Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: HRW

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Sunday, December 06, 2009

Omri on HRW

Omri at Mere Rhetoric writes again about HRW and Garlasco.

Don't read it because it is a comprehensive takedown of HRW's dishonesty and paranoia. Don't read it because it is a classic example of Omri's incomparable snarkiness.

Read it because it mentions me, and I am an egomaniac that way.

I'm part of the anti-NGO conspiracy!

The Guardian reports on HRW's whining about being criticized by people like me:

America's leading human rights organisation has accused Israel and its supporters of an "organised campaign" of false allegations and misinformation, including "extremely personal attacks" on its staff, in an attempt to discredit the group over its reports of war crimes in Gaza.

Iain Levine, HRW's programme director, said that while the organisation had long attracted criticism, in recent months there had been significant attempts to intimidate and discredit it.

"I really hesitate to use words like conspiracy, but there is a feeling that there is an organised campaign, and we're seeing from different places what would appear to be co-ordinated attacks ... from some of the language and arguments used it would seem as if there has been discussion," he said."We are having to spend a lot of time repudiating the lies, the falsehoods, the misinformation."

Isn't it a shame that HRW has to spend time defending its positions rather than being believed uncritically? All together now....Awwww!

Although I was tragically not mentioned by name, I am an integral part of the nefarious anti-NGO conspiracy. After all, I was the one who noticed Marc Garlasco's interesting hobby of collecting Nazi memorabilia, information that I shared with other bloggers in an illegal secret Zionist underground information channel known as "email." I didn't have the time to exhaustively research it all, and Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric took the story and ran with it (with my full support.)

My later contributions to the story included the sock-puppets that HRW sent out to defend themselves and the picture of Garlasco wearing the Iron Cross sweatshirt (which I believe someone else found first and alerted me to.)

[And now Omri has a radio show, where such information can be shared with even more people! See how deep our Zio-connections are?]

Notably, even then the Guardian quoted HRW implying some sort of blog conspiracy when the story broke.

One has to wonder if, say, HRW and Amnesty and the UNHRC and the PCHR and Al Mezan and Al Addameer share information with each other - and whether this is a terrible conspiracy as well? (The answer to the first question is, of course, "yes.")

The difference is that the NGOs have multi-million dollar budgets, and will often repeat the claims of other NGOs - even clearly biased ones - without any of their own fact checking. For example, Al Addameer's absurd claim of 750,000 Palestinian Arab prisoners since 1967 has been accepted as fact. Would HRW say that this story is above criticism as well?

In interests of full disclosure, a Zio Blog conspiracy member list has been published. You can see us in the About Us page on the Understanding the Goldstone Report site. It includes NGO Monitor, CAMERA and Honest Reporting as well as some well-known writers and bloggers. We share information and build on other posts and articles. We do this precisely because it is more effective and focused.

In fact, I'm going to now link to another, far more detailed critique of the Guardian article, from Richard Landes and Augean Stables. See how we all conspire together?

Booga booga!

HRW tries, and fails, to rebut founder's comments

From Commentary's Noah Pollak:

In case you missed it, yesterday something very important happened: Bob Bernstein, the founder and for 20 years the chair of Human Rights Watch, published an op-ed in the New York Times criticizing the organization for its obsessive attacks on Israel. He wrote that HRW is “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”
HRW was quick to offer a response — and it is a pathetically weak and deceptive one. A quick fisking:

Human Rights Watch does not believe that the human rights records of “closed” societies are the only ones deserving scrutiny.

A classic red-herring argument. Nowhere did Bernstein argue that open societies should not be subject to scrutiny. What he said is that the amount of attention HRW pays to Israel is wildly out of proportion to Israel’s violations, especially when Israel is compared with the Middle East’s dozens of dictatorships. Misrepresenting the plain meaning of Bernstein’s argument allows HRW to rebut an accusation that he never made. The press release continues:

Human Rights Watch does not devote more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region, or in the world. We’ve produced more than 1,700 reports, letters, news releases, and other commentaries on the Middle East and North Africa since January 2000, and the vast majority of these were about countries other than Israel.

Another red herring — this one with some clever weasel phrasing. Bernstein never said that HRW “devotes more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region.” He wrote that “Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.” The obvious difference is that Bernstein was comparing the number of reports on Israel to the number of reports on any other individual country in the Middle East. HRW presents Bernstein as claiming that HRW writes more reports on Israel than on all the countries in the Middle East combined. Obviously, HRW cannot contest the accuracy of Bernstein’s statement, so it dishonestly responds to a charge he never made.

It is not the case that Human Rights Watch had “no access to the battlefield” after the Israeli operation in Gaza in January 2009. Although the Israeli government denied us access, our researchers entered Gaza via the border with Egypt and conducted extensive interviews.

Human Rights Watch is apparently incapable of dealing with criticism on its own terms. Bernstein did not argue that HRW had no access to the battlefield after the war was over, as HRW claims he said. What Bernstein in fact said was that HRW was not present on the battlefield during the war, therefore limiting its ability to know what happened and to make war-crimes judgments.

The dishonesty and manipulativeness of HRW’s response to Bernstein is but a small manifestation of the organization’s larger problems: its inability to engage honestly with the arguments of its detractors, and the related problem of the unreliability of the group’s reporting on the Middle East.

HRW's Garlasco suspended

From the NYT:

A leading human rights group has suspended its senior military analyst following revelations that he is an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.

The group, Human Rights Watch, had initially thrown its full support behind the analyst, Marc Garlasco, when the news of his hobby came out last week. On Monday night, the group shifted course and suspended him with pay, “pending an investigation,” said Carroll Bogert, the group’s associate director.

“We have questions about whether we have learned everything we need to know,” she said.
The suspension comes at a time of heightened tension between, on one side, the new Israeli government and its allies on the right, and the other side, human rights organizations that have been critical of Israel. In recent months, the government has pledged an aggressive approach toward the groups to discredit what they argue is bias and error.
Injected suddenly into that heated conflict, word of Mr. Garlasco’s interest seemed startling to many. The disclosure ricocheted across the Internet: Mr. Garlasco, an American, was not only a collector, he has written a book, more than 400 pages long, about Nazi-era medals. His hobby, inspired he said by a German grandfather conscripted into Hitler’s army, was revealed on a pro-Israel blog, Mere Rhetoric Mere Rhetoric, which quoted his enthusiastic postings on collector sites under the pseudonym “Flak88” — including, “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!”
It was a Rorschach moment in the conflict between Israel and its critics. The revelations were, depending on who is talking, either incontrovertible proof of bias or an irrelevant smear.
The Mere Rhetoric posting said Mr. Garlasco’s interests explained “anti-Israel biases.”
Ms. Bogert called the attacks on Mr. Garlasco and her group “a distraction from the real issue, which is the Israeli government’s behavior.”
But some who firmly support Human Rights Watch were left unsettled by the researcher’s extracurricular activities.
Helena Cobban, a blogger and activist who is on the group’s Middle East advisory committee, asked on her blog, Just World News, if Mr. Garlasco’s activities were “something an employer like Human Rights Watch ought to be worried about? After consideration, I say Yes.”

Garlasco's hobby cannot be hermetically sealed off from his work at HRW. Whether or not it shows any pre-existing bias, his obsession - and HRW's reaction for the past week - show an immaturity that is incompatible with the role they claim for themselves. I would argue that this same immaturity is often seen in their anti-Israel reports as well; comparing their assumptions and legal positions on Operation Cast Lead with the IDF report appears to me at least like HRW is filled with people who do not know anything about how wars are fought and who interpret international law with a bias that makes it literally impossible to effectively fight terror without endangering the citizens of any free country.

Moreover, their reports on Israel make the assumption that Israel is identical in its own human rights posture as third-world dictatorships. The reason that Israel no longer cooperates with these organizations isn't because Israel has no interest in human rights (which seems to be the petulant conclusion drawn by the egotistical "human rights" community) but because Israel knows that they will not be given a fair shake. She's been burned too many times.

