Israel Matzav

NGO reports amateurish, biased

Gerald Steinberg reports that three NGO's issued reports on Israel's Operation Cast Lead this week, all of which were amateurish and hopelessly biased against Israel. Steinberg says this is just the beginning.

The three reports published and publicized last week, like dozens that have come before, combine pseudo-legal rhetoric, technical allegations regarding Israel's defense against terror attacks, automatic sympathy for Palestinian victims, and condemnation of Israel. The images and the titles reflect these biases - Amnesty's is headlined: "Operation Cast Lead: 22 Days of Death and Destruction."

Researchers led by Donatella Rovera claim they could not find evidence of the use of human shields by Hamas. In fact, the entire population of Gaza was one massive human shield, with weapons stored and fired from schools, mosques, hospitals and similar civilian structures (in one infamous case, during a live video broadcast widely viewed on Youtube.)

Similarly, the 10-page ICRC publication ("Gaza: 1.5 Million People Trapped in Despair") consists largely of pictures of Palestinians and none of Israelis in Sderot - the rights of Israelis are irrelevant, as they are in the case of the UN and the Goldstone commission.

Gilad Schalit has also been erased (Amnesty buried him in a footnote referring to Israeli policy.) The kidnapped Israeli soldier is also the missing man what has been referred to as Goldstone's "kangaroo court." Such sins of omission belie the moral claims that are the foundation of international law.

In addition to the moral facade, HRW's report ("Precisely Wrong") uses hi-tech language to attack the IDF's use of advanced drones. Here, the "war crimes" charges are based on six carefully chosen cases. The "evidence" comes from Palestinian claims of having heard and seen the arrival of these tiny and soundless weapons - a superhuman feat.

HRW's "military analyst" Marc Garlasco added dubious assumptions regarding the "impact mark of the missile and the fragmentation pattern" consistent with Spike missiles. Although a few reporters were professional enough to investigate the details, check with independent experts, and expose the dubious claims, most reports copied Garlasco's mix of fact and fiction without question. (They also omit mention of HRW fund-raising in Saudi Arabia that cites their anti-Israel campaigns.)

These events, as well as the ongoing Goldstone inquiry, are part of the broader strategy of demonization adopted at the NGO Forum at the 2001 UN Durban Conference. The goal is to brand and isolate Israel as the new "apartheid" state.

Read the whole thing.

Steinberg is more concerned that we're not doing enough to counteract the threat that the NGO's represent. He believes that Israeli leaders have belittled the exploitation of human rights as a weapon for attacking Israel. I'm afraid that he's right. If 'lawfare' was a relatively minor nuisance until now, it is likely to become a bigger one in the future.

The picture at the top of this post is of Hamas 'medic' Anas Naim.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:22 PM