Amnesty International Plays Host to Hamas-Friendly Publication
Amnesty International has a history of promoting anti-Israel bigotry, so this report that the NGO is hosting an event with the Hamas-friendly publication Middle East Monitor (MEMO) doesn’t come as a major shock. But that doesn’t make this collaboration any less disgraceful:
But now Amnesty has taken the next step in its easy-breezy attitude towards religious fundamentalism. The celebrated NGO has cosied up to a Hamas-friendly magazine based in London known as Middle East Monitor Online (MEMO). On May 23, Amnesty’s Human Rights Action Centre will co-host what promises to be a ripping debate on “Complicity in Oppression: Does the Media Aid Israel?” The other co-hosts are MEMO and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
The magazine has published a column dubbing the Israelis “pathological liars from Eastern Europe, who lie as much as they breathe oxygen.” Last week it printed a piece by Sheikh Raed Salah, a convicted Hamas fundraiser. MEMO is also led by Dr Daud Abdullah, who has called on Muslims to “carry on jihad and Resistance” against Israel.
So the fact that Amnesty is apparently hosting the magazine’s event at its Human Rights Action Center is farcical. It could be that the NGO is simply unaware of MEMO’s history. But given Amnesty’s own track record, it might not even deserve the benefit of the doubt here.