The inescapable fact is that for the most part, the IDF and the Israeli people themselves have no interest in violating the rights of anyone - as long as their own rights to living in peace and security are not violated as well. Palestinian Arab human rights are no more important than those of Israelis taking a bus. Not only that, but the primary responsibility of any government is protecting its own citizens. These facts are self-evident yet ignored in the multitude of reports that come out against Israel - in HRW's case, about every month.

It is comparatively easy to judge Israel against strict interpretations of international humanitarian law, especially when the interpreters frame each report to look at the human rights of only one side. The issue gets messier when real-world Israel needs to balance its own obligations to protect her own people against the human rights of her sworn enemies. Invariably, some of the decisions that will be made will value the lives of IDF soldiers and Israeli citizens in rocket range above those of terrorists, their supporters and the people who are purposefully used by terrorists as cover.

Israel has every interest in waging as moral a war as possible, and Gaza - by any objective measure - was such a war. Hamas has incentive to endanger its citizens, the IDF has disincentive to kill them. If human rights groups would work with Israel to find a way to improve the IDF's methodology to help save enemy lives while not jeopardizing Israelis, I am certain that the IDF would be happy to cooperate. That is not what these groups do, though, and from reading the IDF report and various Israeli legal treatises, Israelis are far ahead of HRW in applying international law to real conflicts anyway.

Garlasco, from what I can tell, has a lack of real military experience. Working at the Pentagon does not make one a forensics expert. But HRW, in its seeming immaturity, gave him that job more because of his resume than because of his knowledge. This is the problem. For all of HRW's laudatory goals, they have no ability to be as critical of themselves as they are of anyone they set their sights on. To my mind, this is what was exposed here - not a sickening hobby from one of their more visible figureheads, but HRW's tone-deafness and immaturity.

Garlasco responds, poorly

Marc Garlasco finally responds to the story about his obsession with collecting Nazi-era German paraphernalia. And, as could be expected, he twists the facts around a bit:

Now I've achieved some blogosphere fame, not for the hours I've spent sifting through the detritus of war, visiting hospitals, interviewing victims and witnesses and soldiers, but for my hobby (unusual and disturbing to some, I realize) of collecting Second World War memorabilia associated with my German grandfather and my American great-uncle. I'm a military geek, with an abiding interest not only in the medals I collect but in the weapons that I study and the shrapnel I analyze. I think this makes me a better investigator and analyst. And to suggest it shows Nazi tendencies is defamatory nonsense, spread maliciously by people with an interest in trying to undermine Human Rights Watch's reporting.

Actually, he had achieved some blogosphere fame previously, for his poor analyses blaming Israel for various things that he didn't have adequate evidence for.

Secondly, his hobby is not "Second World War memorabilia associated with my German grandfather and my American great-uncle." Unless he has another handle he keeps secret, his obsession - it is difficult to call it anything else - has been specifically with German memorabilia, and specifically with WWII-era German memorabilia (although I saw a few awards from the earlier part of the century.) His book was on specifically German medals.

Thirdly, collecting medals has zero in common with military analysis. To imply that somehow his creepy hobby makes him a better analyst is laughable.

Fourthly, there are serious questions as to how good an analyst he is to begin with. I am not one who can judge, but I would love to hear from military people who have read his analyses. Clearly he has screwed up in the past. And as far as I can tell, his Pentagon career had nothing to do with "analyzing shrapnel."

I've never hidden my hobby, because there's nothing shameful in it, however weird it might seem to those who aren't fascinated by military history. Precisely because it's so obvious that the Nazis were evil, I never realized that other people, including friends and colleagues, might wonder why I care about these things.

If this is true, then why did he agonize in one of his forums as to whether he should use his real name on his book? He was concerned because he sometimes gets quoted on the news, and being associated with this enterprise might hurt his career. That indicates an awareness that he knew that his hobby was potentially offensive to some. He knew quite well that people "might wonder." Yet, like all obsessives, he justified it rather than take up collecting stamps or pink flamingos.

The question he has yet to satisfactorily answer is why his obsession was almost exclusive to Nazi-era German memorabilia. He has simply denied that (as has HRW) and there has been little evidence that he spent even 1% of his collecting time on non-Nazi-era German war materials.

I deeply regret causing pain and offense with a handful of juvenile and tasteless postings I made on two websites that study Second World War artifacts (including American, British, German, Japanese and Russian items). Other comments there might seem strange and even distasteful, but they reflect the enthusiasm of the collector, such as gloating about getting my hands on an American pilot's uniform.

Here he is simply lying. The websites were both specifically geared towards German Nazi-era collections, one named GermanCombatAwards.com and the other was Wehrmacht-Awards.com. I didn't see any post about getting his hands on an American pilot's uniform, but I did see the one on his enthusiasm about seeing an SS jacket:

That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!

Marc

It makes my blood go cold, as well, but for completely different reasons.

Which points up to the major problem with Garlasco's non-apology: it is an excuse, with the trappings of some apologetic words, probably forced by his bosses at HRW who are trying desperately to shut this story down.

And the problem is not specifically Garlasco. It is HRW. Garlasco is always trotted out as their "senior military analyst" but we do not know what his areas of expertise really are, and one gets the impression that he is overreaching in his analyses to get to a conclusion that was already decided before he entered the scene. Now he looks a lot flakier, and so does HRW's credibility; their defense of him indicates that they just don't get it.

HRW sends out the sockpuppets (UPDATE)

Earlier this evening I received a comment from "Dash F.", about the Garlasco story, saying:

This is total nonsense. It's malicious and defamatory and borderline libelous, to be honest. The mere fact that someone collects a certain kind of military artifact does not make them loyal to what those artifacts represent. Saying Garlasco is a Nazi b/c he owns Nazi medals is like saying someone interested in cave paintings is a neanderthal. It simply makes no sense! Instead of dragging this man's name through the mud, perhaps it would be better to consider his record, his position at a leading Human Rights NGO (which, despite claims to the contrary, is not anti-Israel since they criticize Israeli and Palestinian tactics alike when either cross the line of legality), and the fact that he COLLECTS stuff. That's as far as it goes. People study and write about and read about and are interested in every evil figure and vile empire that ever existed, Nero, Ghengis Khan, Sadam Hussein, Stalin, Hitler. This interest does not equal acceptance or agreement or support in any way and to argue otherwise is totally illogical!

Five minutes later, on a different thread, I received another missive from "Tom K." who pasted HRW's press-release defense of Marc Garlasco.

Both of them happen to have the same IP address.

And that IP address happens to resolve to ....HRW.org!

Is this HRW's idea of how to win friends and influence people in the new media? Because, to my mind, they just did the opposite. Sock-puppet messages are considered a gross breach of netiquette, and it indicates a certain dishonesty, not to mention puerility.

HRW? Dishonest? Juvenile? Non-professional? Perish the thought!

UPDATE: Commenter Max notices that "Dash F."'s comment was repeated, verbatim, at Solomonia under the name "Sue." I wonder how many other blogs got visits from our pals at Human Rights Watch under different handles?

Meanwhile, Helena Cobban, who is on the HRW Middle East advisory committee, seems as disgusted with Garlasco as the rest of us are.

UPDATE 2: "Sara" wrote an identical message at the Z-Word blog. When it was mentioned, a person who answered her wrote, "Yay, I was debating with CTRL-C + CTRL-V!"

Latest Garlasco update

I'm trying to find time to post on other topics, but this one keeps getting more interesting...

Daled Amos uncovers some stuff that Garlasco has said in the past that seems somewhat, um, inconsistent with his attitude towards Israel:

"I don't think people really appreciate the gymnastics that the U.S. military goes through in order to make sure that they're not killing civilians," Garlasco points out.

"If so much care is being taken why are so many civilians getting killed?" Pelley asks.

