Surprise! Amnesty International really is anti-Israel and has no problem violating its own rules when it comes to Israel.  Who knew?

Breaking Its own Rules: Amnesty’s Gov’t Funding and Researcher Bias


In its Statute, Amnesty International fosters an image that “impartiality and independence” are core tenets of its agenda. Amnesty presents itself as unbiased, and independent of governments and their interests, and its statements are widely accepted because the media and diplomats consider the NGO as upholding the universal principles of human rights.

This image, however, is misleading. Contrary to what the NGO implies on its website and in other PR materials, Amnesty International and its local branches do in fact accept government funding.

Likewise, Amnesty claims that it maintains a policy of “impartiality” and is unbiased in its research of allegations of human rights violations. Despite this claim, Amnesty employs an anti-Israel activist as a researcher in its “Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Palestinian Authority” section. This individual, Deborah Hyams, has a well-documented history of radical activism in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and, correspondingly, weakens Amnesty’s credibility and claims of neutrality.
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Amnesty’s Obfuscation on Government Funding

Introduction

The Amnesty International Volunteer guidebook, under fundraising policies, categorically states, “AI neither asks for nor accepts direct donations from governments.” Similarly, on its website, Amnesty International claims, “We neither seek nor accept any funds for human rights research from governments or political parties.”
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In sharp contrast, in 2011, Amnesty International received £842,000 in 2011 from the UK Department for International Development as part of a four-year award commencing in 2008 and totaling £3,149,000.
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Independent research by NGO Monitor reveals the following instances of government funding for Amnesty International and its branches:

    £259,000 in 2007 from the European Commission.

    Amnesty-Israel:

    2010 – 60,000 NIS from the Netherlands

    2009 – 239,524 NIS from the United States

    2008 – 130,186 NIS from the United States (On its website, Amnesty-Israel claims, “We are independent of all governments, political persuasions and religious creeds. We are funded by our members and donors, and no funds are sought or accepted from governments” [emphasis added].)

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Researcher Bias

Introduction

As noted above, Amnesty’s core values include “impartiality and independence.” Amnesty also claims that impartiality is core to its methodology of “systematically and impartially research[ing] the facts of individual cases and patterns of human rights abuses.”
 In order to maintain impartiality, Amnesty adopted a policy prohibiting “Work On Own Country” (WOOC). It is unclear to what extent this policy is still in place.
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Breaches of Employee Impartiality

Regardless of the status of WOOC, the principle of impartiality and perceived impartiality remained central. Yet, sometime in late 2010, Amnesty hired anti-Israel activist Deborah Hyams as a researcher in the “Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Palestinian Authority” section.

Hyams has an extensive background in radical anti-Israel activism:

    In 2001, Hyams volunteered as a “human shield” in Beit Jala (near Bethlehem), to deter Israeli military responses to recurrent gunfire and mortars targeting Jewish civilians in Jerusalem
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full article:
www.ngo-monitor.org/article/breaking_its...