Amnesty UK sponsored an event condemning Israeli policy in East Jerusalem, “Capital Murder: Inside the Israeli authorities’ regime of discrimination and control in Occupied East Jerusalem” (May 12, 2010). The keynote speaker was pro-Palestinian activist Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide.

Amnesty UK was publicly attacked by critic Eric Lee for the event’s “political agenda,” and that it “commits Amnesty to the idea that Israel is an apartheid state.” Amnesty UK responded that the title refers to “widely-held concerns that Israeli policies over East Jerusalem represent a fatal threat to a fair resolution to the conflict.” But this is not the first Amnesty event featuring radical ideologue Ben White: In October 2009, Amnesty UK hosted White’s lecture, “Discriminatory and unsustainable: Water and politics in Israel & the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

Other highly politicized anti-Israel events highlighting Amnesty’s bias include a June 2010 book launch of Against the Wall: The art of resistance in Palestine, a “collection of artwork and graffiti on Israel’s Wall in the occupied West Bank” under the theme “to exist is to resist.” The event is scheduled to coincide with the art exhibit “Cultural Intifada,” featuring 14 artists who painted murals on “Israel’s illegal separation wall.”