"Because the Taliban are violating international law,” says Garlasco, “and because the U.S. just doesn't have enough troops on the ground. You have the Taliban shielding in people's homes. And you have this small number of troops on the ground. And sometimes the only thing they can do is drop bombs.”

Daled Amos finds another quote from Garlasco in that same interview concerning his previous life working with the US military:

Garlasco says, before the invasion of Iraq, he recommended 50 air strikes aimed at high-value targets -- Iraqi officials.

But he says none of the targets on the list were actually killed. Instead, he says, "a couple of hundred civilians at least" were killed.

Let see, that's a ratio of, very roughly, zero percent of the dead that were the intended targets. The worst you can say about the IDF in Gaza is about 45% with equally tough circumstances. (Is this sorry record what makes him a military expert?)

Perhaps we should ask HRW to investigate whether Garlasco should be charged with war crimes.

Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has picked up on the story, even mentioning little ol' me:

Several of the websites that have been running with the Garlasco story, Human Rights Watch says, are the same websites that have been attacking its reporting of the Gaza war. They include Elder of Ziyon, NGO Monitor and Mere Rhetoric.

Sounds vaguely conspiratorial, no?

HRW/Garlasco roundup from NGO Monitor

NGO Monitor does a nice job rounding up all the latest findings about Human Rights Watch's Marc Garlasco and his fetish for WWII German memorabilia.

HRW's Garlasco, taking it easy

From the German Combat Awards forum. The members are introducing themselves, and HRW's Marc Garlasco posts this picture of himself. The discussion afterwards:

Skip: Love the sweatshirt Mark. Not one I could wear here in germany though (well I could but it would be a lot of hassle)

Flak88: Everyone thinks it is a biker shirt!

Skip: Yeh, were you come from but imagine walking around in Berlin with "das Eisene Kreuz" written across your cheat. Either you get beaten to pulp by a group of rampaging Turks or the police arrest you on suspicion of being a Nazi

Yeah, this is what a serious military historian looks like on his day off.

HRW: The can of worms (Ma'ariv)

Israel Matzav translates Ma'ariv's article about the problems at Human Rights Watch, which include the new information about Marc Garlasco's Nazi-paraphernalia hobby:

If it were one case, one could argue it was a coincidence. Even two are not proof. But the more about that is disclosed about Human Rights Watch (HRW), the most important international body to protect human rights, the more that it seems that something really stinks there. No, that's not a delicate word, and certainly not diplomatic one. But it is doubtful that there is a better word to describe the can of worms that is gradually being dug up there.

...Now Marc Garlasco, who is HRW's senior military analyst, and who was the linchpin of past poisonous reports against Israel, joins the party. For example, Garlasco is the man who determined that an Israeli shell caused the deaths of an entire Palestinian family in Beit Lahiya, on the Gaza beach, in June 2006, and who made various other charges related to the Second Lebanon War and to Operation Cast Lead. Garlasco has made so many mistakes that they cannot be counted. But he is against Israel. And that is permitted.

It is not clear yet whether Garlasco himself is a Nazi. Those claims deserve close scrutiny, but it seems possible to make do with what we already know. We're talking about a Nazi memorabilia collector. This is not an innocent collection. In many cases, the collectors are expounders of a clear ideology; there are no sane people there.

...What is clearer is that HRW is being disclosed as a dangerous group, which needs a serious shakeup. Human rights in the world deserve much better protectors than a terrorist-lover like Stork or collectors of Nazi memorabilia, like Garlasco.

Read the whole thing.

HRW responds, and so do I

Human Rights Watch is providing an offense (in every sense of the word) to defend their researcher Marc Garlasco. Earlier this evening I, and other bloggers who commented on the story of Garlasco's obsession with Nazi artifacts, received a canned response from HRW:

Several blogs and others critical of Human Rights Watch have suggested that Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch’s longtime senior military advisor, is a Nazi sympathizer because he collects German (as well as American) military memorabilia. This accusation is demonstrably false and fits into a campaign to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch’s rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government. Garlasco has co-authored several of our reports on violations of the laws of war, including in Afghanistan, Georgia, and Iraq, as well as by Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Garlasco has never held or expressed Nazi or anti-Semitic views.

Garlasco’s grandfather was conscripted into the German armed forces during the Second World War, like virtually all young German men at the time, and served as a radar operator on an anti-aircraft battery. He never joined the Nazi Party, and later became a dedicated pacifist. Meanwhile, Garlasco’s great-uncle was an American B-17 crewman, who survived many attacks by German anti-aircraft gunners.

Garlasco own family’s experience on both sides of the Second World War has led him to collect military items related to both sides, including American 8th Air Force memorabilia and German Air Force medals and other objects (not from the Nazi Party or the SS, as falsely alleged). Many military historians, and others with an academic interest in the Second World War, including former and active-duty US service members, collect memorabilia from that era.

Garlasco is the author of a monograph on the history of German Air Force and Army anti-aircraft medals and a contributor to websites that promote serious historical research into the Second World War (and which forbid hate speech). In the foreword he writes of telling his daughters that “the war was horrible and cruel, that Germany lost and for that we should be thankful.”

To imply that Garlasco’s collection is evidence of Nazi sympathies is not only absurd but an attempt to deflect attention from his deeply felt efforts to uphold the laws of war and minimize civilian suffering in wartime. These falsehoods are an affront to Garlasco and thousands of other serious military historians.

It is hard to tell how much of this is HRW being obtuse and how much is them pretending to be obtuse.

Most of their argument is strawman and irrelevant.

I never accused Garlasco of being a Nazi or even a Nazi sympathizer, and as far as I can tell most bloggers who took up this story didn't either. HRW's tarring us with that brush is, frankly, offensive, and it serves to detract from the real issue that they studiously ignore:

HRW's poster boy for human rights research nurses a serious obsession with, and fascination for, the worst human rights abusers in history.

Saying that this is him doing "research" is an insult to everyone's intelligence. He is a collector of Nazi-era German objects like daggers, Iron Crosses, swastikas. He has written hundreds, maybe thousands, of posts on forums dedicated to the topic. He has written a 400 page book on the topic. Writing a monograph on German medals does not make one a "historian" in any real sense; it makes him a rabid collector. I am fairly sure that his purchase of many of these items would be illegal in many European countries. To deflect those disturbing facts by saying that he also owns a few American air force memorabilia is to dodge the real issue.

It is extraordinarily bad taste and truly offensive that the same person who habitually castigates the Jewish state to a worldwide audience has a creepy obsession with the symbols of those who tried to destroy all Jews.

No amount of doubletalk and misdirection can take that away.

HRW researcher's disturbing hobby

Marc Garlasco, the HRW senior military analyst who has written a number of reports harshly critical of Israel and whose own expertise has been called into question, has a side hobby:

Collecting Nazi memorabilia.

I noticed his obsession yesterday, to the point that he has even written a book on the topic. He has written a number of posts on various forums about Nazi memorabilia, such as daggers, Iron Crosses and the like.

While this may not be illegal or immoral, it does raise some disturbing questions about his Israel obsession.

I mentioned my findings to Omri at Mere Rhetoric, and he now has many more details to show the connection between the HRW researcher and the Nazi war buff. Read the whole thing.

UPDATES: See also Solomonia and Yaacov ben Moshe.

And the CAMERA blog.

This is getting some traction.

The people who are on Marc's forums are upset, saying that they do serious research and this does not prove he is a Nazi. However, no one is accusing Garlasco of being a Nazi; the question is whether there is a connection between his twin obsessions of Nazi paraphernalia and Israel's right to defend itself - and whether HRW sees this as a problem for their vaunted "objectivity."

UPDATE 2: Noah Pollak from Commentary talks about this as well:

A Nazi-memorabilia hobby sure is a strange one for a professional human-rights activist to have. Are there any senior staffers at PETA who moonlight as collectors of fur coats and leg-hold traps?

