localities” in Israel, but none for Palestinians except for a handful of government-planned townships and villages in the Negev and Galilee, created largely to concentrate previously dispersed Bedouin communities."

* '" 2003 Israeli government-commissioned report found that 'many Arab towns and villages were surrounded by land designated for purposes such as security zones, Jewish regional councils, national parks and nature reserves or highways, which prevent or impede the possibility of their expansion in the future.'"

* "Israeli law permits towns in the Negev and Galilee (which comprise two-thirds of the land in Israel) with up to 400 households to maintain admissions committees that can reject applicants from living there for being 'not suitable for the social life of the community' or for incompatibility with the 'social-cultural fabric.'"

* “Israeli land policies treat towns inside its own borders in starkly unequal terms based on whether its inhabitants are Jewish or Palestinian”

Any so much more is in there, too. I recommend that everyone gives it a read, as it makes an excellent case for the extensively unequal treatment on non-Jew in Israel when it comes to Israel's land policies.

Furthermore, the empty page at https://www.kkl-jnf.org/ that you point to doesn't mean that what you say HRW based it findings on isn't correct, rather just that the web admins for KKL-JNF likely removed it contents sometime after the HRW report was written.

In fact, the link in the HRW report that cites the KKL-JNF link is only for the report's assertion that the Jewish National Fund, which makes up almost half of the governing the members of the Israel Land Authority (ILA), which manages and allocates 93% state lands has an "explicit mandate is to develop and lease land for Jews and not any other segment of the population." So, the HRW report is hardly based on what we can only guess were the former contents of that single link.

[Beastly Boy]

30. HRW cites jack shit. It offers only the opinions and interpretations that support their predetermined conclusions

And you know what opinions are like: everybody has one.

The hilarious thing is, when HRW attempted to cite something, their link ended up with a page full of… jack shit!

But we already covered it, didn’t we?

[al bupp]

31. No, HRW offers cited facts

You simply ignore all the citations that do work and find it funny that one, which HRW has no control over is now empty. Bluster and attacks do not a reasoned argument make.

[Beastly Boy]

34. A link to a source with no content does not constitute a citation of facts. Nor does it constitute a fact.

And a statement without a fact being cited constitutes an opinion, even when it claims to be factual.

Remember when people were citing cretins to claim that the Earth being flat is a fact?

[al bupp]

36. Just one source of many that HRW does not control

Who knows what it said before it scraped clean by the admins. Your deflections and distractions are painfully clear.

[Avalon Sparks]

11. Actually

It’s because Israel has a long and sordid history of barbaric crimes against humanity.

[Eko]

13. One can easily debunk AJC first point.

"It tries to show that Israeli Arabs, who have full citizenship and alongside Jewish citizens serve as doctors, ambassadors, Supreme Court judges, and in the government coalition, are subject to what Amnesty thinks is “apartheid.” Israeli Arabs make up 20% of the Israeli population."

Israeli law permits towns in the Negev and Galilee (which comprise two-thirds of the land in Israel) with up to 400 households to maintain admissions committees that can reject applicants from living there for being “not suitable for the social life of the community” or for incompatibility with the “social-cultural fabric.” This authority effectively permits the exclusion of Palestinians from small Jewish towns, which Adalah, a human rights group based in Haifa, estimated in 2014 make up 43 percent of all towns in Israel, albeit a far smaller percentage of the country’s population. In a 2015 study, Yosef Jabareen, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, found that there are more than 900 small Jewish towns, including kibbutzim, across Israel that can restrict who can live there and have no Palestinian citizens living in them.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians

Expansion of ‘admissions committees’ law allows more towns to cherry-pick residents
Passed Tuesday, law enables greater number of close-knit towns to operate panels that rate applicants on ‘sociocultural’ compatibility; NGO argues law encourages discrimination
https://www.timesofisrael.com/expansion-of-admissions-committees-law-allows-more-towns-to-cherry-pick-residents/

Whats that called when you have towns where they can decide you cant live there? And it just so happens there are over 900 of these towns that don't have a single Palestinian in them? Is that a free country? What if there were 900 towns that made up 43% of all towns in America where they can legally decide who can live there and there were not any black people there? What would you call that?
I'd call that Apartheid. It literally translates to separateness.

