An absurd UNHRC commission story and the games that will result

The UNHRC report released this week includes some clearly ridiculous allegations from Gaza "eyewitnesses." Here is one of them:

An eyewitness, Raghad Qdeih, told the commission that, on 25 July around 1 p.m., Israeli forces occupied the home of her uncle, Mohamed Tawfiq Qdeih, in Khuza’a. At the time of the attack, the witness, together with her uncle’s extended family and friends were taking shelter on the ground floor. Most of the approximately 30 persons who had sought refuge in that house were women, children and elderly persons, including a man who was over 70 years old. Both witnesses interviewed by the commission in relation to this incident insisted that these people were all civilians, and that none of them were affiliated to armed groups. When the soldiers entered the house, Mohamed Tawfiq Qdeih was holding a white flag with one hand and his other hand was raised to show the soldiers that he was unarmed. He reportedly spoke to the soldiers in Hebrew, telling them that they were all civilians. Mohamed Tawfiq Qdeih was approaching the soldiers and, when he was about two meters away, the soldiers shot him twice and killed him. The women and children - among them the witness's daughter - were then ordered to leave the house, whereas all six men present were directed to stay in the building. The women and children went to the house of the witness’s father, Ramadan Qdeih, next door.

Ramadan Qdeih

The father of Raghad, Ramadan Qdeih, described to the commission that he witnessed the forces arriving at the house of his brother, Mohamed Qdeih, at around 1 p.m., in the process of which they demolished parts of it. About an hour later Israeli soldiers came to his own house. They ordered the people in the house to return to the place where they had previously sheltered, where the women stayed on the first floor. The owner of the house was taken to the second floor. From the window there, Ramadan Qdeih saw the men who had been held at his brother's house with Israeli soldiers standing behind them. The witness said that the men were naked with black plastic bags over their heads, handcuffed and positioned in front of the windows facing outwards. The soldiers then started shooting from behind the naked men, using them as human shields. This went on from about 1.30 to 6 pm. The men were later told by the soldiers that they were placed by the window in order to deter Hamas fighters from returning fire.

If things like these events happened, I would hope that IDF soldiers would be testifying about them.

But the stories are absurd.

The story about the IDF shooting a man at point blank range while he held a white flag and was speaking to them in Hebrew is just one version of the story, as the anti-Israel Euro-Mid Observer described this incident from the perspective of multiple "witnesses."

• Ramadan Qdeih says that the soldiers first entered the house, and that Mohamed was shot afterwards.
• Raghdad Qdeih says that he was shot on the steps leading to the house, not inside.
• Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmad Al-Qara said that Mohammed was killed immediately upon opening the door to his house, not mentioning a conversation at all.

What about the IDF supposedly taking off the clothes of the Arab men and forcing them to stand in the window while they shot around them? It is even more absurd. 

First of all, Hamas wouldn't be deterred from shooting at fellow Gazans. 

Secondly, while the "witness" told the UNHRC that the "human shields" were "naked with black plastic bags over their heads," one told the Euro-Mid NGO that they were blindfolded. It is hard to mistake one for the other.

Thirdly, the most lurid detail from the UNHRC's "testimony" that the "human shields" were stripped naked is not corroborated by a single witness - or even "victim" - interviewed by Euro-Mid. 

Even the Euro-Mid report acknowledges that the testimonies regarding this are inconsistent, but concludes "The contradictions were not important to lead the observers to doubt the truthfulness of statements in general." 

But there is no downside to lying to the UNHRC. They will publish whatever people are willing to say. They won't try to corroborate it in the least. 

And then, when the Military Advocate General is forced to investigate these obviously bogus claims and concludes after many months that almost all the stories are fiction, the headlines will be that the MAG cannot possibly be objective because of the high percentage of accusations that were dismissed. Even well-meaning Western observers will look at those statistics and conclude that something must be fishy, not even considering that Gazans are conditioned to - and instructed to - lie to NGOs. .

And NGOs like Euro-Mid are coaching their "witnesses" to say what they want to hear.

It is a win-win for the terrorists and their supporters, all because the UNHRC does not want to report what human rights groups know very well: that "eyewitnesses" often lie to Western NGOs.  As a rare honest Amnesty researcher noted, "Players and interested parties go to extraordinary lengths to manipulate or manufacture 'evidence' for both internal and external consumption."