HRW's pattern of bias in its "Precisely Wrong" report

No one denies that civilians were tragically killed in Gaza. The major question that human rights organizations like HRW and Amnesty International have to deal with is whether the civilian casualties could have been reasonably avoided, or if they appear to have been deliberate.

Clearly, they have no insight into the thinking of the IDF commanders, so it is literally impossible to prove that the IDF killed civilians deliberately. Instead, these groups will attempt to find evidence - physical, or via interviews - that seem to prove that the attacks were deliberate. While this can never be considered conclusive, it is a reasonable approach to take all the existing data and look to see if the evidence fits better into a narrative of deliberation or a narrative of accidental or collateral killings.

Looking into the details of HRW's reports that condemn Israel, one can see a disturbing but consistent pattern that HRW seems to have shown a definite bias towards evidence that condemns the IDF while downplaying or ignoring evidence that could exonerate the Israeli army. From all indications, HRW is stacking the deck to make the IDF look as guilty as possible.

Here are some examples from the HRW report on alleged drone attacks on civilians in Gaza, entitled Precisely Wrong.

Gaza Technical College, Gaza City

HRW writes:

Around 1:30 p.m. on December 27, 2008, the first day of the IDF offensive, an IDF drone launched a missile at a group of young men and women standing across the street from the UNRWA-sponsored Gaza Technical College in downtown Gaza City [GPS 31.51162/034.44336] killing 12. Nine of the dead were college students, two of them young women; all were waiting for a UN bus to take them to their homes in Rafah and Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip. The three other civilians killed were bystanders. The missile struck 25 meters from UNRWA's Gaza headquarters, in the Rimal neighborhood of central Gaza City, which is frequented by UN staff and international aid workers.

According to nine witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including three international UN staff, no Palestinian fighters were active on the street or in the immediate area just prior to or at the time of the attack. Fighters from Hamas and the other Palestinian factions were rarely seen in the Rimal neighborhood where the attack took place, witnesses as well as Palestinian journalists and human rights activists based in Gaza said. This was one of the first airstrikes of Operation Cast Lead, and the street was crowded at the time of the attack as civilians went about their normal business.
Human Rights Watch altogether interviewed nine witnesses to the attack, three of them in a group and the rest individually. All gave corroborative details of the attack, which lent credibility to their claims. No fighters from Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups were in the area of the Gaza Technical College at the time of the attack, they all said. An UNRWA security guard who witnessed the attack told Human Rights Watch, "There wasn't anybody else around-no police, army, or Hamas."

What HRW is not mentioning is that one of the victims, Adham Hamdi al-'Adani, was identified in Hamas forums as a member of the al-Qassam Martyrs Central Region Deir el-Balah Martyrs Battalion.

HRW is purposefully misleading in another detail. While it is true that this was "one of the first airstrikes of Operation Cast Lead," it occurred a good 1.5 hours after the first Gaza City airstrike, according to PCHR. It seems unlikely that civilians were going about their "normal business" when the city was already under attack.

PCHR describes the targets in Gaza City this way:

At approximately 11:25 on Saturday, IOF warplanes bombarded Arafat police compound in the center of Gaza City, where the ceremony of graduation of trained officers was being conducted; the headquarters of the past Preventive Security Service and offices of Wa'ed Society for Prisoners in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in the south of Gaza City; al-Mashtal site [detention center - EoZ] in the Beach camp in the west of the city; al-'Abbas police station; a bust garage belonging to Hamas near Gaza Harbor; and the headquarters of the Security and Protection Service and the presidential compound in the west of the city. They also bombarded a police station in al-Daraj neighborhood in the east of Gaza City, a site of the 'Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas in al-Shoja'iya neighborhood and another one in al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the east of the city; a house belonging to the Humaid family in al-Tuffah neighborhood in the east of the city.

It is possible that the PCHR's list is not exhaustive, but it appears that every target mentioned besides the Humaid house was a legitimate target. Which of these listed corresponds to Al-Sena'a street in the neighborhood where the attack detailed above occurs? Could it be that HRW missed one of the al-Qassam sites that was obliterated, and that the eyewitnesses were covering it up? (If it was the Humaid house, it seems strange that HRW wouldn't mention the IDF bombing of a house in this case.)

Is it possible that 'Adani (PCHR: 'Udeini) was doing something other than just innocently going to class, a full hour and a half after the initial IDF assault on Gaza City? We have no way of knowing. But one can definitively say this: if HRW had the information about 'Adani's affiliation, it didn't see fit to mention it in its report; if it didn't have that information, it can hardly be considered to have done a complete analysis. Either way, HRW is not showing that it was objective in its research and reporting.

Samur family metal shop, Jabalya

This was one of the more infamous accidents that the IDF made during the war: misidentifying dozens of cylinders being loaded into a truck as being rockets, and not as the oxygen tanks that they were. The IDF video of that airstrike was widely watched.

HRW blames the IDF for not knowing the difference:

The family showed Human Rights Watch some of the oxygen canisters that it said it had moved that day before the Israeli strike. The canisters measured 1.62 meters long-shorter than the average adult man-and 20 cm in diameter. Grad rockets are 2.87 meters long, nearly twice the length.

Jabalya is in the northern Gaza Strip, which has been the origin of many of the Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel. Whatever suspicions that raised, however, the drone's advanced imaging equipment should have enabled the drone operator to determine the nature of the objects under surveillance. The video posted online by the IDF indicates that this was the case: two of the cylindrical objects the men were loading onto the truck are visible, and both are clearly shorter than Grad rockets, which, at nearly three meters are taller than any grown man and longer than the width of the Mercedes-Benz 410 flatbed truck onto which the cylinders were being loaded crossways. The Russian-designed Grad rocket is a known weapon in the Hamas arsenal, and consequently recognizable to IDF personnel. As such, given the visual evidence, the drone operator should have considered the likelihood that these were not Grad rockets. In addition, according to the IDF video of the attack, the truck was under surveillance for more than two minutes, and possibly longer because the truck was not moving, so the operator should have had time to consult with superior officers on whether the truck could be considered a legitimate target.

HRW is discounting a number of possibilities: that the person watching the truck might have thought that the rockets weren't Grads but rather Qassam-2 rockets, which are almost identical in size to the oxygen cylinders (180 cm vs. 162 cm) or perhaps another type, that the proximity to the metal workshop where Qassams are often built indicated a likelihood of them being rockets, whether two minutes is really enough time to check when being wrong would result in dozens of rockets being launched towards Israel.

In addition, HRW breezily mentions the dimensions of the Grad rocket as if everyone could recognize their size immediately. Yet Mark Garlasco, HRW's senior military analyst, at the time said:

"This case highlights the complexity of targeting in urban areas. Even when the commander is certain of his target based on active observation, this shows they can be mistaken. . . . It is difficult to know what your target is."

Garlasco, no fan of Israel and someone who has shown his bias before, hardly finds this an open-and-shut case of Israeli blame. And isn't it interesting that HRW's "senior military analyst" didn't immediately notice that the cylinders in the video were not as large as Grad rockets? HRW clearly gives the IDF more responsibility for accurately identifying a rocket in two minutes than it gives its own resident expert in a week of watching the video.

HRW also doesn't address another salient point that the IDF mentions about the incident:

The objects were being loaded into the truck next to a recognised Hamas rocket manufacturing site, and close to Hamas‘ central base. The loading point was also near an area frequently used by Hamas to launch rockets towards Israel.

All of these facts would tend to justify Israel's decision to strike, and HRW doesn't mention them - even though the IDF report was already released at the time the HRW report was published.

Al-Habbash family house, al-Sha'f, Gaza City

Another tragic case:

On January 4, at around 3 p.m., an IDF drone launched a missile at six children playing on the roof of the al-Habbash family home in the al-Sha'f area of Gaza City [GPS 31.50928/034.47826]. The missile killed two girl cousins, ages 10 and 12, and injured three other children, two of whom lost their legs.