[DeepWinter]

21. Amnesty International has hated Israel for years, decades

In 2010 Frank Johansson, the chairman of Amnesty International-Finland called Israel a "nilkkimaa", a derogatory term translated as "scum state".

Anything regarding Israel, they are a grocery checkout gossip rag as far as reliability.

[iemanja]

41. Newsflash

Israeli group criticizes Amnesty International. That is what all human rights pariahs do. It means nothing other than they plan to continue to commit genocide and grab land.

These constant accusations of antisemitism are nothing more than a transparent excuse to avoid responsibility. Because a state happens to be comprised of Jews does not give it carte blanche to do whatever the hell it wants. That is what you are asserting.

To accuse "a liberal democratic state." So-called democratic states can and do engage in human rights abuses. The United States is one of them: Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the US prison system, and continual police executions, to name a few. We also deliberately carried out genocide on Native Americans. People that have no problem criticizing such actions by the US refuse to concede that Israel does anything wrong. Why is that, I wonder?

[malaise]

6. Duh!

With Western complicity - that is all.

[ZRB]

12. If Israel wanted to commit genocide...

...this would have been over on October 8th, 2023. Israel only exists because of actual, real genocide, making this repeated accusation so incredibly antisemitic. What is happening now is called war, and it ends when Hamas surrenders and releases every last hostage. If Israel is still dropping bombs on that day, maybe some of these discredited individuals and organizations will have a semblance of a point.

[Trish6521]

17. Sorry, it's ethnic cleansing bordering in genocide

It was wrong during the holocaust and it’s wrong in Gaza. Being so blinded by anger and hatred, the Israeli people (mainly the hard right that controls the government) have become similar to those that did them harm.

I will never excuse what Hamas did. Never. But I remember when I was taught about “collective punishment” being wrong. That’s what converts this to ethnic cleansing or genocide .

It is not antisemitic to disagree with Israeli policy. I often disagree with American policy and I’m not anti American,

[al bupp]

39. What Israel could have just nuked Gaza, is that what you're saying?

Wow, that's some defense of how they've devastated Gaza and are now in the process of starving its inhabitants. It is not antisemtic to call out what's happening, it is a defense of the basic humanity of the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

[iemanja]

42. And the West Bank and Syria?

Is that too about Oct 7? No, it's about grabbing land.

Israel has murdered thousands of times over the death toll from Oct. 7. That war ceased being about that event a long time ago. Now it is simply an excuse for genocide and land grab. Netanyahu doesn't even want the hostages back alive. That should tell you how much he is motivated by Oct. 7.

[Ping Tung]

14. Durned Humanitarian organizations keep on opposing war crimes and genocide.

Tsk. Tsk. How dare they condemn killing thousands of civilians for being civilians.

[David__77]

18. Good

[Crunchy Frog]

35. While I think that AI's statements are probably valid

and I don't in any way agree with Israel's actions in Gaza and elsewhere, they have undercut their own credibility by largely ignoring the genocidal acts and rhetoric that russia is currently carrying out against Ukraine.

The truth is that they take strong positions on some issues and ignore or downplay others.

[al bupp]

38. AI is ignoring genocidal acts that Russia is carrying out in Ukraine, hmm

This seems to me to be a pretty clear statement:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/eastern-europe-and-central-asia/ukraine/report-ukraine/

Russian forces continued indiscriminate attacks resulting in thousands of civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure, amid evidence of other crimes under international humanitarian law. Derogations from the rights to freedom of expression and religion continued under martial law. Recorded cases of domestic violence rose sharply. New draft legislation on civil partnerships included same-sex relationships. The war continued to have a devastating impact on economic and social rights, particularly of children and older people, as well as on the environment. Serious human rights violations continued in Russian occupied territories.

Background
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continued, resulting in civilian deaths, destruction of infrastructure, and consistently high levels of internally displaced people and refugees. As of November, the UN had recorded 28,711 civilian casualties since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, including 10,058 deaths. A Ukrainian counteroffensive made minimal territorial gains, opening the prospect of a prolonged war of attrition and raising concerns about sustainability of military support from Ukraine’s allies. The economy continued to significantly contract, with a growing dependency on foreign grants and loans. In July Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative intended to ensure stable food prices and avert the threat of famine in lower-income countries.

