Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: B'tselem

Showing posts with label B'tselem. Show all posts

Thursday, July 21, 2016

B'Tselem shows it is much more honest than HRW, but not quite honest enough

B'Tselem just released its own slick website to show detailed statistics behind every single death during Operation Protective Edge two years ago.

This mirrors Amnesty International's similar website which is filled with absolute lies, as I've documented exhaustively.

To its credit, and in contrast with Amnesty, B'Tselem actually made attempts to be accurate. There was serious research behind this initiative.

The research was still biased. For example, many or all of those who were killed in a beach cafe bombing were members of the Abu Rish Brigades of Fatah, but B'Tselem identifies them all as "did not participate in hostilities," which implies that they were civilian without B'Tselem saying so.

The bottom line is that B'Tselem identifies about one third of those killed as having participated in hostilities, with another 46 of those killed not having been determined if they were or not.

The Meir Amit Intelligence Center had identified (at last count) about 48% of those that they counted as being militants, but they had a lot more that had not been determined as of their last report.

The statistic I would like to see is the percentage of those killed who were either terrorists or who were killed during the targeting of legitimate military targets. That number would show how many were killed for no apparent reason which is really what the "human rights" NGOs are trying to imply was the case with the majority. But as we have seen, many of those killed were being used as human shields by Hamas or other groups.

B'Tselem's data should be enough to get a good idea of that number; unfortunately it isn't visible in database format so such a task would be arduous. (Anyone who wants to volunteer to work on that, please contact me!)

I looked at the death of a two-year old child, the first infant to be killed during the war:

Muhammad Khalaf 'Awad a-Nawasrah. 2 years old, resident of al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district. Killed on 09 Jul 2014, in al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed at home with his family.

And who was his uncle?

Salah 'Awad Hussein a-Nawasrah. 22 years old, resident of al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district. Killed on 09 Jul 2014, in al-Maghazi R.C., Deir al-Balah district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Participated in hostilities, member of the military wing of Hamas. Additional information: Killed at home with his wife and his two nephews.

So a woman and two children were killed because they were effectively used as human shields by a Hamas terrorist. Their deaths are regrettable - but fully justified under the Geneva Conventions assuming that he was an important enough target. That is a judgment call based on what a reasonable military commander would choose based on the best information he or she has at the time.

Even if B'Tselem's statistics were 100% correct, and I don't think they are, I believe that a little digging would show that the vast majority of civilians killed in Gaza died because they were in proximity to terrorist targets - the victim of Hamas' policy of using the civilians of Gaza as human shields.

That is not a statistic that B'Tselem would want to publicize because their goal is to demonize Israel, not to show that it wages war against terrorists in a way that is compliant with international law.

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Water, water everywhere but not a drop of truth by B'Tselem

Yesterday, B'Tselem tweeted:

While Palestinians suffer from severe water shortage, settlement swimming pools are full https://t.co/syD4emAPw1 pic.twitter.com/W8KRq9hylW
— B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) June 21, 2016

The link goes to a Haaretz article by Amira Hass where Palestinians complain that settlements get all the water and none go to their communities in Judea and Samaria.

The Haaretz article didn't mention swimming pools once.

One person pointed out to B'Tselem public relations director Roy Yellin that Palestinian swimming pools happen to be full:

.@btselem It seems that Waterland in Jericho is opened for business. 30 Shekels for a full day pass. @elderofziyon pic.twitter.com/3oXpmWqaw4
— Mikarov (@YMikarov) June 21, 2016

Indeed it is open, along with numerous other Palestinian water parks and swimming pools.

Yellin simply could not understand how this is relevant right after he retweeted about settlement swimming pools:

@YMikarov @btselem @elderofziyon amusement parks and lux. hotels exist in the poorest places. What's your point?
— Roy Yellin (@ryellin) June 21, 2016

What possible point could there to point out that Palestinian swimming pools are full be right after he complains that Jews have swimming pools? It is a real mystery, I tell ya.

It just so happens that Yisrael Medad told me yesterday that Israel's water carrier Mekorot turned off the water altogether in his community at Shiloh.

That's right, Jewish settlements with no water in the hot summer months.

B'Tselem is not interested in truth. But this is how it raises all that European funds so it can give salaries to people like Yellin.

Truth becomes a burden when you need to pay for your own swimming pool.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

HRW, UN and B'Tselem demand that Israel VIOLATE international law

Human Rights Watch issued a report:

The Israeli military unlawfully demolished at least 39 structures in Bedouin Palestinian communities in the West Bank on August 17 and 18, 2015. The demolitions left 126 people homeless, 80 of them children. Four of the communities where the demolitions took place are targeted by an Israeli government plan to forcibly “relocate” 7,000 Bedouin.

Such destruction of private Palestinian property and the forcible transfer of Palestinians violate Israel’s human rights obligations and the laws of occupation. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from destroying private property or forcibly transferring the protected population unless strictly necessary for military reasons. Israel does not claim the demolitions or planned relocations are justified for military reasons.

B'Tselem also says that this is against international humanitarian law. The UN had stated that previously and I fisked that UN statement.

What does international law say?

For the purposes of this post, we will assume that Israel is occupying Area C of Judea and Samaria, which is the legal basis of Israel's Supreme Court decisions, even though it never ruled on that question specifically.

The law prohibiting confiscating private property comes from the Hague Conventon IV article 46, which states flatly "Private property cannot be confiscated."

But these buildings weren't built on private property. They were illegally built on public state lands.

What does the Hague Convention say about the legal obligations of an occupying power?

That is in article 43:

The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.

Under international law, Israel must do everything possible to respect the laws that were in place before the occupation - meaning the laws from the previous Jordanian and British and Ottoman governments.

And under none of those sets of laws would illegal building on state be considered to magically become private property and protected under the law from being demolished. That idea is nonsensical; Imagine what the New York City government would do if people built buildings in Central Park and then claimed to be homeless and forced to relocate when they were demolished.

HRW is clearly and knowingly lying when they use the "private property" argument.

