Let’s say that I, being non-Tibetan and a non-Buddhist, know what most Tibetan Buddhists want. I know that what they want is not their own independent country but rather a “safe Buddhist space” based on “core Buddhist values.” A survey was taken that most Tibetan Buddhists actually do identify as “pro-Tibet,” and two-thirds feel emotionally “attached” or “very attached” to the idea of an independent Buddhist Tibet. No matter. I, again, being a non-Buddhist and a non-Tibetan, know that these figures and not true.
Such is the hubris of Paul O’Brien, the USA director of Amnesty International. He is not Jewish, but he “knows” what most American Jewish think about Israel, even when what he “knows” contradicts empirical data. He knows he is right about the empirical being wrong, he assures us, “in his gut.” He knows that what American Jews really want is not a Jewish state, but a “safe Jewish space” based on “core Jewish values,” which, however, he does not know how to define.
Mr. O’Brien gives no evidence of knowing academic methodology, which, if did know it, he would know what Jews want based on a serious study of Jewish sacred texts and of Jewish history, from which he would learn the centrality of the Land of Israel to G-d, in the Torah and for the Jewish people.
Nor does Mr. O’Brien know a thing about the Middle East or the Holocaust. If he did, he would not say, as he said publicly, “Amnesty takes no political views on any question, including the right of the State of Israel to survive.”
Mr. O’Brien, welcome to the inner sanctum of the leadership of Iran. Welcome to the councils plotting the destruction of the Jewish state. Welcome to the political council of Rashid Tlaib, the single US congresswoman who does not believe Israel should exist. Mr. O’Brien, you and your bedfellows know the double standard that the Jewish people know only too well: amnesty for everyone — except the Jewish people.
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