The father and two lightly wounded sons, interviewed separately, told Human Rights Watch that there was no fighting in the area at the time of the attack. "There were no Israelis in the area; it was the second day of ground fighting," Muhammad al-Habbash said.

Admittedly, it is difficult to understand why the IDF would not have been able to identify the children on the roof, assuming that HRW is correct in saying that they were killed by a drone. However, the claim that there was no fighting going on in the area needs to be verified independently. On that same day in that same neighborhood that the PCHR identifies as Al-Tufah, al-Qassam Brigades member Mohammed Bashir Mohammed Khader was killed (PCHR, Hamas says January 6.) Is that not relevant?

'Allaw family house, Al-Sha'f, Gaza City

Another seemingly tragic case:

On January 5, around noon, an IDF drone launched a missile at members of the 'Allaw family who were on the roof of their home [GPS 31.50828/034.47721], three blocks from the al-Habbash house, which was struck the day before. The missile killed a young boy and injured his brother and sister.

Human Rights Watch investigated the site of the blast and fragments from the missile. The site had the same fragmentation patterns as the other sites and the missile fragments were consistent with the other Spike attacks.

HRW may be correct, but the PCHR reported the case a bit differently at the time:

At approximately 14:15 on Monday, IOF artillery shelled a house belonging to the 'Allaw family in al-Tuffah neighborhood. As a result, 2 children from the family were wounded:

1.Mo'men Mahmoud Talal 'Allaw, 11; and
2.Mohammed Mhamoud Talal 'Allaw, 12.

Their sister, 8-year-old Iman Mahmoud Talal 'Allaw, was also wounded.

PCHR's casualty list released in March lists Mohammed as being killed on January 5th, so it is curious that the PCHR didn't count him as being killed on that weekly report. The differences in the times of the attack and that the PCHR considered it an artillery, not a drone missile, attack indicates that perhaps HRW's methods for identifying drone missiles is not as accurate as they think, or that PCHR's reporting was incorrect at the time. Either way, one or both of these human rights organizations were very mistaken about the event. And HRW should at least tangentially acknowledge that others disagreed about the circumstances, for if PCHR is correct, that calls into question nearly every case mentioned in this report as being missile strikes based on the patterns of the holes.

UNRWA Asma Elementary School, Gaza City

On the afternoon of January 5, 2009, the Sultan family from Beit Lahiya along with about 400 other people fled their homes due to fighting in the area and sought protection at the UNRWA Asma Elementary Co-educational "A" School in the center of Gaza City, which the UN had opened earlier that day as a shelter. The displaced families stayed in classrooms and used two bathrooms inside the main building. UNRWA officials registered 406 people in the school.

After dinner, around 10 p.m., three young men from the al-Sultan family wanted to use the bathroom but the facilities in the school's main building were occupied, so they left the building to use the bathrooms in the courtyard. While there, a single Israeli missile directly struck the bathroom, killing all three. The hole in the bathroom wall and surrounding fragment marks, as shown by CNN and the BBC, are fully consistent with impact from a drone-launched Spike missile.

But from the IDF's perspective, three young men appeared late at night outside a building,

a place where no civilians were known or presumed to be at night, especially since the school had been closed for nine days when the incident occurred. Earlier that day, the UNRWA apparently had opened the school as an emergency shelter, although it did not so notify the IDF prior to the strike. The IDF concluded that there was no reasonable explanation for the presence of the unit in the elementary school, other than their preparation for the terrorist activity. The IDF targeted the terrorist unit only after it cross-checked this information.

So why does HRW not blame the UN for not informing Israel of the use of this school as a shelter, thereby endangering people there? The IDF, closely coordinating with the UN, cannot help but assume that three young men going to the small building at night are terrorists.

Instead, HRW blames Israel. HRW notes, but airily dismisses, the IDF's information:

The IDF was reportedly not informed of its use as a shelter until January 6, but civilians lining up outside the school and inside the school compound would have been clearly visible by aerial surveillance.

The assumption is that the IDF is omnisciently seeing what every resident of Gaza is doing at all times, and cannot rely on the UN to relay correct information but must double, triple and quadruple check every possible explanation of why people might be acting like terrorists act when terrorists brag about hiding among civilians.

HRW, without knowing anything about the coverage and priorities of Israel's drones, facilely makes an absurd assumption that, somehow, Israel should have known that a UN facility was being used when the UN never told Israel about it. Yet anyone who has spent any time looking at footage from drones knows that they can only focus on a tiny percentage of Gaza at a time at a resolution that can identify people, and HRW betrays its own naivete when it makes a statement like that.

Yet it is consistent with the bias shown throughout the report: for every incident, HRW bends over backwards to find fault with IDF decisions and spends no effort trying to see if they have any justification - on the contrary, it uses borderline sarcasm to belittle IDF explanations.

This is not what the function of a fact-finding mission should be. This reflects the function of a partisan group, that already knows ahead of time what it is going to decide, and only admits evidence that supports its pre-existing verdict.

Ma'ariv vs. HRW

HRW has responded defensively - but not convincingly - against Ma'ariv's accusations of bias by the main author of its report that claims to have "proof" that IDF soldiers fired on Gaza civilians holding white flags.

The "white flag" accusation is the core of the report. In fact, it is called "White Flag Deaths." But look at how HRW defends itself from Ma'ariv's and the IDF's responses:

"Human Rights Watch is relying on the testimony from people who are not free to speak out against the Hamas regime." Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, in an interview with the BBC, August 13, 2009.

"The Human Rights Watch report which claims that IDF soldiers killed 11 Palestinian civilians holding ‘white flags' is based on unreliable witness reports." Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement, August 13, 2009.

Both claims are false. Human Rights Watch methodology does not rely only on the accounts of victims and eyewitnesses. We examine medical records such as hospital and autopsy reports; forensic evidence left over from attacks, such as bullet casings, tank tracks or ammunition boxes; the attack sites themselves; and we conduct interviews with multiple witnesses, including medical staff and law enforcement, military and other officials and, where possible, the alleged perpetrators. Our interviews are conducted in private (unless otherwise stated) and confidentially. We carefully cross-check individual interviews with the interviews of other witnesses to assess reliability and consistency, and assess information we receive against accounts of the fighting made available by the IDF, Hamas combatant lists, and in the media.

Well, since medical records and bullet casings and tank tracks and ammunition boxes do not say anything one way or the other about white flags, all that is left are "witnesses."

And Palestinian "eyewitnesses," to put it simply, lie. They lie consistently, they lie to a known playbook, and the evidence of their previous provable lies is overwhelming. To rely on "witnesses" to prove the white flag allegations is exactly the same as to rely on "witnesses" to prove that Israel steals organs - which is what the Swedish newspaper did last week.

Moreover, HRW ignored the inconsistencies from these very supposed eyewitnesses that had been published and noted in numerous sources in the days after these attacks. If the very witnesses they rely on cannot keep their own stories straight within days of the incidents, how reliable can their testimony be to HRW months later?

The author of the original Ma'ariv article, Ben Dror Yemini, responds to the latest HRW attempts to deflect their bias and shoddy research, and the article is translated here. It is important enough to reproduce in full:

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Ben-Dror Yemini, Maariv, 21.8.09

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS BECAME THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS

On Sunday (16.8.09), I wrote an article entitled "Author of Report Against Israel Supported Munich Massacre" which dealt with Joe Stork, the man who presented the severe Human Rights Watch (HRW) report last week (13.8.09) which said that 12 Palestinian civilians, including children, were shot to death by IDF soldiers even though they were waving white flags.