B'Tselem is a bit more knowledgeable about international law than Human Rights Watch and doesn't try to use HRW's clearly incorrect legal reasoning. Instead, it only argues HRW's second reason, saying that "These expulsion plans run counter to the provisions of international humanitarian law, which prohibit the forcible transfer of protected persons, unless carried out for their own protection or for an imperative military need." But again it is absurd to say that legally demolishing buildings built without permits is "forcible transfer." On the contrary, it is enforcing the law. The alternative is to give anyone the right to squat on public lands, which is clearly absurd.

There are exceptions where the occupier may override pre-existing laws for security or other purposes, for example to strike down pre-existing laws that violate human rights or otherwise contradict the provisions of "public order and safety." The full extent of that permission is argued by various legal scholars. But as far as I can tell, no one says that Israel is mandated to change existing Ottoman/British land and zoning laws - and to do so without good reason would be a violation of international law!

Yet this is exactly what these NGOs are demanding that Israel do - to uproot or ignore pre-existing land laws.

Perhaps these organizations have a point in that Israel is not enforcing the pre-existing laws equally between Jews and Arabs in Judea and Samaria. In this particular case, however, the illegal squatters on state land never even bothered to submit applications for building permits or to submit a master plan for rezoning areas for residential use. The reason, of course, is because these structures were meant as a land grab and not as a declaration of private property rights. The Bedouin knew very well that their buildings were illegal, and Jews who would build random structures on state land would be treated the same way.

Yet even if you claim that Israel's application of zoning laws is not done evenly, "it's not fair" is not a principle of international law that is being violated.

One argument that may be made in favor of Israel's changing the zoning laws could perhaps come from an expansive reading of "public order and safety" in the Hague Conventions, a reading that Israel's Supreme Court in fact has used, translating the original French "la vie publique" as ‘civil life’ which is much more than "public order." Yet even then, that does not mean that Israel is obligated to go so far as to change existing laws. As legal scholar Marco Sasson writes:

Under the general rule, as its qualifications ‘all measures in his power’ and ‘as far as possible’ confirm, public order and civil life are not results that must be guaranteed by an occupying power, but only aims it must pursue with all available, lawful and proportionate means. One may argue that the required standard of action is below that with which human rights instruments expect states to comply in fulfilling human rights, in particular social, economic and cultural rights, since, as discussed below, the occupying power is not sovereign and its legislative powers are limited.

There is obviously a tension between the Hague provisions to ensure public order and civil life and to "respect, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." But to demand that the latter, written in very strong language, trumps the former, and not doing so is a violation of international law, is clearly wrong.

The UN, B'Tselem and HRW are not telling the truth about international law, and they are twisting it deliberately to target Israel.

(Israel's Supreme Court does not recognize forcible transfers within occupied territory to be against the Geneva Conventions prohibition on "forcible transfer," but the ICRC does, so we will not argue that point here.)

Why did AP, B'Tselem and Amnesty ignore this house destroyed by Israel?

Recently, Richard Behar and Gary Weiss wrote a masterly destruction of an AP investigation showing how many mistakes and violations of journalistic ethics could be found in an article.

"The New York-based news agency examined 247 airstrikes on homes—interviewing witnesses, visiting attack sites and compiling a detailed casualty count. Its probe determined that out of 844 dead from those strikes, 508 (or just over 60 percent) were children, women and older men, 'all presumed to be civilians.'"

This is very similar to an Amnesty report on Israeli airstrikes of houses that I addressed here.

The organization that decided to do this type of analysis originally is B'Tselem, which even during the war started compiling lists of houses that had been hit by Israel and their casualties.

There is an additional problem with all of these "investigations" - they consciously exclude airstrikes on homes that the NGOs know were being used to shield fighters.

If you only count houses that used women and children as human shields, yes, it will appear that Israel showed disregard for the lives women and children (which is not by itself proof of violations of international law, as I have shown in my Amnesty piece.)

B'Tselem has the most comprehensive list of family homes hit by Israel published (AP did not expose its full list.) Yet one obvious family house is not listed: the home of the Al Skafi family of Shujaiyya.

I already mentioned that two of the al-Skafis were 17 or 18-year old twins who were proud members of Islamic Jihad.

But most of the other victims of that airstrike were also terrorists.

Abdel Skafi:

Ahmed Skafi, in front of the Hamas flag:

Mujahid al Skafi, in his martyrdom video:

Ali Skafi:

Now, it is true that their 63-year old father Akram was killed along with this jihadist family. Presumably he was not an active militant.

But AP, B'Tselem and Amnesty did not bother to list the al-Skafi family house as one of those that were targeted by Israel, because counting that house - and who knows how many others - would reduce their ratio of civilians to terrorists killed by Israel.

In other words, these organizations cooked the books to make Israel look bad.

It is inconceivable that all three are not aware of the al-Skafi home - it was prominently mentioned in "Humanize Palestine" and other sites that list the dead.

Yet since it was obvious to these organizations that the al-Skafi family home was mostly inhabited by fighters, that house is excluded from these supposedly objective analyses.

How many other such houses filled with jihadists from the same family were excluded?

All of the other criticisms of these reports still apply, of course, Without these organizations knowing what the targets were, they cannot know whether the IDF commanders who ordered the strikes violated the primciples of distinction and proportionality, and any assumptions of those violations based on the proportion of civilians killed are inherently flawed.

But the Al Skafi home proves that the entire purpose of this "research" is not to calculate how effective the IDF was, but rather to cherry-pick the examples that they believe prove their point.

It is lying with statistics, and it is reprehensible.

(h/t Thomas Wictor)

B'Tselem's interpretation of international law is wrong

B'Tselem released a report on the IDF's policy of striking houses during the Gaza war.

The first 36 pages of the report are meant to humanize the victims, in order to prime the reader to think that certainly Israel must be guilty of war crimes. Once B'Tselem greased the wheels, it tries to interpret international law in a biased and incorrect way.

The organization admits multiple times that it has no access to IDF intelligence as to why specific targets were struck, It only mentions that the IDF has not released the details of why it considered the houses targeted to have been legitimate targets. Without a single shred of evidence, B'Tselem claims that Israel was targeting people, not facilities.