On 14 December, the European Council decided to open EU accession negotiations with Ukraine.

Violations of international humanitarian law
Indiscriminate attacks
Russian forces continued indiscriminate attacks hitting populated areas, resulting in widespread civilian casualties. In some instances, official Russian comments on the strikes indicated that these were likely deliberately targeted. On 5 October, at least 59 people were killed in a single missile strike on a café in the village of Hroza, Kharkiv region, during a memorial service for a Ukrainian soldier. A Russian representative at the UN spoke of the attendees as the soldier’s “Nazi collaborators”, a reference to the official Russian justification of its war of aggression.

Civilian infrastructure was apparently systematically targeted. During winter months, Russian forces sought to further destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, in a tactic intended to maximize civilian suffering. Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative was accompanied by strikes on other critical infrastructure, including grain storage and export facilities in Odesa and other ports.

What am I missing?

[Crunchy Frog]

40. Not a word about genocidal intent or rhetoric.

General statements about "human rights abuses" but no specifics. Nothing about the suppression of the Ukrainian language, culture, or identity in the occupied areas, forced deportations, large scale abductions of children who are then subject to "reeducation", or the forcing of Ukrainians to accept russian "citizenship" under threats of cutting off access to medicine, food, and threats of kidnapping children.

Russia's policies are about eliminating the Ukrainian nation, language, culture, and national identity. This includes the deliberate targeting of civilians in such a way as to maximize civilian deaths and destruction of hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure.

It also ignores the explicitly genocidal rhetoric coming from Putin and his media mouthpieces.

I never said that AI completely ignored the war, but they do tend to downplay it, avoid covering some of the most egregious acts, and even engage in bothsidesing it.

Hope that answered your question.

[al bupp]

43. Ok, let's dig into this a bit

Here are a few pretty unambiguous denunciations of Russia's actions in Ukraine they've released this year, including charges of War Crimes by Russia, comprising attacks on civilian housing and energy infrastructure, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children along with other serious charges that do not mince words.

Undated 2024 - Demand justice for Ukraine

In 2014, Russia occupied and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea and took control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In 2022, Russia began its full-scale invasion, an act of aggression and a crime under international law. For ten years, people in Ukraine have suffered countless atrocities and grave human rights abuses as they suffer from war.
...
The fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014 resulted in more than 10,000 civilians being killed or injured. In the Russian-occupied areas of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, de facto authorities have suppressed all dissent through brutal reprisals, including forced disappearances and prohibition of free media and of Ukrainian education.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian forces have conducted indiscriminate attacks resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, amid mounting evidence of other war crimes including torture, sexual violence and unlawful killings. The aggression has led to violations of the rights to housing, health and education.

February 22, 2024 - Ukraine/Russia: Justice for Ukraine means accountability for all crimes committed by Russia since 2014

“While the war is still raging, evidence of every single atrocity must be preserved as much as possible. Those responsible for crimes under international law must face justice, no matter how long it takes. These crimes have no statute of limitations,” said Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director Research for Eastern Europe Central Asia, Amnesty International.

War crimes committed by Russia in the Kyiv region during the early days of its full-scale invasion clearly demonstrated a pattern of torture and unlawful killings of civilians, most of which appear to be extrajudicial executions.

“I saw Oleh lying on the ground in a pool of blood. […] Part of his head was missing and he was bleeding profusely from his head and his ear. I screamed and the soldiers pointed their rifles at me and I shouted at them ‘shoot me too’. The soldiers forced us to leave immediately. We were not allowed to come back until after they withdrew from Bucha. Oleh’s body remained there on the street,” said Iryna, recalling the killing of her husband by Russian forces in March 2022.

June 10, 2024 - Global: Human rights must be at core of international meetings on peace and reconstruction in Ukraine

The international community must ensure that the focus of two major conferences on peace and reconstruction in Ukraine is firmly fixed on human rights, justice for victims of violations and the voice of civil society groups, Amnesty International said today.

Governments from all continents are expected to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference, hosted by Germany, on 11-12 June, and the Peace Summit on 15-16 June in Switzerland.

“Through joint efforts, the world is beginning to prepare a roadmap to justice, lasting peace and the rebuilding of Ukraine. It is vital to place human rights at the heart of this endeavour,” said Veronika Velch, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ukraine.

