According to Law professor Eugene Kontorovich, Whitson is an active supporter of groups that support Armenian settlements in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, while pursuing rabid campaigns against Jewish communities in the West Bank. This promotion of Armenian settlement products and groups directly contradicts HRW’s assertions regarding Israel.
On December 10, 2019, based on research by Professor Eugene Kontorovich and the Kohelet Policy Forum, the Jerusalem Post published an expose on donations to the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR) from companies operating in settlements. ECFR has been one of the leading BDS advocates in Europe under the guise of a so-called “differentiation” policy.
On December 12, 2019, the Belgian Catholic NGO Pax Christi Vlaanderen (Flanders) will award its “ambassador for peace” prize to Brigitte Herremans, a leading anti-Israel activist and former employee of the BDS-supporting organization Broederlijk Delen. The event is scheduled to be held at Kazerne Dossin “a transit camp from which Belgian Jews and Romani were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust.” The selection of this venue draws a false equivalence between Nazi war crimes and Israeli policy, a violation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
Since the beginning of 2019, French organizations that promote an anti-Israel agenda have been lobbying French elected officials to oppose a “motion for a resolution to combat anti-Semitism.” Some of these groups receive French government funding.
Itai Reuveni discusses the European Court of Justice's decision to label products manufactured in Israeli settlements.
On March 13, 2019, Amnesty International posted, “Think Twice: Can companies do business with Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories while respecting human rights?” The Amnesty campaign coincides with the anticipated release of the UN Human Rights Council blacklist of “settlement” businesses and is designed to bolster this UN initiative singling out Israel for attack.
In January 2019, Amnesty International published a report on "The Tourism Industry and Israeli Settlements" that denies Jewish connections to historical sites – including in the Old City of Jerusalem – and in essence faults Israel for preserving Jewish historical and cultural heritage, as well as places that are holy to Christians.
Amnesty International will conduct a series of intense campaigns targeting Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and Trip Advisor. Amnesty will also deny Jewish historic connections to biblical sites, including in Jerusalem – reminiscent of antisemitic UNESCO resolutions.
Amnesty International will conduct a series of intense campaigns singling out Israel in early 2019. These campaigns will delegitimize Jewish historical connections to Jerusalem and elsewhere, as well as promote discriminatory boycotts (BDS) against Israel.
Amnesty International-UK’s Human Rights Centre in London was originally scheduled to host a debate on January 24, between Hillel Neuer of UN Watch and Fred Carver of the UN Association, moderated by human rights attorney and Yahad board member Danny Friedman. A few days before the event (January 24), however, Amnesty-UK abruptly cancelled the event on the grounds that the organization was “currently campaigning for all governments around the world to ban the import of goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements.