Each has included scenes where the hostages are forced to promote Hamas propaganda and lie about how they were treated in captivity.
This is a direct violation of international law. The Geneva Conventions say that "outrages upon personal dignity" are war crimes.
In November 2023, before the first set of hostages were released, HRW said that forcing hostages to make videos is a war crime. Since then, I cannot find anything from HRW or Amnesty International that mention this again.
Now, we know the pattern. Israeli hostages are paraded around on stage, forced to make false statements that they were treated well, forced to hold "certificates" and to thank their captors, and forced to stand in front of Hamas propaganda backdrops.
NGOs are quite limited as to what they can concretely do to promote human rights. Their major weapon is to shame various parties to act humanely and follow international law. Hamas is very sensitive to being shamed. If major NGOs would directly and unequivocally condemn these staged events, Hamas would make sure that they aren't shamed again. Since we know that the same scenario will be acted out in the future, "human rights" NGOs are in a unique position of actually being able to do something good.
They choose not to.
Make no mistake - this is a choice. "Human rights" NGOs like Amnesty and HRW mount massive, expensive campaigns against Israel, but where they could actually do good - against Muslims who are sensitive to honor - they choose to respect their honor and downplay their criticisms, if they even say anything at all.
The ICRC, for its part, has only offered muted, ambiguous mumblings of concern. Their press release yesterday states, "The ICRC is increasingly concerned about the conditions surrounding release operations. We strongly urge all parties, including the mediators, to take responsibility to ensure that future releases are dignified and private. The ICRC has consistently conveyed this message privately and publicly. " By saying "all parties" they are equating Israel and Hamas, and therefore Hamas is not shamed - on the contrary, they are equating innocent hostages to convicted terrorists. It is true that the ICRC is committed to neutrality but that doesn't mean it cannot (and does not) call out abuses by one side when the abuses only happen on that side.
Most times that HRW and Amnesty condemn something, the event has already happened. Here the war crime is planned, scheduled, and livestreamed. This is one of the few times that the NGOs can influence Hamas to change its behavior ahead of time by publicly calling it out and demanding a change. That they choose not to do so tells you everything about how little they care about the human rights of Israelis.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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