Amnesty International pulls the bubble wrap off new line of “End Israeli Apartheid” products.
By Pesach Benson, United with Israel
Amnesty International UK pulled the bubble wrap off a new merchandising initiative called “End Israeli Apartheid” with an announcement on Twitter on Monday.
“New Amnesty UK T-shirts, briefings, and other merch to support the #EndIsraeliApartheid global campaign – more coming soon..,” tweeted Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty UK’s “campaign manager for Israel/Palestine and Syria.”
“Our campaign to help end Israel’s cruel system of apartheid against Palestinians has seen an excellent response from people who are opposed to racism and discrimination,” Benedict told the Jerusalem Post.
“We expect the t-shirts and other End Israeli Apartheid campaign products to be popular. The first set of t-shirts will be available in the coming days, with more in development in partnership with Palestinian artists.”
Judging from other merchandise sold on the Amnesty UK website, the “End Israeli Apartheid” shirts and stickers are out of step with the other items available for sale. None of the other Amnesty-branded items — clothing, tote bags, scented candles, and books — mention any foreign countries by name.
Neither do other branded items available for sale on the separate Amnesty USA web site.
However, singling out Israel is very consistent with the human rights organization’s long-running animus towards the Jewish state.
At the end of January, the London-based human rights organization released a report accusing Israel of maintaining an illegal “apartheid” system to rule over the Palestinians.
The one-sided report displayed twisted understandings of international law, a woeful ignorance of realities on the ground and breathless adjectives while turning a blind eye to Palestinian terror and intransigence.
Amnesty’s critics slammed the report as deeply flawed, antisemitic and hypocritical. Israel has called for the report to be withdrawn.
The nub of Amnesty’s animus, however, appeared to be towards Israel daring to express itself as a Jewish state, which prompted the UK Charity Commission — which regulates Britain’s charitable institutions — to probe the report’s funding.
Jews on Twitter panned Amnesty’s new line of merchandise.
“So Amnesty now want people to wear t-shirts calling for the destruction of the only democracy in the MENA region,” tweeted British activist David Collier. “At least it will make the antisemites easy to spot. What an shameless Jew-hating disgrace this NGO has become.”
And the UK-based Israel Advocacy Movement, accused Amnesty of “profiting from antizionism.”
“Amnesty International are so shameless,” it tweeted. “Here they are profiting from antizionism. What makes this even worse is that the majority of the money doesn’t even go to Palestinians. Instead it ensures their executives can continue to bank six figure salaries!”