Many Hamas military branch commanders – mid‐level and up – had, in effect, turned their apartments also into bases or operational headquarters where they received military intel and from which orders were issued to their subordinates, including orders for operations against our troops and for firing rockets at Israel […] During Operation Protective Edge, there was widespread use of private homes for concrete military purposes. There is no doubt that these are legitimate military targets under international law.

But that's not good enough for B'Tselem, which insists that unless the IDF tells them the specific intelligence that went behind the attacks, then B'Tselem's guesses must be more accurate:

It is possible for residences of operatives of Hamas or other organizations to be considered legitimate military targets, but to be defined as such, what they were actually used for must first be determined. IHL stipulates a twofold test for deciding whether a structure is a “military objective”: the structure must make an effective contribution to military action, and harming it must give the attacking party a clear military advantage.

In spite of this, the IDF Spokesperson did not explain the connection between any of the houses attacked as specified in his statements and any military activity. The term “operational infrastructure” proves nothing in itself about any alleged military use of the residence. Its repetition does, however, serve to unmask the attempt by policymakers to lend an air of legality to such attacks.

The explanations the IDF Spokesperson and the MAG provided for the destruction of operatives’ homes are unconvincing and appear to be no more than a cover‐up for the actual reason for the destruction – the identity of the occupants. In this sense, these strikes constitute dozens of cases of punitive house demolitions – prohibited in themselves – carried out from the air.

Somehow, the IDF's refusal to reveal sensitive military information has been transformed into B'Tselem's being able to read minds as to the real reason houses were targeted.

B'Tselem admits that it has no real information to make any determination:

The military refrains from giving the public the answers to these questions. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases, B’Tselem cannot know what considerations underpinned the attacks. Some of B’Tselem’s investigations did lead to conjectures regarding the reasons for an attack on a specific house, such as: the presence of a Hamas operative in the house at the time of the attack or several hours earlier; the fact that the homeowner’s son was an operative – at one or another level of seniority – in an armed Palestinian group; or the firing of Qasam rockets from somewhere near the house. However, in the absence of an official statement from the military, B’Tselem cannot determine with certainty why a given house was attacked, whether it met the definition of a legitimate target and if so, whether the attack may be considered proportionate.

Yet it makes its baseless charges anyway!

When it suits its purposes, B'Tselem says that Israeli intelligence in Gaza is top-notch, using that to prove that Israel should have known that civilians were likely to be killed:

[T]he military has powerful intelligence capabilities with respect to Gaza residents. Intelligence information made it possible for the military to know the precise location of people it intended to target. The Ground Forces journal mentioned above provided a detailed description of surveillance measures available to the military, including observation balloons, drones, and observation officers who analyze the findings.50 Given all this, whoever gave the orders to attack knew – or should have and could have known – about the presence of civilians at the site of the target.

However, if the IDF intelligence is so good, that implies that the IDF knows far more about the nature of the military target itself.

If the target is a legitimate military target, then the issue of likely civilian casualties is weighed against the value of the target. A reasonable military commander makes that decision under international law. B'Tselem is confusing its ignorance of what the commanders know with the idea that the commanders don't know any more than B'Tselem does about the value of the targets, and it makes up its own fiction about what they assume must have been the targets - Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants hanging out in crowded apartments, not seriously considering that they would have command and control centers hidden specifically in residential buildings.

Here is the crux of B'Tselem's conclusions:

[T]he issue at hand is what conclusions policymakers may draw from the conduct of Hamas and other armed Palestinian organizations. The above quoted statements by the prime minister and the chief of staff indicate they believe that Hamas and the military share the responsibility of taking precautions. For example, in a case in which Hamas did in fact conceal weapons in a residential building, thereby turning it into a military target that may be targeted, Israel’s interpretation would be that the military would attempt to warn the building’s occupants before striking. If the warning accomplishes its objective so the civilians are unharmed, Israel can use the incident to showcase how the military abides by IHL. If civilians are harmed, whether or not a warning was issued, Hamas will be held responsible.

Accepting this interpretation would mean that there are no restrictions whatsoever on Israeli action and that whatever method it chooses to respond to Hamas operations is legitimate, no matter how horrifying the consequences. This interpretation is unreasonable, unlawful, and renders meaningless the principle that IHL violations committed by one party do not release the other party from its obligations toward the civilian population and civilian objects.63

Yet this interpretation is designed to block, a priori, any allegations that Israel breached IHL provisions. It focuses exclusively on policymakers’ intentions, which cannot be examined as no official information is available, while completely ignoring the outcome, even when the same deadly results are seen time and again. Several days into the fighting, decision makers surely would have had no doubts about the results to be expected from continuing the policy of attacking homes.

In light of all this, the argument that the house bombing policy is lawful must be rejected.

The highlighted area is completely wrong. Israeli military commanders must, under IHL, decide on the value of the target and also decide whether civilian casualties are proportionate given the value of the target. Under IHL, as we have seen, even a relatively low value military target - destroying the ability of the enemy to communicate for only a few hours - was considered so valuable that the killing of 16 civilians during the attack was not considered disproportionate. That's IHL, B'Tselem's incorrect interpretation isn't.

There is one other salient missing piece of data that undermines B'Tselem's analysis. B'Tselem doesn't know how many targets Israel decided not to attack because of the likelihood that civilian casualties would be disproportionate to the value of the target. There might have been thousands of such targets, and the houses targeted might be a small percentage of the total possible targets in Gaza because they did have high military value. B'Tselem's accusations have a false assumption: that Israel acted in an unrestrained manner. But it cannot know that without knowing Israel's entire intelligence operations.

Anyone can make guesses. But if you are going to write a report that accuses a country of disregarding the lives of people for no good reason, you should not base this report on ignorance - ignorance that B'Tselem even admits.

To read the actual international law that underpins B'Tselem's false accusations, see my previous articles on the principle of distinction and the principle of proportionality. International law gives far more leeway to military commanders than B'Tselem is willing to admit.

