http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/israels-human-rights-spies/ March 24, 2017
Israel’s Human Rights Spies
by Nicola Perugini - Neve Gordon
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A fascinating expose in Ha’aretz reveals how, in the mid-1970s – not long after the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights – Israel used university faculty members to infiltrate Amnesty International.
The state thus actively intervened in order to shape human rights activism, just as the rights discourse was becoming one of the most popular forms of political struggle against injustice around the globe.
The Haaretz article discloses how Yoram Dinstein, a renowned scholar of international law and currently a professor emeritus at Hebrew University, served as an agent for the Israeli Foreign Ministry during his tenure as the chair of Amnesty International’s Israeli branch from 1974-76.
Working with the ministry’s Deputy Director Sinai Rome of the international organisations division, Dinstein acted as an informant while manipulating the rights group’s activities.
For instance, when an Arab women’s association in the United States requested information about Palestinian detainees and prisoners, Dinstein wrote to the ministry, telling them that his inclination was not to reply.
continued at
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/israels-human-rights-spies/