Friday, March 22, 2024
Elder of ZiyonA large percentage of these conspiracy theories come from "human rights" organizations.
On March 15, the Israeli government submitted assurances to the US State Department as part of its compliance with National Security Memorandum-20 (NSM-20) that it is not arbitrarily blocking US humanitarian assistance and not violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch and Oxfam issued a joint statement claiming that Israel's assurances were not "credible."
In every specific example they give of supposed Israeli violations of international humanitarian law, they choose to view incidents in Gaza through a prism of assuming that the entire Israeli government and defense establishment collude to lie to the world. That is the definition of a conspiracy theory.
Their first examples show the pattern of accusations and their presumption that Israelis at every level are just a bunch of liars:
Human Rights Watch documented a strike by Israeli forces on a marked ambulance outside al-Shifa Hospital on November 3, 2023, which reportedly killed 15 people and injured 60. Ambulances are protected civilian objects under international humanitarian law and cannot be targeted when used to treat wounded and sick individuals, both civilian and combatant. Israeli authorities said they intentionally struck the ambulance, contending that it was being used to transport able-bodied fighters. Human Rights Watch investigated these claims and did not find any evidence that the ambulance was being used for military purposes. Furthermore, the high number of civilian casualties caused by the strike suggest that it was unlawfully disproportionate even if the ambulance was being used for military purposes.Human Rights Watch documented strikes on or near several major hospitals between October 7 and November 7, including the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital, and the International Eye Care Center.Hospitals enjoy protected status under international humanitarian law, and only lose their protection from attack if used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy,” though warnings, proportionality, and distinction are still required. Israel contends that the hospitals were being used by Palestinian fighters and therefore were not protected under international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch found with respect to the cases it investigated no evidence that would justify depriving the hospitals of their protected status under international humanitarian law.
The pattern is that the NGOs assume that Israel acts maliciously with no regard to international law. They "investigate" the incidents with woefully incomplete information. Then they declare that Israeli statements that they attacked legitimate military targets are lies based on these "investigations" whose verdicts are based on the absence of evidence that they could find in a chaotic war zone with "witnesses" who would be killed by Hamas for "collaboration" if they say the wrong thing.
The IDF has a great deal more intelligence (in every sense) than Oxfam and HRW. They will not strike an ambulance or area around a hospital for no reason. They know who the targets were, the rank and importance of the people and assets being targeted, and they make their decisions of striking the targets and their calculations of proportionality based on the known intelligence at the time - which is exactly what international law requires from them.
HRW and Oxfam and Amnesty know nothing about what went into the decisions. They assume guilt ahead of time, then they send in their Gaza-based "researchers" who never, ever say anything negative about Hamas to "investigate" and then report that they couldn't corroborate that Hamas was there. They all looked like civilians to them.
The NGOs never mention the dozens of videos from Hamas and Islamic Jihad showing them shooting at Israeli positions wearing civilian clothing.
Israel targeted a car in Lebanon with civilians where there was no military activity nearby, they say - even though the car was seen rushing away from where an anti-tank missile had killed an Israeli civilian shortly beforehand.
Every incident that they claim is a violation of international humanitarian war can be interpreted as a perfectly legal and valid military action. Every incident they claim they "investigated" shows that they do not know even a tiny part of what the military knew at the time of the action. Israel is not obligated to reveal to them the depth of intelligence it has access to, but as we've seen time and time again, the IDF has detailed knowledge about their targets.
To the NGOs, every Israeli explanation is a lie. The Jews cannot be trusted. Every layer of the IDF, the Mossad, the Shin Bet, the Military Advocate General's Corps, COGAT, the Knesset and the cabinet and the Prime Ministers office are all part of this huge conspiracy of lies.
The IDF has a lot of lawyers who review every targeting decision to ensure legality. To HRW and Oxfam, they are all part of the coverup.
Like all conspiracy theorists, the NGOs comb through statements of Israeli officials to find out-of-context quotes to "prove" that the Israelis are really maliciously trying to wipe out every civilian in Gaza.
There is no difference between the crazed antisemitic conspiracy theories of the neo-Nazis and the crazed antisemitic conspiracy theories of the "progressive" Left. They both take fragmentary, decontextualized factoids and string them together to create a narrative of unbridled Jewish evil.
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