To sum up: if someone told you that she bought a diamond ring for $3,000, you cannot say that she paid too much without examining the ring and knowing something about diamonds. But that is what B'Tselem is doing here: determining that Israel acted in a disproportionate manner without knowing what the actual targets were, how important they were, what international law says about proportionality and distinction - and then B'Tselem makes the assumption that its ignorance of the facts is evidence.

The hate and bigotry of a B'Tselem volunteer worker (updated)

B'Tselem recently released a video filmed by a "B’Tselem volunteer Samih Da’na from his window" showing the IDF detaining a 12-year old boy who was throwing stones in Hebron.

Yesterday, soldiers briefly detained a developmentally disabled Palestinian boy, who is under the age of criminal responsibility, on suspicion that he had thrown stones. The boy, A. a-Rajbi, (full name withheld in interest of privacy) who will be 12 in a month, was detained after Palestinian children threw stones at soldiers on the main road of the Jabel Johar neighborhood in Hebron, close to the settlement of Kiryat Arba. A-Rajbi was handcuffed, blindfolded, and held on the floor of an army jeep for some 15 minutes until his father arrived and convinced the soldiers to release his son, who is mentally disabled and cannot speak....The footage also shows settlers from Kiryat Arba, watching the incident from behind the settlement’s fence. Some are seen calling out encouragement to the soldiers, including several racist remarks.

As usual, the video does not show the events immediately preceding the detention, so the audience has no easy way to determine whether the actions of the soldiers were disproportionate. Even B'Tselem admits that the IDF released the stone-throwing boy as soon as the father told them that he was disabled.

Part of the "racist remarks"the" settlers" are shouting include "They were throwing [stones] from above!" This Hebrew page gives some context, including showing how Arabs teach children to hate Jews.

But it is most interesting that the B'Tselem volunteer whose edited footage was so eagerly pushed is a terror-supporting Jew-hater.

Samih Da'na uses this photo in his Facebook profile:

He posted this photo referring to the religious Jews as "a herd of rats:"

Another of his timeline photos shows this lovely scene, helpfully written in English as well:

Da'na does not seem too keen on a two-state solution:

He proudly shows off photos of his son with his favorite toy:

It looks just like a bar-mitzvah photo, doesn't it?

UPDATE: He likes to give weapons to his younger son as well:

There are also other pro-terror photos in his timeline.

You get an inkling of how dedicated B'Tselem volunteers are to human rights, co-existence, fact-checking, pacifism and the fight against hate and bigotry.

(h/t Bob K)

B'Tselem researcher denies and deflects his Holocaust denial

B'Tselem researcher Atef Abu Roub posted a rambling, incoherent denial of his calling the Holocaust a lie on his Facebook page in Arabic - even after B'Tselem finally admits it on its English Facebook page.

First he states unequivocally that the Holocaust is an undeniable fact, and that he is absolutely against the killing of any civilians, ever.

He then says that the undercover journalist Tuvia Tenenbom "exceeded all journalistic rules" by being an undercover reporter and gaining his trust. He whines that he acted as his translator, without charge.

Aroub then claims that he never knew what the English word Holocaust meant, which is funny because the word wasn't mentioned in the video.

Aroub also says that in the atmosphere of joking that was throughout the interview, is it even possible that he would joke about the Holocaust?

He then goes on to say that Tenenbom's use of material during the many hours they spent together is a betrayal, but at the same time he says that Tenenbom acted inappropriately with one of the Bedouin families he visited.

Aroub defends himself in Arabic only. If he would try to make these claims in English he would look even more ludicrous than he does already.

Here's my transcript of the video:

Interviewee through translator Abu Roub: ...That you support the Jewish state.

"Toby": Why? Why do you think so?

Abu Roub: Not you personally.

Interviewee through translator The Germans pay for the Jews, while they say that Hitler killed millions of those Jews.

Interviewee through translator Abu Roub: Because you pay money, you support....

"Toby": Ah, because we are Germans, we support the Jews.

Abu Aroub: Yes.

"Toby": But ask him if he remembers that we also killed them.

Abu Aroub (without asking interviewee): (Laughs) It's a lie. I don't believe it...Sometimes they kill tens of people (unintelligible) - they are resistance. Now there is strong media, and they are lying.

Now that we've determined that B'Tselem hires researchers who are quite at ease with lying through their teeth, what does this say about B'Tselem's research methodology?

We already know that it is a joke, but this proves that at least one of their researchers has no compunction about making things up.

Lilac Sigan posted a video from 1 October to her Timeline — with Sarit Michaeli.

(h/t Bob Knot)

B'Tselem admits its researcher denied the Holocaust

In August, Israeli journalist Tuvia Tenenbaum released a video where he pretended to be a German leftist to hear what Palestinian Arabs would say to him when they were among "friends."

One of the people he spoke with was Atef Abu Roub, a researcher for B'Tselem. At the 5:50 mark you can hear him say that the Holocaust was a "lie."

B'Tselem just admitted on their Facebook page that the story is true.

When the organization asked Abu Roub whether the video was accurate, he answered that he was merely quoting someone else that denied the Holocaust, but he wasn't saying it himself. Then the interview in context was released, and it was clear that not only is Abu Roub a Holocaust denier, but also a liar.

Post by Lilac Sigan.

Perfect qualifications for "human rights" activists!

Keep in mind that these are the kinds of researchers B'Tselem relies on to tell them the truth about what is going on in Gaza. B'Tselem is one of the organizations that the UN relied on for statistics of how many "civilians" were killed in the war over the summer.

B'Tselem said that it is disgusted by the incident and will investigate the matter.

This is far worse than when Human Rights Watch researcher Marc Garlasco was discovered to be a Nazi memorabilia enthusiast. If B'Tselem doesn't fire Abu Roub, and soon, it tells us more about B'Tselem than about Abu Roub.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv, Bob K)

B'Tselem's methodology even worse than previously reported

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Two organizations in Israel have cautioned against accepting casualty figures coming out of Gaza.

Both the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Center and NGO watchdog organization NGO Monitor this week criticized the verification methods of the left-wing human rights group B’Tselem – The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - for its claims of Gaza casualty numbers that were recently released for Operation Protective Edge.

