Does this sound absurd to you? After I have again been repeatedly exposed to Amjad Taha’s vitriolic content again during the last days, after an Israeli personally sent me this on particular video-clip by him that went viral, being scandalised by it how Palestine supporters ignore the suffering of the population in Sudan, I now have to write something about it.
Last November the Bahraini-Emirati-British “analyst”/social media personality Amjad Taha was interviewed by the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (an Australian analogue of AIPAC). During this interview Taha (rightly) points at the grossly disproportional attention given to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amongst all conflicts in the world by western student activists. Yet he is not ashamed to use this opportunity to insert most vile propaganda for Emirati interests, for which he apparently wants to get support from the pro-Israel audience: Since the Sudan war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces erupted in 2023, the United Arab Emirates have been the main backer of the RSF, supplying them with arms, ignoring the UN arms embargo on Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces are the successor organisation of those paramilitaries that were already executing the crimes against humanity / genocidal atrocities against minorities during the Darfur war, and the RSF have likewise massacred tens of thousand civilians from non-Arab, non-Muslim and Black communities in Darfur, in the west of the country, during the current war, most notably in the El Geneina massacre in summer 2023. The Sudanese army on the other hand, after for a long time not having been able to stabilise front lines and stop the RSF from taking over more and more territory (including the capital Khartoum), has been largely relying on its advantage in air power, disproportionately and indiscriminately killing probably tens of thousand of civilians together with RSF soldiers. While Taha is of course giving a carte blanche for however disproportionate airstrikes on Gaza by Israel, he now presents the war in Sudan as a tale of evil from just one side, the Sudanese army bombing 80.000 civilians to death, allegedly in a plot by the Muslim Brotherhood allegedly controlling the Sudanese army—in reality Egyptian President Sisi, not precisely a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood, is the most important ally of Burhan’s military regime in Sudan, with Egypt probably having stepped up his direct support for the Sudanese army countering the Emirati support for the RSF, with both the Emirati and the Egyptian support fueling the conflict and leading to more and more intense fighting and more and more civilian suffering. Now allegedly the pro-Palestinian protesters in the west do not know and do not care about these victims. If “caring about Sudan”, however, means taking Taha’s position, then I clearly prefer people (whether they are “pro-Palestine” or “pro-Israel”) just admitting their ignorance concerning the suffering of millions of civilians in Iran, the crushing of the democratic and women’s revolution through the military and the RSF and simply remaining silent and not taking sides.
Amjad Taha is not an “analyst”, he is a vile propagandist for Emirati interests, who sells his very cheap takes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while wearing some Arab garment.
The AIJAC apparently did not care. The host did not pose any critical question to Taha during the interview. Even worse, AIJAC even selected precisely the passage from the interview where Taha advertises his RSF friends with their crimes against humanity to create a small clip about “bias against Israel” that went viral and has been watched tens of thousand of times by Israelis and Israel supporters.
I have already contacted the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council more than two months ago right after this interview with Taha came out, but never received a response to my very polite, non-confrontational, carefully written e-mail. The AIJAC – Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council even published an article on their website titled “West ignores the Sudan war at its peril” pointing out the grave crimes on both sides of the war in Sudan, including the ethnic massacres committed by the RSF. But apparently nothing matters, if your cheap “pro-Israel” (but in reality pro-RSF) clip goes viral, pleasing the self-righteousness of its audience. It is horriffying how support for Israel’s self-defence is turned into such a nihilistic endeavour, and unfortunately with Trump’s outright attacks on any kind of rules-based international order we will see more of this kind of vile opportunism, not just in the propaganda, but also in deeds, and few will care.
(Just to mention it, Taha also makes an anti-LGBTQ remark claiming that people who are not sure about their own (probably sexual and gender) identity are thereby unable to make judgements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict)
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