Opinion

Amnesty leader shares support for war crimes

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Rasha Abdel Latif, a director at Partners Global who joined the Amnesty USA board last year, has written or shared posts on Twitter dignifying the murder of Jewish-Israeli civilians, praising Palestinian rocket attacks that violate international law, misrepresenting the laws of war, celebrating the escape convicted terrorists and murders, insisting Israel doesn’t exist and arguing Israel will be expelled from the Middle East because the land “doesn’t fit two identities.” 

Only four days before her appointment, on the day a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on civilians in Tel Aviv, Latif retweeted a post honoring that attack.

Alongside the hashtag #Tel_Aviv_Operation, the post described the terror attack, which killed three Israeli civilians, as a declaration that the land belongs to Palestinians and Israel has no choice but to leave. That the attack was in Tel Aviv suggests the view that all of Israel is regarded as Palestinian land.

Other posts written and shared by Latif are more explicit. In February 2022, Latif retweeted a cartoon showing the land encompassing all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip flicking away a Star of David. The accompanying Arabic text reads: “This land does not fit two identities. It’s either us — or us.”

In June 2013, Latif herself wrote on Twitter, “There is  NOTHING called ‘Israel,’ it is ‘Palestine territory.’” A June 2021 post by Latif includes the hashtags #freepalestine, #return and #27027km — a reference to the land area of a Palestine that subsumes all of Israel. 

In September 2021, Latif retweeted a post celebrating the escape of Palestinians from a prison in Israel, including prisoners convicted of deadly terror attacks and other terror offenses.

Latif has also indicated support for indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel from Gaza, which even the virulently anti-Israel Amnesty International admits are war crimes. Earlier this month, she retweeted a post and article extolling the rocket arsenal of Gaza “resistance fighters” of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. 

She also shared a Twitter post embedding and quoting a CNN interview with Palestinian propagandist Noura Erekat. In the video, Erekat responds to a question about whether she supports Hamas’s indiscriminate rockets fired toward Jewish civilians by falsely claiming the attacks are legal under international law. 

It’s not clear if Amnesty International USA, which purports to be a human rights organization (along with Partners Global, an NGO supported by the US government that claims to pursue “peacebuilding”) was aware of Latif’s extreme and hateful views when appointing her to the board of directors. But considering how virulent and dishonest Amnesty’s slandering of Israel has become, it’s not clear whether the organization would care if it were. 

CAMERA recently brought directly to the attention of Amnesty board members repeated and egregious falsehoods in its video attacking Israel with the “apartheid” slur. Considering Latif’s record, it might not be a surprise that none have come forward with any comment.