...In an email to the Post on Sunday, Roy Yellin, a spokesman for B’Tselem, sharply rejected the findings of the NGO Monitor report.

”B’Tselem is dedicated to provide accurate information, and therefore investigates and verifies any data independently, never relying solely on official sources neither in Israel or on the Palestinian side,” he said.

“B’Tselem does have field researchers on the ground in Gaza and has the professional capacity and evidence to support its publications.

For example, the difference in the death toll figures between B’Tselem and Palestinian Ministry of Health report is due to our strict verification measures,” he added.

I've reported on how B'Tselem determines whether people are civilian or terrorist by asking their families and trusting their answers, making the absurd assumption that Gazans who have been specifically instructed to lie to Western officials are telling the truth to B'Tselem.

B'Tselem itself admits that usually these questions are usually answered on the phone!

With the current military campaign ongoing, B’Tselem is taking testimony from Gaza residents, mainly by telephone. B’Tselem verifies, to the best of its ability, the reliability and precision of the information reported; nevertheless, in these circumstances, reports may be incomplete or contain errors. Given the urgency of informing the public about events in Gaza, B’Tselem has decided to publish the information now available. When the military campaign ends, B’Tselem will supplement these reports as needed.

Even B'Tselem admits that its verification measures aren't "strict" as its spokesperson falsely claimed. At the same time, it admits that it would prefer to release terrorist propaganda about civilian casualties (after a perfunctory "verification") rather than wait and do the job right.

Because vilifying the IDF is an urgent matter that simply cannot wait.

If and when B'Tselem finds out that their error rate approaches, say, 50%, they will bury it in a report nine months from now that would get no coverage. Because the truth isn't as "urgent" as publicizing the lies today. After all, B'Tselem's funding is dependent on generating headlines, and no Western organizations will fund B'Tselem if it insisted on taking the time necessary to do a proper verification..

(h/t NGO Monitor)

B'Tselem: If Arabs treat Gazans like dirt, blame Israel

B'Tselem has called for Israel to allow Gazans to travel abroad - going through Israel.

The reason? Well, Egypt is treating Gazans like potential terrorists, and is restricting their travel through Rafah. So, naturally, this is Israel's responsibility.

Really.

In early July 2013, with the onset of the events that led to the overthrowing of Muhammad Morsi, Egyptian authorities limited passage through Rafah Crossing, and the number of persons using it dropped radically. From July to September 2013, the crossing was open only intermittently. When open, Egyptian authorities only permitted the passage of limited groups, such as foreign nationals, the gravely ill, and students (the latter excepting those studying in Egypt, most of whom were allowed through only at the end of September). To date, people who had planned to travel abroad for meetings, family-related matters, professional courses or vacations, have been unable to do so.

...Data published by the World Health Organization indicate that, during the same period, Israel doubled the number of patients allowed to pass through Erez Crossing for medical treatment in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and in Israel. The objective was to grant access to medical treatment to patients who were to have been treated in Egypt. For example, in August, requests for passage through the Erez Crossing were submitted for 1,023 patients; 932 were granted permission. In contrast, only 585 such requests were made in August 2012, of which 543 were approved.

However many other Gazans scheduled to travel abroad for other purposes have been left with no recourse. Students studying outside of Gaza have had great difficulty getting through Rafah Crossing over the last three months.

...The closure of Rafah Crossing has had financial repercussions for merchants in the Gaza Strip. At present, only a limited number of merchants are permitted into Israel and the West Bank via the Erez Crossing, whereas many merchants had been traveling abroad through Rafah Crossing to buy goods for sale in Gaza. However, since July the Egyptians have not been permitting merchants through Rafah Crossing.

...At present, people who must travel abroad for professional seminars and work-related meetings are not allowed through Rafah Crossing.

...even when Rafah Crossing is functioning regularly, going through it is subject to arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Egyptian authorities, and travel abroad requires a long, dangerous journey through the Sinai desert. Therefore, the passage into Egypt cannot be considered an absolute solution for travel for Gaza residents to other countries.

Israel’s policy prevents Gazans from fulfilling their right to freedom of movement. Even now, eight years after Israel completed its Disengagement Plan from the Gaza Strip, the extent of its control over access to Gaza means Israel is responsible for enabling residents to fulfill their right to freedom of movement and its attendant rights, including the right to earn a living, the right to an education and the right to sustain family ties.

You see? If Egypt restricts Gazans from travel, Israel must compromise its security to allow foreign Arabs to go through its territory!

Egyptian sovereignty and its right to police its borders is sacrosanct. Israeli sovereignty, however, is nonexistent to B'Tselem. Perhaps Israel should be a superhighway for Gazans to travel to Jordan, Syria, maybe even Iran if they so choose.

When Hamas stops Gazans from traveling, as it has done, maybe B'Tselem would insist that IDF helicopters grab the poor people whose freedom of movement is being restricted and take them out. If Israel is responsible for Egypt's border policies, then obviously it is responsible for Hamas' travel restrictions as well.

Obviously, Arabs cannot be held responsible for anything. I guess B'Tselem thinks of them as somehow less than human.

Do you think for a second that B'Tselem is in contact with Egyptian NGOs on opening Rafah for Gazans?

They cannot even find a negative word to say about Egypt's siege of Gaza - it is just a fact of life. Arabs screw Arabs all the time, no big deal. Israel is the one who must fix intra-Arab problems now.

Pallywood, B'Tselem style (CAMERA)

CAMERA has a great expose of the latest Pallywood incident:

Sunday's Hebrew article by Elior Levi and the corresponding English version ("Video: 11-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower arrested") are based on a video that B'Tselem apparently supplied to Levi.

One wonders if the intrepid Ynet journalists, including both Levi, his editors, and English translators, even bothered to view the pre-packaged B'Tselem video before passing it off as journalism. The article states:

In the video the officers can be seen putting the boy, Karim al-Tamimi, in a police vehicle after chasing him down. The boy's mother pleaded with the officers to allow her to accompany him to the Sha'ar Binyamin police station, but her request was denied. . . .