The article received widespread coverage and many references, and apparently struck a very sensitive chord with the organization. Up until now, the organization did not respond to claims of anti-Israel bias; on occasion, it arrogantly belittled the claims. This time the organization deviated from its habit. Two days later (18.8.09), Stork sent a letter to Maariv in which he tried to deal with the claims that were made against him. The letter is presented in full below, both for reasons regarding the right of response and in order to make it clear that the letter, in effect, only strengthens the claims against the organization in general and against Stork in particular. Following is Stork's letter in full, with remarks added in order to set the record straight.

***

"The Israeli government and Ben-Dror Yemini ['Author of Report against Israel Supported Munich Massacre'] seem to share a “shoot the messenger” approach when it comes to addressing painstakingly researched criticisms of the Israel Defense Forces’ actions in Gaza. Instead of addressing these detailed findings, they spread malicious misinformation about me and my organization, Human Rights Watch."

Stork is right. One must deal with the message, not the messenger. But sometimes, in extreme cases, there are grounds for focusing on the messenger. Let us assume that a former Ku Klux Klan activist would issue a report against Afro-Americans. Would the report be important or the messenger? The comparison is not far off the mark in the current case. Stork opposed the recognition of Israel and was even one of the founders (!) of a group that admired the murder of the Israeli athletes in Munich. Stork also recommended that the left-wing body should withdraw if the PLO decided to negotiate with Israel. May we not doubt the objectivity of such a man?

"On August 13, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing instances in January in which Israeli soldiers killed Palestinian civilians who were waving white flags to convey their civilian status. Government spokespersons sought to dismiss the report by calling Human Rights Watch biased. But to date no critic has disputed the facts about the seven incidents in the report, in which soldiers shot and killed 11 unarmed civilians, including four children and five women."

One of the main stories in the HRW's report relates to Abd Rabbo family, that three of her daughters were shot in cold blood, despite the fact that they raised a white flag, and despite the fact that fighting was not in the area. The case was published extensively on many newspapers around the world. A special report of Tamar Sternhal from CAMERA found out significant contradictions in the testimonies of the family members and the neighbors. Sternhal test was much more meticulous than the HRW report, and was posted on 4.2.09 - long before the publication of the report of HRW. It was ignored by the HRW team. Even the “Times Magazine” published a contradicting testimony about the Abed Rabbo affair, but again, it was ignored by HRW.

And indeed, it is becoming clear that HRW carried out negligent and non-serious work. All of the incidents appearing in the report were known to the IDF. The report itself did not add anything. Moreover, the claim that, "no critic has disputed the facts about the seven incidents," is a total lie. On the contrary, regarding five of the seven incidents, it was decided to open Military Police investigations, meaning that the IDF is carrying out a serious inquiry. If there are discrepancies – they are being thoroughly examined.

HRW adopts the opposite method. Videos have been published of Hamas personnel exploiting civilians and hiding behind white flags. These were even published on YouTube. Is there even one word – one! – about this in the HRW report? Of course not.

In the same video, it should be pointed out, the terrorist hides in a house from which civilians are waving white flags. The terrorist was apprehended. The civilians were not hurt. It is no coincidence that the film's findings were not refuted in the HRW report because when the target is painted in advance – the delegitimization of Israel – the facts will not confuse Stork and his people. While photographic testimony that refutes the findings of the report receives no comment, the testimony of Palestinians living in the shadow of Hamas's reign of terror receives top billing. Is this testimony serious? NGO Monitor responded to this and refuted HRW's claims. But Stork, as is his custom, takes no notice.

Many claims have been made against Israel. Israel did not ignore them. On the contrary, many of these claims were refuted in detail, in a 163-page Foreign Ministry report that was issued on 29.7.09. The HRW report, which was issued two weeks later (13.8.09), ignores most of them, just as the video was ignored because this is what HRW does. Stork is not even interested in checking; he wants delegitimization.

"Now, again instead of addressing our research, Mr. Yemini has launched a personal attack on me, which the Israeli government has dutifully translated and distributed. The quotes he attributes to me are more than 30 years old. Most of them I do not recognize, and they are contrary to the views I have expounded for decades now. For instance, selective excerpts about the Munich massacre come from an unsigned editorial that appeared 37 years ago where at the time I was one of seven volunteers that produced the publication. All my work since then shows that I would never support such an attack. For nearly 40 years, I have been documenting, writing, and speaking out on injustices by virtually all of the governments and many non-state armed groups in the Middle East. This work is readily available – including at Middle East Report magazine, which I edited through 1995, and at Human Rights Watch since then – but Mr. Yemini did not include these many statements, undoubtedly because they did not support his claims. Had he looked at the hundreds of statements, articles and reports I’ve written since the 1970s, he would have found exposés of Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime and my report for Human Rights Watch on war crimes by Palestinian suicide bombers. I have dedicated much of my adult life to the protection of human rights for all and to fighting the idea that civilians can be attacked for political reasons. Ma'ariv and Mr. Yemini owe me an apology."

Indeed, it is clear that Stork does not deny even one of the claims that I raised. He simply claims that there are his remarks from many years ago. Has Stork disavowed his very problematic past with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)? Indeed, in an article he wrote in 1993 on US-Israel relations, Stork expresses very similar positions to those he expressed in his MERIP days. Moreover, many footnotes in the same article direct the reader to remarks written in MERIP years before. This means that not only has there been no turning point but a reiteration and continuation of the past. And it should be clear that Stork was for the Israelis just as the KKK activist would be for the Afro-Americans.

Let us continue. Stork claims that HRW published condemnations of Saddam Hussein and Palestinian suicide terrorists. This is the case, there indeed were additional reports. But these reports do not pass the proportionality test. Among countless human rights violations around the world in which Israel has a marginal and small place, HRW sees fit to issue countless reports precisely on Israel, a disproportionality that indicates a pre-selected goal and Stork's special logic. Even when HRW issues a condemnation of a Palestinian action, Stork adds clarifications of his own [in a 2001 BBC report]: "Most of the [Palestinian] security officers have been in Israeli jails." Yes, the Stork of the past is no different from the Stork of today.

Stork's headline-grabber has to do with the equivocal support issued by MERIP in the wake of the Munich massacre: I was "one of seven volunteers," he tries to claim. Not exactly. Stork was one of MERIP's founders and the chief editor of the journal which published a statement in support of the massacre. It is a pity that Stork does not read his own CV as it appears on HRW's official website. The determination that the action was "an important boost in morale" for the Palestinians is part of the sequence of other remarks, including opposition to recognizing Israel, encouraging Arab countries to struggle against Israel, etc.

I believe that today, Stork would not issue a statement in support of massacring athletes. But Stork has merely gone from the highest rung on the anti-Zionist ladder to the next one lower down. But he is still on the same scale. He was and remains in the ranks of the anti-Israel Left. NGO Monitor and Prof. Gerald Steinberg will soon publish a book that analyzes a decade's worth of HRW publications and the people behind them, including Stork himself. But Stork is above criticism. It is possible to assume that he did not bother to study NGO Monitor's detailed response to the HRW report. This allows Stork to claim that there were no responses. This is what he does. When Steinberg previously issued a biting and substantive criticism, Stork arrogantly responded that he is not at all interested in criticism against him.

Israel, in contrast to Stork, takes notice of the criticism against it. It checks itself. Not all criticism of Israel deserves to be dismissed. Israel also makes mistakes. But Stork is a special personality. He is both radically anti-Israeli and unwilling to be criticized. Is it possible to accept the "criticism" of such a man?

Stork is not alone. When he began to work at HRW, he had no special expertise in the field. His only talent was a series of articles that were exceptionally hostile to Israel. That is not surprising. The Director of the Middle East Department, Sarah Leah Whitson, arrived at HRW after having been in a pro-Arab body. This is legitimate. Is there a chance that someone from the Anti-Defamation League would be accepted to HRW?

