Thread by @MarkGoldfeder

.@amnesty international literally redefined the legal term of genocide to suit their accusation, stripping the term of its actual meaning in the process. The craziest part? They admit this in their report, correctly assuming that most people won't read all the way to p. 101: 🧵

@amnesty This is not just a failure of factual accuracy; it is a willful misrepresentation of international law.

@amnesty in Bosnia v. Serbia (2007), the ICJ held that genocidal intent must be the only plausible inference drawn from a pattern of conduct.

@amnesty The court reaffirmed this high bar in Croatia v. Serbia (2015), stating that such intent must be “fully conclusive.”

@amnesty Under this standard, no reasonable observer could argue that Israel’s military actions—directed against Hamas, a terrorist organization explicitly dedicated to Israel’s destruction—constitute genocide.

@amnesty How does Amnesty get around this inconvenient fact?
THEY DON'T. Take a look at p. 101:

@amnesty "As outlined below, Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence..."

@amnesty Pardon my french, @amnesty, but who the hell are you?????

@amnesty To be clear, the 'report' is utter garbage for hundreds of reasons, but the definitional bait and switch is galling.

@amnesty What is genocide then, according to Amnesty? Essentially: Trust us, 'we know it when we see it."

Amnesty says a determination of genocide must be made 'holistically," and that "the context in which Israel’s military campaign took place must be part of this holistic examination."
Ok, @amnesty, you mean the Oct 7 massacre right? That's the relevant context, right?
Right?
Right?
NO.

@amnesty "This includes its unlawful military occupation of the OPT, including Gaza, and the system of apartheid it imposes on Palestinians."

For the record, and I kid you not, in a previous report @amnesty literally redefined the word apartheid to make it apply to Israel.

Amnesty says that: "Approached holistically, that is contextually and cumulatively, taking into account the entire offensive, including acts that may not be prohibited under the Genocide Convention... a different and much more disturbing picture emerges. It is this broader picture that must be analysed for a determination on genocide.

Wow.

@amnesty To understand what genocide actually looks like, take a look at Darfur. In the early 2000s the Sudanese government armed Arab militias to ethnically cleanse all African groups in the region through a campaign of mass murder, rape and persecution based on the victims’ race.

@amnesty Even in that case, the United Nations hesitated to formally declare the campaign genocidal- because they said there might have been other motives.

@amnesty Contrast this with Israel, which possesses the military capability to destroy Gaza entirely, in minutes, but has taken extraordinary measures and suffered losses of life to minimize harm to civilians- even as it fights an enemy that deliberately endangers its own people.

@amnesty @amnesty tries to cover the lack of genocidal intent by cobbling together an assortment of cherrypicked, out-of-context, & flat-out imaginary statements allegedly made by Israeli politicians, claiming they are somehow dispositive of such intent despite the facts and the law.

@amnesty For example, @netanyahu's referencing the biblical commandment to eradicate Amalek is cited as a prima facie example of genocidal intent. Except, of course, that they disregard the previous sentences, in which Netanyahu explicitly said he is referring to “destroying Hamas.”

@amnesty @netanyahu Israel’s official stance, repeated ad nauseum by the prime minister, the president, the Defense Minister, and the IDF spokesman — is that this “war is against Hamas – not the people of Gaza.”

Again, under UN jurisprudence, incitement to genocide cannot be “a mere vague or indirect suggestion” and to pretend that Israeli officials are calling for a genocide by cribbing sentences, ignoring facts, and selectively including outlying (and widely condemned) comments by people who do not have decision-making authority, that are clearly against official policy and bear no resemblance to what is actually factually happening on the ground- is nothing short of ludicrous

@amnesty @netanyahu Just for comparison’s sake, the United States did not commit genocide when it destroyed ISIS, even though President Trump once suggested we should use a nuclear bomb against their strongholds.

@amnesty @netanyahu Nor did we commit genocide in Iraq, or Afghanistan, even though General Mattis once reflected that ‘It’s quite fun to shoot them, you know… guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil.’

@amnesty @netanyahu America did not commit genocide in Vietnam just because the Air force Chief of Staff once said he thought American should “bomb them back into the Stone Ages.”

@amnesty @netanyahu Nor did the Allies commit genocide against the Germans when they bombed their cities in WWII – even though Winston Churchill once admitted that “we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us.”

@amnesty @netanyahu Those statements did not turn those wars into genocide because even poorly made comments from people in power made in the heat of the moment (and at least those comments were real!) do not change the fact that those were clearly not the actual positions of the relevant parties.

@amnesty @netanyahu What is most dangerous about @amnesty's report is not merely its double standard antisemitism, but its implications for international law.

@amnesty @netanyahu Amnesty International’s report does not just distort facts; it weaponizes the language of international law in a way that undermines its credibility. In doing so, it cheapens the real horrors of genocide and places the fundamental right of self-defense in jeopardy.

@amnesty @netanyahu Today, it is Israel, but if @amnesty's 'definition' of genocide was to be accepted then in the future every democracy that wages war to defend itself against terrorism- or even a more conventional enemy- will face the specter of being labeled genocidal.

@amnesty @netanyahu You know, "holistically."