The boy's father, Salah al-Tamimit [sic] told Ynet, "They took him without a chaperone, and by the time we arrived at the police station he was already being interrogated."

Yet, a careful viewing of the clip (with Hebrew and Arabic dialogue) reveals that the exact opposite was the case; the policemen invited the mother to accompany her child. At 2:07 minutes into the video, one of the policemen says to the mother, "Come, come, get in." The cop then asks one of the people standing nearby, "Is that his mother?" When the bystander answers in the affirmative, the policeman repeats, "Get in with him" (the boy). The door is opened for her and she is about to get into the vehicle, as the policemen are saying "get into the car," but then (2:27) the mother is pulled away from the car by the Palestinian man wearing a black jacket. After the policemen closes the van's door, a woman wearing a pink shirt pushes the mother towards the vehicle, and then the mother bangs on the door, a heartrending scene directed to the end. Here's the clip:

What possible explanation is there for the discrepancy between the article and the video? Perhaps Elior Levi received the video together with a B'Tselem press release which falsely claimed that the mother was denied permission to board the van with her son. Levi then copied the press release, without carefully reviewing the video, nevermind undertaking any field work.

A careful review of the video shows that the boy had been hidden behind a sign, blocking him from viewers' site as he threw stones at the moving vehicles. In addition, despite the fact that he had a number of options, the boy knew exactly where to run -- in the direction of the camera. And thus we have the perfectly dramatic shot of a skinny and frightened child running away from the big and scary police.

CAMERA translated the Arabic which is heard in the video, and the translation provides additional evidence that Levi's report is entirely erroneous and that the B'Tselem photographer, Nariman al-Tamimi, staged the scene.

When Karim's mother is about to enter the police van after the police tell her to board, one of the Palestinians clearly says to her in Arabic, "Don't get in," and then the Palestinian man in a black jacket pulls her away from the vehicle. This sentence proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is the Palestinians themselves who prevented her from joining her son in the van, while the Israeli police repeatedly urged her to get in.

It is also noteworthy that in the beginning of the clip videographer Nariman al-Tamimi shouts to the boy, "hurry, hurry, hurry" as he runs in her direction, yet another indication that the entire scene was planned in advance.

It appears that B'Tselem has some explaining to do regarding its "citizen journalists," the recipients of B'Tselem cameras, who fabricate news as opposed to document it.

B'tselem's hypocrisy

From Israel Today, translated by NGO Monitor:

Here is a quote from the “Bubbes and Zaydes for Peace” (BZP) website: "First launched in Toronto in 2005, ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar... This year, IAW occurs in the wake of Israel's barbaric assault against the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at a global level."

Based on their declaration, Bubbes and Zaydes supports and seeks to strengthen the BDS movement. ...The strategy is not just one of international activity to delegitimize Israel, but also undermining of the basic consensus of Israeli society. [The BDS movement] also grants indirect support and legitimacy to the armed struggle against Israel, that is to say, indirect support for terrorism.

Two weeks ago [BZP] donated money to B’Tselem, and the organization’s executive director, Jessica Montell, was quick to boast on Twitter: “I don't know the group but it brought a big smile to my face.” NGO Monitor, headed by Prof. Gerald Steinberg, contacted B’Tselem and warned them that the donation was from an anti-Israel organization that promotes Israel’s delegitimization, and supports the anti-Israel, and essentially anti-Semitic, policy of BDS. This contradicts the stated principles of B’Tselem – and the recent declarations of the New Israel Fund which supports B’Tselem – not to cooperate with organizations that deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Will you reject the contributions, asked NGO Monitor, now that the donors have been revealed to be anti-Israel? The organization’s response was that it was honored to accept donations that aim to ensure the highest ethical standards for life in Israel.

So ‘grandmas and grandpas’ in Yiddish (Bubbes and Zaydes) sounds harmless, and what could be wrong with accepting donations from them? A simple search, however, exposes the harsh face of this organization.

Organizations such as B’Tselem, that hold Israel to exceptional moral standards, should themselves be held to the same standards, especially when it comes to Israel’s existence.

B'Tselem had written to NGO Monitor [entire email exchange here] saying that "B'Tselem's board has explicitly rejected BDS tactics against the State of Israel. We have in the past and will continue to refuse donations from organizations whose aims and activities contradict universal human rights principles."

I couldn't find any official mention of the anti-BDS policy on B'Tselem's site, and they ignored my email asking for clarification. But from what they are saying, they seem to believe that the BDS movement that aims to destroy Israel and denies Jewish national self-determination - which they personally disagree with - is still in accordance with "universal human rights principles."

On paper, B'Tselem's mission of human rights is admirable, and there is nothing wrong with holding Israel to high standards in that area. But this email seems to indicate that B'Tselem is more interested in money and politics than in its own supposed idealistic goals.

B'Tselem releases Gaza report (UPDATED)

From YNet:

A new report published Wednesday by rights group B'Tselem reveals that the IDF killed 1,387 Palestinians, 773 of whom were non-combatants. On the other hand, a report published by the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center shows that at least 1,000 of the Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip were Hamas combatants or were suspected of being combatants, and were therefore marked as targets by the IDF. [Here is an earlier ICT report - EoZ.]

According to the B'Tselem data, 773 of those killed did not take part in the hostilities, 320 of whom were minors under the age of 18 and 109 were women (above the age of 18). The rest of those killed were 330 armed combatants, 245 Palestinian policemen – most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of the police station – and 38 others whose participation in the hostilities could not be determined.

The report itself is not yet on B'Tselem's website so I cannot see all the details, but it is supposed to list the names of all the victims so it will be interesting to compare it to the PCHR, PMoH and Al Mezan lists.

Just from this summary we can see that B'Tselem seems to not consider whether those killed were members of terror groups; they are only looking at evidence that they were armed at the time they were killed. While this is understandable - one has to define "civilian" somehow, and this definition seems in line with international human rights standards - it necessarily means that terrorists who were hiding as civilians would be undercounted. For example, I have previously posted a video showing terrorists dressed as civilians shooting a rocket from the middle of a tree-lined street in Jabalya and running away after the fuse is lit. If they were killed a minute later by the IDF, without any weapons on them and two blocks away, B'Tselem's methodology would presumably call them "civilians."

For better or for worse, it is more reasonable and probably more accurate to assume that all members of terror organizations were de facto militants at the time they were killed rather than make a presumption that they were civilians.

Hopefully the report will be on-line soon and we can look into the details and see how it jives with the research that Suzanne, t34zakat, PTWatch and I have been doing. But since we have so far found 656 legitimate targets, compared to B'Tselem's number of between 575 and 613, we can determine that B'Tselem is being liberal in its definition of "civilian."

It also shows that they are more intellectually honest than the PCHR, which defined Hamas policemen - most of whom were al-Qassam Brigades members - as civilian by default.

UPDATE: It turns out that the ICRC wrote its own interpretation of how to define combatants when dealing with non-state actors who don't wear uniforms. They are to be commended for at least tackling the issue.

They write:

As has been shown above, in IHL governing non-international armed conflict, the concept of organized armed group refers to non-State armed forces in a strictly functional sense. For the practical purposes of the principle of distinction, therefore, membership in such groups cannot depend on abstract affiliation, family ties, or other criteria prone to error,
arbitrariness or abuse. Instead, membership must depend on whether the continuous function assumed by an individual corresponds to that collectively exercised by the group as a whole, namely the conduct of hostilities on behalf of a non-State party to the conflict. Consequently, under IHL, the decisive criterion for individual membership in an organized armed group is whether a person assumes a continuous function for the group involving his or her direct participation in hostilities (hereafter: "continuous combat function").

Continuous combat function does not imply de jure entitlement to combatant privilege.52 Rather, it distinguishes members of the organized fighting forces of a non-State party from civilians who directly participate in hostilities on a merely spontaneous, sporadic, or unorganized basis, or who assume exclusively political, administrative or other non-combat
functions.53

Continuous combat function requires lasting integration into an organized armed group acting as the armed forces of a non-State party to an armed conflict. Thus, individuals whose continuous function involves the preparation, execution, or command of acts or operations amounting to direct participation in hostilities are assuming a continuous combat function. An individual recruited, trained and equipped by such a group to continuously and directly participate
in hostilities on its behalf can be considered to assume a continuous combat function even before he or she first carries out a hostile act. This case must be distinguished from persons comparable to reservists who, after a period of basic training or active membership, leave the armed group and reintegrate into civilian life. Such "reservists" are civilians until and for such time as they are called back to active duty.54

Individuals who continuously accompany or support an organized armed group, but whose function does not involve direct participation in hostilities, are not members of that group within the meaning of IHL. Instead, they remain civilians assuming support functions, similar to private
contractors and civilian employees accompanying State armed forces.55 Thus, recruiters, trainers, financiers and propagandists may continuously contribute to the general war effort of a non-State party, but they are not members of an organized armed group belonging to that party unless their function additionally includes activities amounting to direct participation in hostilities.56 The same applies to individuals whose function is limited to the purchasing, smuggling, manufacturing and maintaining of weapons and other equipment outside specific military operations or to the collection of intelligence other than of a tactical nature.57

Although such persons may accompany organized armed groups and provide substantial support to a party to the conflict, they do not assume continuous combat function and, for the purposes of the principle of distinction, cannot be regarded as members of an organized armed group. 58 As civilians, they benefit from protection against direct attack unless and for such time as they directly participate in hostilities, even though their activities or location may increase their exposure to incidental death or injury.

I need to read the whole thing, but I believe that the vast majority of terrorists that our group identified would fit under these criteria. The Hamas and PIJ obituaries list exactly what heroic deeds they were doing at the time they were killed, for example. Most of the others were identified as members of specific brigades, which means that they would be (IMO) considered equivalent to uniformed army.

A couple of al-Qassam Brigades people, like a cook and a group of singers, might be considered civilian by the ICRC definition.

Notably, many experts were upset that the ICRC refused to define voluntary human shields for military targets as combatants.

Do B'Tselem's cameras cause terror?

In recent weeks there has been an increase in reported attacks in Judea and Samaria, both from Jews who live there as well as from Arabs. A perfect case in point is last week's attack by an Arab in Yitzhar, where a nine-year old boy was injured and the Jews responded with violence against the village that sheltered the attacker.

Why are these attacks increasing now?

There are certainly a number of possible reasons: the tearing down of some checkpoints and the defeatist statements made by the Israeli government as it tries to come up with more and more concessions to please President Bush and Condoleeza Rice by the end of the year can surely be considered contributing factors.

But something else might also be a more direct reason.

In 2007, Palestinian Arab rights group B'Tselem started distributing cameras to PalArabs in the territories in order to enable them to take pictures and videos of any Israeli abuses they could find. This year some of the footage got a degree of publicity and the program has expanded.

Last week, Yochanan Visser of Efrat wrote a letter where he decried the attack on IDF soldiers by some settlers. But in that same letter came some details about the Jewish/Arab attacksthat were not publicized anywhere else:

This Shabbat a Palestinian stabbed a 9-year old boy in Yitzhar in his home, after which Jewish inhabitants of Yitzhar went on a rampage in the neighboring Arab village in which 8 Palestinians were wounded.

It is obvious that the situation in some areas in the West Bank is deteriorating. On the website of Israel -Facts Dutch monitor group we have been monitoring events in the West Bank for some time now. From the data we are collecting there evolves a picture of some very problematic areas, one of them Yitzhar. From these data we also learn that most of the reported incidents do not make it to mainstream media. In fact only the incidents like the one this Shabbat are reported. From our data we also learn that there are more Palestinian incidents against Jews than the other way around.

The same one-sided reporting accounts for the so-called "camera" incidents. From our own investigations we learn that these incidents are filmed at the moment of response to the original provocation. Like the incident on Shabbat also, some six weeks ago in Har Hebron the media reported that "settlers" set on fire a Palestinian field and also abused an arrested Palestinian in the presence of IDF soldiers. From further investigation we learned that it was the Palestinians who set the Jewish orchard on fire (not surprisingly for us because all the Jews living there are observant and would never make a fire on Shabbat) after which the Jews living there took revenge - this part was filmed.

