Israeli embassy complains to Amnesty over manager’s Hamas retweet

The Israeli embassy has complained to Amnesty International after the charity’s campaigns manager retweeted material from Hamas.

In a letter to Amnesty UK’s director, Kate Allen, Israeli diplomat Eitan Na’eh expressed “dismay” at the online conduct of Kristyan Benedict, who shared a Hamas report on 30 July.

“I am writing to you to express our dismay at the hateful messages disseminated against Israel by Amnesty UK senior staff member, Kristyan Benedict over the recent days,” he said.

“Benedict exploited the horrible murder of Ali Dawabsha in order to incite against Israel, saying ‘the Israeli government gets away with murder every day’ and falsely attributing a statement to the UN Secretary-General that the Israeli government ‘facilitated’ the murder.”

Last year Benedict offended Israel’s supporters by creating a Twitter hashtag linking or likening Israel to the rampant terrorist group ISIS/ISIL.

This week, anger was directed at Amnesty because Benedict’s tweets were posted from an account identifying him as Amnesty UK Campaigns Manager, and which he uses for sharing Amnesty work.

“It reflects extremely unprofessional conduct, which has direct bearing on Amnesty’s credibility as an international human rights organisation,” said Na’eh.

“Even more worryingly, they reflect a willingness to incite against Israel in the most hateful manner imaginable, while promoting and affirming the twitter account of a recognised terror group.”

During the Jewish News UK-Israel Strategic Challenges Congerence, he also called for the immediate prosecution of visiting Israeli diplomat Shaul Mofaz.

Amnesty has authored a series of reports criticising the wartime conduct of both the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and of Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip last year, in so doing suggesting that Israel may be guilty of war crimes.

Embassy staff have dismissed the reports as “building a false narrative” with a methodology which is “fundamentally flawed”. Amnesty in turn argues that Israeli authorities have refused to co-operate in any independent investigations.