Global human rights are in a predicament. The UN Human Rights Council has turned into the Dark Regimes Rights Council. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya have an automatic majority. Non-governmental organizations, such as HRW, were supposed to stand against such bodies. But in reality a sad thing happened, Whitson flew to Saudi Arabia recently to raise funds for HRW. And they don't even understand that they have a problem. This is how non-governmental bodies have transformed antagonism towards Israel to the main issue. They are biased to the extreme. They place Israel in the same category as Sudan, and publish weak protests on the suicide and rocket industries, just to discharge a perfunctory obligation.

Israel is contending with the Hamas regime, the official covenant of which is the closest thing to Nazi ideology. This is a group that calls for the elimination of the State of Israel, the malicious murder of Israeli citizens, gratuitous Jew-hatred, and many of its speakers talk candidly about taking over the West. How exactly is a democratic country supposed to confront such an entity, indoctrinated in the ideology of hatred, murder and incitement? Why is Europe permitted to fight the Taliban – which threatens Germany or Spain much less – with much harsher measures, but Israel is prohibited from fighting a body like Hamas?

It is permitted to criticize Israel. But HRW has lost the moral right to do so. He who in the past has called for the elimination of Israel; he who supports, directly or indirectly, the boycott of Israel, cannot become an objective critic. There is a need for an international struggle for human rights. But bodies such as HRW hurt this important struggle. They become the prop of the world's darkest regimes. Instead of saying unequivocally that such a regime, such an ideology, such an element – has no right to exist, the HRW is waging a struggle that is not a criticism of Israel, but rather wild slander against Israel. True, there is marginal criticism against Hamas. But criticism of Israel is the main point. And therefore, for the sake of returning human rights to its proper standing, it is time for HRW to cleanse its ranks.

The very existence of a group like Hamas is a crime against humanity. Stork and HRW find it difficult to understand this. On the contrary, in their crude attack, in their delegitimization of Israel, they are parties to this crime.

h/t SfA

So much for HRW's "objectivity"

Forgetting that HRW claims to have "forensic evidence" that Palestinian Arabs waved white flags while being mowed down by heartless IDF soldiers (without providing any such evidence,) the author of that report has a history of, shall we say, extreme antipathy towards Israel - and support of terror. From Maariv, translated at Commentary:

AUTHOR OF REPORT AGAINST ISRAEL SUPPORTED MUNICH MASSACRE
By Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, 16.8.09, p. 13

Joe Stork, a senior official in Human Rights Watch, which accuses the IDF of killing Palestinians who waved white flags, is a fanatical supporter of the elimination of Israel. He was a friend of Saddam, ruled out negotiations and supported the Munich Massacre, which “provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians.”

Last Thursday, many world media outlets covered the press conference in which a senior Human Rights Watch official, Joe Stork, presented the report accusing Israel of killing twelve Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who waved white flags during Operation Cast Lead. Stork, the person identified with the report, has a unique history of Israel-hating: He supported the murder of Israeli athletes in Munich, was an avid supporter of Saddam Hussein and more.

Several times in the past, Stork has called for the destruction of Israel and is a veteran supporter of Palestinian terrorism. Already as a student, Stork was amongst the founders of a new radical leftist group, which was formed based on the claim that other leftist groups were not sufficiently critical of Israel and of the United States’ support of it. Already in 1976, Stork participated in a conference organized by Saddam Hussein which celebrated the first anniversary of the UN decision that equated Zionism with racism. Stork, needless to say, arrived at the conference as a prominent supporter of Palestinian terrorism and as an opponent to the existence of the State of Israel.

He also labeled Palestinian violence against Israel as “revolutionary potential of the Palestinian masses”—language that was typical of fanatical Marxists.

In articles which he authored during the 1970’s, Stork stated that he was against the very existence of Israel as an “imperialistic entity” and, to this end, provided counsel to Arab regimes on how to eliminate the Zionist regime. He also was opposed to any negotiations since this meant recognizing its existence: “Zionism may be defeated only by fighting imperialism,” wrote Stork, “and not through deals with Kissingers.”

On other occasions, Stork expressed his position that the global Left must subordinate itself to the PLO in order to strengthen elements that opposed any accord with Israel. It would seem that he has not changed his ways since then. He is still conceptually subordinate to those who have maintained their opposition to the existence of the State of Israel. Once the world’s radical left supported the PLO. Today, part of the global Left supports Hamas.

Where does Stork stand regarding matters of objectivity and neutrality? He criticized Professor Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, himself a PLO figure, because he edited an anthology which tried, at least seemingly, to produce a balanced presentation. “Academic neutrality is deceitful,” wrote Stork. And what about factual accuracy? Stork claimed that Menachem Begin said that, ‘The Palestinians are two-legged animals.” In fact, Begin said that those who come to kill children are “two-legged animals.” The difference is, of course, huge. Stork, time after time, justifies his high standing in the industry of hate and lies against Israel.

Stork reached his peak in a statement published by the Middle East Research and Information Project, which dealt with gathering information on the Middle East conflict, and in which Stork was a leading figure. This was a statement that included explicit support for the murder of the eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics:

“Munich and similar actions cannot create or substitute for a mass revolutionary movement,” the statement said, “But we should comprehend the achievement of the Munich action…It has provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians in the camps.”

Murder and terrorism, if so, are a matter of morale.

This is the man. A radical Marxist whose positions have not changed over the years. On the contrary. Objectivity, neutrality or sticking to the facts are not Stork’s strong suit. He even proudly exclaims that there is no need for neutrality.

Is it possible to relate seriously to a report against Israel which this man stands behind? Both Camera and Professor Gerald Steinberg have revealed worrying data on the leaders of Human Rights Watch and on the two people who head its Middle East Department—Sarah Leah Whitson and Joe Stork—even before its latest report and unconnected to it. The organization, as part of its false presentation, issued polite condemnations of Hamas rocket fire. But it seems that such blatant anti-Israel bias leaves room for doubt. A Stork-produced report on Israel is about as objective as a report by Baruch Marzel on Hebron.

Israel is called upon to provide explanations in the wake of Human Rights Watch reports. It is about time that Israel publicly exposed the ideological roots of several of this organization’s leaders and demands the dismissal of these supporters of terrorism and haters of Israel. Until then, Israel, justifiably, cannot seriously comment on criticism from such a body.

HRW will believe anything (UPDATED)

HRW just came out with a report claiming multiple cases where IDF soldiers killed, in cold blood, innocent civilians holding white flags.

I cannot speak to all the details of the report right now, but one part is clear: HRW fully believes the "eyewitness" accounts of liars.

They interviewed the Abed Rabbo family, whose previous statements to reporters were found to be incredibly inconsistent. The fact that HRW is so credulous when many have noted the inconsistencies shows that their research is pretty shoddy. At the very least they should have addressed the issue, but of course that is not HRW's aim.

One simple example: HRW says that

Seven neighborhood residents who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that major fighting in the area had stopped by the morning of January 7, although sporadic exchanges of fire may have continued after that.

Time magazine's report mentions a salient fact that HRW chose to ignore:

Most residents of Jebel al-Kashif claim there were no Hamas fighters in the area at the time of the alleged incident, but a middle-aged farmer in a battered army jacket took me aside and said, in a near whisper, that Hamas had been firing rockets from the vicinity of where the episode took place.

Now, who is more credible? The farmer has nothing to gain by lying, but the Abed Rabbo family - who are members of Fatah and who had earlier told a PA newspaper that Hamas was using them as human shields - just might not want to antagonize their tormenters.

Why are none of these facts mentioned by HRW when it relates the story of the Abed Rabbo sisters told by a family with very shaky credibility?

The reason is, of course, that HRW wants to find human rights abuses and "war crimes," and will ignore evidence to the contrary.

NGO Monitor's critique of the report can be found here.

UPDATE: Here's video of a terrorist trying to get away from the IDF by using a white flag, something HRW seems to not have known about during the past seven months.

