The following article has been published in The Aus­trali­an by Alex Ryvchin.

Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al has unveiled a new campaign to pressure digital tourism companies such as Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb and Tri­pAd­visor to delist prop­er­ties held by Israelis living in the West Bank, and calling on gov­ern­ments to pass legis­la­tion that would result in the total boycott of those living in Israeli set­tle­ments.

It is just the latest attack in a long war waged by Amnesty and other once-respect­able human rights organ­isa­tions intent on turning public opinion against Israel and bringing about its economic and political isolation.

The origins of this lie in an infamous non-gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tions forum of the UN World Con­fer­ence against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. The con­fer­ence lives long in the memory for the appalling racism that marred an event convened for the very purpose of combating such conduct. Posters displayed Jewish cari­ca­tures and Nazi icons, and par­ti­cipants cir­cu­lated copies of the anti-Semitic fab­ric­a­tion, Protocols of the Elders of Zion. US con­gress­man Tom Lantos called it “the most sickening display of hate for Jews since the Nazi period”. The UN’s human rights com­mis­sion­er, Mary Robinson, told the BBC “there was a horrible anti-Semitism present”.

Against this backdrop, the con­fer­ence of more than 1500 rep­res­ent­at­ives of inter­na­tion­al NGOs adopted a res­ol­u­tion that defined Israel as a “racist, apartheid state”, and called for the launch of a “global solid­ar­ity campaign” targeting gov­ern­ments, UN agencies and civil society to achieve the “complete and total isolation of Israel”.

This co-ordinated attack on Israel’s very existence and legit­im­acy, including through various forms of boycott, divest and sanctions campaigns on campus, and among trade unions, gov­ern­ment and civil society, became the vehicle through which new gen­er­a­tions of thought leaders would be exposed to the char­ac­ter­isa­tion of the Jewish state as a uniquely wicked, unjust project that had to be unwound for the good of humanity. Amnesty was a key player in Durban and in the adoption of the res­ol­u­tion, and has been at the forefront of the campaign ever since.

In 2002, following an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin in response to the Passover massacre in Netanya, in which a Palestini­an suicide bomber murdered 30 civilians during a cel­eb­rat­ory feast, Amnesty accused Israel of carrying out war crimes and massacres of Palestini­an civilians. The alleg­a­tions, promptly reported by the BBC and other news outlets, placed the Palestini­an civilian death toll at more than 500. But 52 Palestini­ans died, the majority of them com­batants, along with 23 Israeli soldiers, in fierce urban combat.

False alleg­a­tions of a massacre made by Amnesty lub­ric­ated the machinery of the political campaign against Israel, leading to street protests, campus hearings, reams of con­dem­na­tions and anti-Israel res­ol­u­tions across civil society and gov­ern­ment.

In 2015, Amnesty was forced into a humi­li­at­ing admission that it had lobbied the Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment to accept murderous Lindt Cafe terrorist Man Haron Monis as a genuine refugee.

Last April, Amnesty’s secretary-general called Israel’s demo­crat­ic­ally elected gov­ern­ment “rogue”. In 2010, the head of its Finnish branch called Israel a “scum state”. Its British campaign manager has likened Israel to Islamic State and been condemned for his attacks on Jewish par­lia­ment­ari­ans.

Perhaps as revealing as Amnesty’s fixation on Jews living on the “wrong” side of a long-defunct armistice line has been its relative silence on the dis­turb­ing trend of rising anti-Semitism. In April 2015, Amnesty UK rejected an ini­ti­at­ive to “campaign against anti-semitism in the UK”, as well as “lobby the UK gov­ern­ment to tackle the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Britain” and “monitor anti-Semitism closely”. It was the only proposed res­ol­u­tion at the annual general meeting that was not adopted.

The skewed morality revealed by Amnesty’s obsession with Israel reflects a broader decline in the non-gov­ern­ment­al sector. Whereas groups such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch once led the struggle against Soviet tyranny and actively defended the rights of political prisoners, today they serve an increas­ingly narrow political agenda, one aligned with anti-Western, anti-cap­it­al­ist forces. Amnesty’s apparent contempt for Israel, its ho-hum attitude to anti-Semitism, and its inor­din­ate con­dem­na­tions of demo­cra­cies all stem from this malaise.

Of course, the set­tle­ments are a point of conflict between Israelis and Palestini­ans. Indeed, the parties iden­ti­fied set­tle­ments as a final status issue in the historic Oslo Accords signed between the Palestine Lib­er­a­tion Organ­isa­tion and Israel in 1993. It was agreed that the questions of which set­tle­ments will be annexed to Israel and which will be dis­mantled or trans­ferred to Palestini­an sov­er­eignty are to be resolved in direct nego­ti­ations in the context of a final peace agreement. But the pursuit of peace is not aided by Amnesty’s political man­oeuvres and attempts to isolate Israel, which per­petu­ate conflict by other means.

Alex Ryvchin is the author of The Anti-Israel Agenda — Inside the Political War on the Jewish State (Gefen Pub­lish­ing), and co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry.