Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: DCI-P

Showing posts with label DCI-P. Show all posts

Monday, October 02, 2023

Islamic Jihad proud of another dead child soldier

On September 9, Milad Munther al-Rai was shot dead by Israeli forces in the Arroub camp, north of Hebron. He was throwing Molotov cocktails at the IDF troops.

According to Defense for Children International, he was 15 years old and shot for no reason. Others say he was 16.

Palestinian media were filled with articles about how Milad was just a child, with a "dewy" singing voice he inherited from his father and his love for playing football even though the camp had no fields.

While his body was wrapped with the Islamic Jihad flag, I didn't see any official report from the terror group claiming him as a member, perhaps because the propaganda value of him being regarded as an innocent child was much higher than portraying him as a heroic fighter.

But three weeks later, when Islamic Jihad is publishing its accomplishments for the month, Milad Munther al-Rai has now transformed into that mujahid.

In a press release listing its "accomplishments" during September, Islamic Jihad listed six members as mujahadeen martyrs during that month including Milad:

Martyr mujahideen Milad Munther al-Ra’i (16 years old) from Al-Aroub camp in the city of Hebron was killed during confrontations with the occupation forces on September 9th.

Yet even today, there is not a word of condemnation from "human rights groups" about Palestinian groups recruiting child soldiers, a violation of international law, despite proof that many child soldiers have been killed this year alone.

Because they don't want to dilute their consistent anti-Israel messaging by saying anything bad about terrorists.

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Another "innocent child" in Jenin who was a combatant

Defense for Children International-Palestine writes:

Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh, 15, was shot by Israeli special forces while leaving his grandfather’s house in Jenin refugee camp around 7:30 p.m. on September 19, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. As he left the house, Rafat saw Israeli special forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest. Rafat fled, yelling, “Special forces! Special forces!” One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters (33 feet).

While nearly all of the reports on the Jenin incident identify Khamayseh as being 22 years old, photos indicate that he probably really was 15.

And that he was not exactly an innocent child.

Yet even if we take DCI-P at their word that all he was doing was warning terrorists that the IDF was there, that makes him legally a militant and a legitimate military target.

The US Department of Defense Law of War Manual (revised July 2023) says that a civilian is considered to be taking a direct part in hostilities when he or she is "acting as a guide or lookout for combatants conducting military operations."

The ICRC agrees. In its document "Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law" it says, "a person serving as one of several lookouts during an ambush would certainly be taking a direct part in hostilities although his contribution may not be indispensable to the causation of harm."

This is exactly what DCI-P is admitting that Khamayseh was doing. His warning endangered the Israeli forces and therefore he became a combatant and legitimate target, no matter what his age.

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The "child" killed by the IDF was an expert in building IEDs

Earlier this week I reported on Othman Atef Abu Kharj, a 17 year old who was killed during clashes near Jenin.

Most Palestinian media referred to him as a "child" ruthlessly killed by the IDF. Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, celebrated his ascension to Paradise as "a heroic mujahid knight" - but claimed that he was 18.

Now, Hamas-linked Felesteen writes a more detailed article about Abu Kharj, where we learn more of the truth.

Yes, his family confirms the teen was 17 - and they are proud that he was an expert on building IEDs.

[His brother] Mahmoud, 22, could hardly complete his talk about his younger brother, saying, "Othman was throwing his "elbow" IEDs one after the other towards the armored jeeps.

The young men resort to using various tools to confront the repeated incursions of the occupation forces into the cities and governorates of the West Bank, in whose camps and villages the resistance action is escalating. Among these means are Molotov cocktails, stones, "elbows", igniting tires and closing streets with them.

But Othman had mastered making "elbows" and using them in several confrontations against the occupation soldiers, which they did not like, so they decided to assassinate him.

Wikipedia Arabic describes "elbow bombs":

It consists of a short, serrated tube and is closed at both ends with two metal pieces, one of which contains a hole through which the ignition fuse passes into the interior, which is ignited with sulfur. It is stuffed with gunpowder or black sulfur.

His family knew that he went out if his way to attack soldiers. "They all knew his courage, which always put him at the forefront of confrontations against soldiers heavily armed and fortified with armored vehicles," the article adds.

This was a child soldier and an active militant. Even so, Defense for Children International ignores all the evidence and merely calls him a "Palestinian boy."

In English, he is an innocent child. In Arabic, he is a heroic Islamic Jihad mujahid - and also a child..

And the media doesn't want the truth to be published.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Islamic Jihad military camp for kids: "Fighting the Jews is an act of worship"

It is summer, and that means that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are proudly parading photos of their violating the war crime of recruiting child soldiers, calling it "summer camp."