(h/t Richard Landes of Augean Stables via email)

NGO Monitor looks at HRW

NGO Monitor came out with an analysis of Human Rights Watch's report on Israeli use of drones in Gaza. One tidbit:

On page 5, the report asserts that these visual capabilities enable operators to consult with military lawyers “to help determine whether targets are legitimate.” This suggests that the authors have no real battlefield experience in which split-second decisions must be made, or are simply inventing claims.

I wonder if HRW wants all soldiers in a battlefield to be equipped with cell phones to call their lawyers before each time they pull the trigger?

It is also interesting to contrast HRW's claims of the incredible precision of drones and their optics with the British professor's assertions that drones cause more civilian deaths that I posted about yesterday.

NGO Monitor also noted the "even-handedness" of HRW releasing a report today calling Hamas rocket attacks war crimes. Outside of the huge "duh!" factor, NGO Monitor notes:

While containing no new information, this report might have had an impact if HRW published it six months ago. The fact that it is only now on their agenda exposes their biased priorities. The timing might indicate HRW's effort to use this report to divert attention from the Saudi fundraising controversy, and as a fig leaf to cover the disproportionate focus on Israel.

On the substance, HRW failed to indict Hamas for turning the entire Gaza population into one massive human shield, and ‘researchers’ need to explain why they did not investigate the sources of the ‘smuggled’ rockets or to mention Iran. In contrast, when condemning Israel on a very thin factual foundation, HRW officials consistently criticize the American security relationship and arms transfers”.

HRW report on IDF - one sided and deceptive

I just looked a little at the Human Rights Watch report on Israeli drones killing civilians in Gaza.

The report was mainly written by Marc Garlasco, who had famously blamed Israel for the very ambiguous Gaza beach blast in 2006 and whose credentials as an expert are equally ambiguous.

I didn't have time to look at the report too carefully, but it follows the normal HRW playbook of doing everything possible to blame Israel for not being perfect.

The main example was the famous case of Israel bombing what appeared to be a group of men loading a truck with missiles.

To support its statement, the IDF released video footage of the attack, made available online, probably taken by the drone that launched the missile. It showed a group of at least one dozen men casually loading cylindrical objects crossways onto an open truck immediately before the missile struck. At least five more men are seen standing around the vehicle.
The IDF video does not show any secondary explosions, which would have indicated the presence of weapons-grade explosives or propellants at the site. Nor was the destruction at the site consistent with the presence of rockets. Had the truck been carrying Grad rockets with warheads, the truck and adjacent buildings would have been destroyed. Even without warheads, the propellant in the rockets would have destroyed the truck.

Credible doubts about the attack arose on December 31, when the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem released an interview with the owner of the truck, Ahmad Samur, who said that he was transporting oxygen canisters used for welding, and not Grad rockets. According to Samur, his family was trying to move the canisters from the metal workshop he owns to protect them from looters. He denied any connection to Hamas or any other Palestinian armed group. Eight civilians died in the attack, Samur said, including three children and Samur's son 'Imad, age 32. Two others were severely wounded.

As HRW mentions, the video was widely available and can be seen here:

While HRW is probably right in that the cylindrical objects were probably not Grad missiles as they appeared, its only advice to the IDF was to notice that the objects were smaller than Grad missiles are and try to identify them better before firing. (As it was, the video shows that the IDF watched the activity for over two minutes before firing.)

However, the objects were being taken from the vicinity of a metal workshop - the places that Qassam rockets are typically built. It is a very reasonable assumption that these were weapons of some sort. HRW doesn't even consider that the IDF might have a case in targeting these men. Would an average soldier looking at this video be able to make such an assumption that these are oxygen tanks, knowing that at that very moment there were dozens of rockets being fired at Israeli communities daily? I cannot blame the IDF for their decision - but HRW, of course, does.

One other interesting fact. HRW lists the names of those killed during the attack, and says that eight civilians were killed and none had any connection with any terror group. However, one of them, Ashraf Sayed Khamis al-Dabbagh, was identified as a "militant" by the PCHR. (#366.)

One other person I noticed from the report, Adham Hamdi al-'Adani, killed when the IDF hit near a Gaza school, is this person depicted in an Al Qassam Brigades martyr poster, #33 in the PCHR list:

He is identified here as a member of the Al Qassam Brigades Deir al-Balah Battalion.

This is not to say that these bombings weren't mistakes. Most of the victims do not appear to have been terrorists, and the IDF should - and does - do everything necessary to avoid killing civilians. There are articles and video that show the IDF aborting bombings when they see civilians in the area, evidence that the HRW seems to ignore in its reckless quest to damn Israel as being indiscriminately violent.

However, HRW either ignored evidence that some of the "civilian" victims they are talking about were actually terrorists or it didn't do any reasonable research (typing the names into Google should have been enough.) This is either sloppy work or it is purposeful deception on HRW's part.

Human Rights Watch bows to Saudi Arabia

NGO Monitor noticed an outrageous event that happened last month: Human Rights Watch went to Saudi Arabia, one of the worst offenders of human rights on the planet, to raise funds to continue their anti-Israel crusade.

From Arab News, May 26:

RIYADH: Human Rights Watch is gaining more recognition and support in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world. During their recent visit to the Kingdom, senior members of the organization were given a welcoming dinner in Riyadh hosted by prominent businessman and intellectual Emad bin Jameel Al-Hejailan.
Other prominent members of Saudi society, human rights activists and dignitaries were invited to the dinner held to honor the guests.
In an introductory speech at the dinner, Al-Hejailan said the credo of human rights is rising in the Kingdom. He commended Human Rights Watch (HRW) for its work on Gaza and the Middle East as a whole.
HRW presented a documentary and spoke on the report they compiled on Israel violating human rights and international law during its war on Gaza earlier this year.
"Human Rights Watch provided the international community with evidence of Israel using white phosphorus and launching systematic destructive attacks on civilian targets. Pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations have strongly resisted the report and tried to discredit it," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa Division.
Whitson pointed out that the group managed to testify about Israeli abuses to the US Congress on three occasions.

But wait - HRW pretended to be "even-handed" to the members of the Magic Kingdom:

Keeping with its mission of even-handed criticism, Human Rights Watch has also leveled criticism at other states in the region, including Saudi Arabia. The organization recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers.
"Saudi Arabia's current labor law excludes domestic workers, denying them rights guaranteed to other workers, such as a weekly day of rest, limits to hours of work, and overtime pay," said HRW in a statement in March as the Shoura Council was debating the issue.

This is the worst criticism that HRW can muster against Saudi Arabia? Domestic worker rights?

No mention of systematic discrimination against women, including the ban on driving? No mention about the bigotry against non-Muslims in the Kingdom, such as confiscating Bibles at the airport? No mention of the religious police who terrorize people day and night?

Well, of course not. HRW wasn't in Saudi Arabia to promote human rights in the Gulf. They were there to raise money, and it would not make sense to insult their potential benefactors.

Hassan Elmasry, a member of HRW's International Board of Directors and the MENA Division's Advisory Committee, called for the support of the organization.
"Supporters can spot and fully discuss human rights cases or stories with friends or family members before passing stories or cases to HRW," Elmasry said.
The group is facing a shortage of funds because of the global financial crisis and the work on Israel and Gaza, which depleted HRW's budget for the region.
"Our work involved a lot of travel and expenses for researchers. We are so modest and conservative in running a tight budget of less than $2 million to cover costs and expenses for over 20 researchers working on the Middle East and North Africa," he said.
"Half of this amount comes from individual donors. We call businessmen in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world to support HRW by sending donations," said Elmasry, who is also a managing director at Morgan Stanley in London.

As NGO Monitor points out, HRW spends far more time criticizing Israel than repressive Arab regimes (with the interesting exception of Saudi Arabia, which gets more attention but much weaker criticism.)

Apparently, HRW now is using its biased Gaza reports and videos as fundraisers specifically aimed at Arabs. If the gambit works, they will have incentive to expand their criticism of Israel to get more money next year.

Does anyone see an ethical issue there?