In 2002, International lawyer Francis Boyle (FB) was interviewed by Dennis Bernstein (DB) about the Politics of Human Rights.
Professor Boyle gave an inside perspective on the long-standing and increasingly obvious pro-Israel bias of Amnesty International.
Francis Boyle: brilliant, outspoken and disgusted
The following extract is from CovertAction Quarterly, Number 73, Summer 2002, pp. 9—12, 27. The whole interview is well worth reading (emphasis and links added):
DB-7: Now, is Amnesty International a democratic organization whose leadership is accountable to its members?
FB: Well, I can only speak of AI USA; in theory it’s supposed to be democratic, in theory it’s elected. But what you have is a board that is basically selected by a process of co-optation. That is, it’s basically a small clique of people who have been in power for a good twenty years, or their friends and their buddies that they co-opt through a bogus nominating process to put on there. Now there is a kind of petition process from the grassroots to have other voices on there. That’s how I got on that board – so many members were disgusted with the fact that Amnesty would not do anything on Israel that I was nominated by means of the petition process. It’s not easy to do, you have to get at least a hundred signatures and they’re all very carefully scrutinized and this, that and the other thing. And even then, I and my colleagues were disqualified by the little clique who sits on this board, and then I had to threaten a lawsuit. And as I said, not just threaten a lawsuit, but fly out to New York to file the lawsuit. And only then did my name appear on the ballot and then I was elected.
Moreover, another interesting point back in 1982, because of my efforts to try to raise what Israel was doing in Lebanon, I was asked to attend the first meeting of what later became the Amnesty International USA Middle East coordination group that’s supposed to coordinate human rights work on the Middle East, which I did. So in other words, I was one of the founders of the Amnesty International Mideast coordination group. Shortly thereafter, I gave a speech here in town condemning what Israel was doing in Lebanon that was reported in the local news media. And I made it clear I wasn’t speaking on behalf of Amnesty International or anyone else but myself, but it was an Amnesty meeting. And immediately thereafter, the chair of the board of directors of Amnesty International ordered no one to have anything more to do with me, and they didn’t. It was a total cutoff.
DB-8: Was this order put in writing?
Amnesty International: another NGO subverted by Zionist infiltration?
I keep my membership and I do keep an eye on the reports that come out to see what they’re saying, what position they’re taking. Indeed, I’ve gone on the Internet [and read] sections of some of their reports when it comes to Israel, and the people who do these reports over in London and here in the United States, they’re very clever, sharp, and sophisticated people. They know exactly what they’re doing. And if you go through it, you’ll see that basically , it supports the Israeli party line on whatever the issue is. Or finally, after many years of outing them on this, now they’re no longer supporting it but they’re not doing much. At least the thing on Jenin here is not supporting any Israeli party line. But previous reports in the not too distant past, if you go through them carefully, you’ll see that their legal characterizations of the nature of the conflict, the status of these territories, the status of Jerusalem, tracks the Israeli party line.
DB-9: How does the leadership reconcile its stated objectives with its actual practice? How do they go about rationalizing their actions?
FB: They don’t care. They’re completely and totally arrogant. “We are Amnesty International. We are the world’s largest and most powerful human rights organization. We won the Nobel Peace Prize for our work. So we do whatever we want.” And again, if you don’t believe me, go search your Lexis-Nexis database and see if there has ever been an apology by Amnesty International for the Kuwaiti dead babies report. To the best of my knowledge, there was no official apology or investigation or explanation. They just toughed it out.
DB-10: Now we know that at the end of that war, the United States was responsible for killing perhaps as many as 100,000 people who were trying to flee at the end of the Gulf War. Did Amnesty ever do a report on that?
FB: I don’t know. After a certain point, I realized that I was wasting my time worrying about what Amnesty International was doing on that.
DB-11: So just to be clear Professor Boyle, in terms of Jenin, are you suggesting that it is because of those close connections between Amnesty International, British-U.S. intelligence, the Israelis, the fact that the U.S. plays such a close role with the Israelis, there’s so much CIA and military intelligence on the ground, that that would be the reason that Amnesty International would step back and not touch it.
FB: Well that, and in addition, you have here in the United States the very powerful role played by the Israel lobby on AI-USA. They are very powerful; they apply enormous pressure on Amnesty International USA, headquartered in New York. AI-USA pretty much kowtows to them, and they use contributions to make sure that AI-USA tows the line on Israel, and AI-USA pays about 20% of the London budget. So that has an impact over in London too. I do not know about direct lobbying with the London Amnesty International office by the British equivalent of the Israel lobby here. I don’t know personally about that, but I do know AI USA pays 20% of their budget.
And I remember once – this was when I was on the board – I got the agenda of, the Amnesty International secretary general was coming over to the United States for a trip, and I got his agenda and he was meeting with just about every pro-Israel group and leader you could possibly imagine on that list here in the United States, and undoubtedly, they were all going to claim that Amnesty was even doing too much with respect to Israel.
And if I remember, on that list, they might have scheduled time to meet with one or two Arab American leaders. And internally, this is the way it’s done. And you have large numbers of people on that board of directors here in the United States who are pro-Israel and do everything possible to prevent, sabotage, obstruct effective work on Israel, up to and including getting rid of a former executive director here in the United States because – I hate to say this but – under my influence and one or two others, we did try to get him and some others to do more effective work on Israel and finally, when I was off the board, there was a purge. So that’s the way it works and it’s highly political, highly coercive, and eventually if you get out of line, they’ll get rid of you.