“People in Ukraine and other countries who have suffered human rights and international humanitarian law violations caused by Russia’s decade-long occupation and aggression must be heard, and their rights to truth, justice and reparations must be central to all discussions and actions taken. Without guaranteeing this, a lasting and just peace cannot be achieved, and further violations may continue to occur.

November 18, 2024 - Ukraine: Russian strikes amounting to war crimes continue to kill and injure children

Amnesty International verified seventeen strikes in 2024 that caused child casualties, while field research revealed that Russian forces have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. The statement reiterated calls for the perpetrators of unlawful attacks and war crimes to be brought to justice, and for redress to be given to all victims of war crimes committed in Russia’s aggression.

“Children, as some of the most vulnerable groups in any society, enjoy special protection under international humanitarian law. Yet we continue to see them killed and injured in areas far from the frontlines, including in areas with zero military targets,” said Patrick Thompson, Amnesty International’s Ukraine researcher.

According to OHCHR data, approximately 89% of civilian casualties have occurred in territories controlled by Ukraine. Amnesty International is unable to independently verify the number of children reported as killed by Russian sources, nor affirm the reliability of the information or the alleged attribution of these attacks to Ukrainian forces.

Direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects are war crimes. Indiscriminate attacks, including those on populated areas with explosive weapons, are a violation of international humanitarian law. Indiscriminate strikes that kill or injure civilians constitute war crimes. Amnesty International has documented numerous instances since February 2022 of Russian forces conducting indiscriminate attacks in Ukraine, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, and evidence of other war crimes, including torture, sexual violence, and unlawful killings.

All those responsible for crimes under international law must be brought to justice in fair trial proceedings and victims must be able to realise their rights to truth, justice, and reparations.

"They didn't exhibit the same or show the same treatment to those fleeing war and aggression in other places — war in Syria or in Afghanistan, or violence in Haiti when it came to the U.S.," Amnesty's Philip Luther told VOA.

Admittedly, they have also criticized Ukraine for some of it actions in the war.

Amnesty Cites 'Double Standards' in Global Response to Russia's War on Ukraine

Amnesty International says Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 unleashed "military destruction on a people and country at peace."

"Within months, civilian infrastructure had been destroyed, thousands killed and many more injured," the report says. "Russia's action accelerated a global energy crisis and helped weaken food production and distribution systems, leading to a global food crisis that continues to affect poorer nations and racialized people disproportionately."
...
Amnesty International was widely criticized last year when it accused Ukrainian forces of endangering civilians by stationing its military in residential areas. Amnesty's director in Ukraine quit her post, accusing the organization of parroting Kremlin propaganda, while Ukraine's president said the group had tried to "shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim."
...
"It is extremely clear to all of us that the violations committed by the Russian forces are far more important and lethal than anything else that the Ukrainian militaries may do. That being said, our mandate, our mission is to protect civilians. And for that reason, we will continue to expose violations committed by the Ukrainian military forces," Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard told a press conference Tuesday in Paris.

Amnesty says the strong international response to Moscow's invasion exposes the double standards of many countries, which condemned Russia but fail to act on other human rights crises.

"Solidarity is owed to the Ukrainian people, but it is also owed to the people of Palestine, to the people of Eritrea, to the people of Myanmar. And that did not happen in 2022," Callamard told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

European nations have taken in about 8 million Ukrainian refugees since the invasion. Amnesty says policies toward other nationalities seeking asylum have hardened.

I will agree that they have not yet accused Russia of genocide. However, they have been very clear about their position on attacks of civilians, particularly children and civilian infrastructure. Sounds a lot like Gaza to me.

Maybe the difference is that the Gazans are basically trapped in Gaza, an area of 141 square miles, with little means to getting the basic necessities of life, like food blocked, water and shelter. While Ukrainians enjoy much greater freedom of movement in an independent country of 233,062 square miles. I'm sure you can appreciate the contrast. I suspect that if Russia ever damaged or destroyed "nearly 60% of buildings, nearly 70% of orchards and 68% of roads" in Ukraine (source: These maps and images show what's left of Gaza, 1 year into the Israel-Hamas war) then they'll accuse Russia of genocide, as well.