We also learned that activists from leftist organizations like B'Tselem and Peace Now are fanning the flames in the West Bank. Their goal seems to be to provoke as many possible incidents in very sensitive areas like Hebron and Ni'ilin. They also publish mostly biased reports about events in the West Bank, apparently with the goal of further de-legitimating Jewish settlements there. The focus seems to have shifted from demonstrations to violent acts against IDF forces and Jews living in the West Bank.

I cannot say with certainty that the leftists are provoking these Arab attacks in order to video the responses, but it certainly seems that the Arabs themselves have started to do so.

Not that random rampages through Arab villages are justified, but there are great political gains to be made by provoking Jewish settlers into violence where cameras are waiting to catch them in the act. And while sometimes the Israelis have photographic evidence to show that attacks originated by Arabs (as in this weekend, when a 15-year old Palestinian Arab was caught on video lighting a Molotov cocktail outside Yitzhar) the grainy thermal security-camera video is not as dramatic as color video of enraged settlers attacking. (And even the clear evidence that the boy was lighting an incendiary device doesn't stop the Arab media from saying that the IDF murdered him "in cold blood.")

So we have a situation where the world media is seeing an apparent increase of Jewish violence towards Arabs, fanned by the existence of video, while in fact it is the other way around - and the number of unreported incidents of Arab violence are increasing dramatically.

(Even the Israeli media ignores much of the Arab violence. Early last year when I visited Israel I was doubly shocked by the desecration of a synagogue at a major Jewish shrine and theft of at least one Torah - and the fact that this incident was almost ignored even in the right-wing Israeli newspapers. One of my commenters mentioned that this is simply a "dog bites man" story and incidents like that happen with alarming frequency. So part of the fault has to lie with the Israeli media for ignoring stories that might bore some Israeli readers but open the eyes of the world.)

Lies, damn lies, and B'Tselem's statistics

B'Tselem just came out with its annual report on how horrible Israel is, and for purposes of "balance" it threw in some statistics on Palestinian Arabs killing each other.

It comes to the apparent conclusion that even with a reduction of Palestinian Arab deaths at the hands of Israel this year, Israel was responsible for more PalArab deaths than Palestinian Arabs themselves were. It counts 373 Palestinian Arabs killed by the IDF and 344 killed in internal fighting.

The press releases don't go into the details of B'Tselem's methodology, and its apparent attempt to keep track of intra-Palestinian Arab violence gives it a veneer of respectability and even-handedness. But look a bit deeper into how it claims to get its numbers, buried almost unnoticeably on its website:

Since the beginning of the current intifada, B’Tselem has published on its website the names of every person (Israeli, Palestinian, and foreign) who was killed in the violence.

The data include the person’s name, age, and place of residence, the date and place of death, and who killed the individual. The data on Israelis who were killed indicate whether they were a civilian or member of the security forces. Regarding Palestinians who were killed, the data state whether they took part in the fighting, in the event that B’Tselem has this information. In some cases, the data provide a short description of the circumstances in which the individual was killed.

B’Tselem emphasizes that the listing of a person as a civilian, or having not participated in the fighting, or the inclusion of any other details regarding the cause of death, does not indicate that the person or entity that killed the individual violated the law, or that the deceased was innocent, or that any other legal or moral conclusion can be drawn from the facts. The lists of fatalities relate to persons killed during incidents related to the al-Aqsa intifada, and are to be viewed solely in that light.

The problem is that B'Tselem uses a very expansive definition of deaths related to the intifada when counting Israeli killings and a very narrow one when counting Arab killings.

For example, it counts this as an Israeli killing related to the intifada (and as a killing of a minor):

Jihad 'Alian Muhammad a-Nabahin, 17 year-old resident of al-Bureij Refugee Camp, Deir al-Balah district, killed on 09.11.2007 in al-Bureij Refugee Camp, Deir al-Balah district, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed when he and his friend tried to cross the perimeter fence and enter Israel.

If he was killed for only trying to cross a fence, and had no intent to do anything bad to Israelis (as B'Tselem implies when it says that he was not participating in hostilities), then what exactly does this death have to do with the intifada?

But when it comes to intra-Arab deaths, B'Tselem becomes much more restrictive in saying that they have to do with the intifada. While Hamas/Fatah battles do seem to count, tunnel collapses and "work accidents" and Arabs shooting other Arabs at checkpoints and Christians killed for being Christian and many other types of deaths do not make it into their list. So while over 600 Arabs were violently killed by each other this year, B'Tselem implies that the number is only 344, thereby neatly making it look like Israel is responsible for more Arab deaths than Arabs themselves are - a very wrong implication.

But B'Tselem's dishonesty does not end there. They nicely list 53 minors and come to conclusions that most of them "did not participate in hostilities" when they were killed. Probably most of them didn't, but again B'Tselem's definition of "not participating in hostilities" includes minors who tried to cut through the fence around Gaza, trying to escape arrest, trying to "collect" Qassam rocket launchers, or throwing stones (the very definition of "intifada" according to Palestinian Arab propagandists.) Once again, B'Tselem interprets its own definitions in ways that maximize propaganda value and minimize adherence to a true picture.

One interesting statistic that B'Tselem doesn't bother mentioning in its press release: the number of females killed. B'Tselem likes to count "minors" even though the majority killed were 16 and 17 years old. But its own list shows only 2 adult women (and 3 girls) killed by Israel during the year, as opposed to the 41 adult women and far more than 3 girls killed by PalArabs this year, statistics that B'Tselem doesn't count in its quest for "human rights."

In other words, B'Tselem will use statistics that seem to imply an Israeli policy of random shooting of non-combatants but that randomness falls apart when one sees that the minors are usually fully grown and the number of females killed is diminishingly small compared to men.

Publicizing those statistics as well as the others mentioned would make Arabs look more bloodthirsty than Israelis, and B'Tselem cannot countenance such a conclusion.