These pictures from an Islamic Jihad "Revenge of the Free" training camp are not ambiguous.

This is a war crime.

As the ICRC says,

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child differentiates between States and non-State armed groups in setting the age-limit for recruitment and use in hostilities. For States, the age limit for direct participation in hostilities and for compulsory recruitment is 18. This means they can accept voluntary enlistment of persons between the ages of 15 and 18. Armed groups, on the other hand, are bound by a stricter prohibition, affecting both voluntary and compulsory recruitment of under-18s.

There are no photos of the kids engaging in sports, playing games or otherwise having fun. Calling this a "summer camp" is a joke. It is a military training camp for kids. And Islamic Jihad makes this clear in their recruitment video:

Not only that, but Islamic Jihad freely admits that the targets of the weapons the children learn to use are Jews. Islamic Jihad official Darwish al-Gharabli said, "These camps qualify the generation to carry the banner after this generation, part of which has been martyred; it also establishes a generation that is aligned with the path of jihad and resistance; believing in this option and that Palestine is the central issue and fighting the Jews is an act of worship."

The UN and its agencies, and Defense for Children International Palestine, and other "human rights" NGOs are curiously uninterested in this incitement to violence and these violations of children's human rights and international law

It's just another "Palestine exception" where Palestinians are exempt from the laws and rules for the rest of the world.

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This two year old Palestinian boy was brutally murdered. There will be no mention of it in the NYT or by NGOs.

There was a heinous crime in Gaza this weekend.

A two and a half year old child, Mustafa Nahed Muhammad Saqr, was drowned in a barrel of water.

His stepmother admitted to the murder. She was jealous that she couldn't have children of her own so she decided to murder her husband's child to avoid that feeling of shame. It was a twist on honor killing.

There were reports in Gaza media on Friday when it appeared to be an accidental drowning, but now that the mother has confessed, instead of showing more interest in the story, Palestinian media has become mostly silent. I only saw this mentioned in a couple of relatively independent but obscure sites.

Which makes this a double honor crime - one the murder itself, and the other by Palestinian media not wanting to cover a horrific murder because it makes them look bad, and it detracts from the narrative that Israel is the only source of evil in the region.

As of this writing, Defence for Children International Palestine has not mentioned this murder. Chances are they won't. Because they aren't trying to defend Palestinian children's lives - their entire purpose is to demonize Israel.

Western media showed intense interest in the accidental killing of Mohammed Tamimi, who was about the same age as Mustafa when he died last week. Social media erupted with memes and photos of the child, alive and dead. But only the most extreme anti-Israel activists accused Israel of deliberate murder.

Here we have a deliberate murder of a Palestinian child, and Western media will shun the story, a week after they eagerly embraced a story of a Palestinian child tragically but mistakenly killed by Israel.

By any objective standard, the murder of Mustafa is a much more important story.

But there are no objective standards when it comes to media coverage of Palestinians.

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PFLP blood libels, from the crude to the sophisticated

On Monday I showed that the website of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine publishes virulently antisemitic articles, including claims that Jews slaughter children to harvest their blood for Jewish rituals.

Most Westerners would admit that this is clearly antisemitic and unacceptable.

But the blood libel is accepted as normal and even laudatory by leftist Westerners - as long as the PFLP and their pals apply a few tweaks.

Defence for Children International-Palestine has extensive links with the same terrorist, antisemitic PFLP. But they get funded by European foundations, so they have to be a little more sophisticated in their blood libels.

Instead of saying that Jews target and murder children, they say that Israel targets and murders children.

DCI-P issued a press release (so far, only in Arabic) about the Israeli airstrikes early Tuesday morning. They titled it, "Targeting and killing Palestinian children is a consistent policy of the Israeli occupation." And they make the same claim that they have made for years - that targeting children "is a consistent policy of the Israeli occupation authorities, and at the highest political and military level."

Not one word is written about the Islamic Jihad terrorists who were the targets of the airstrikes - leaders that Islamic Jihad freely admits were targeted. No, according to DCI-P, Israel didn't aim at terrorists - they aim at sleeping children.

Is the modern blood libel any different from the medieval version?

The PFLP 's own writings make it clear that they do not distinguish between their "military" and "political" wings, an artificial distinction made by Western NGOs attempting to minimize their terrorism.

To the PFLP, there is no difference between bombing Jews and attacking them politically. There is no difference between telling Arabic speakers that Jews murder Muslim children to harvest their blood and their NGOs telling Western countries that Israel shoots expensive, precision weapons at Palestinian children for no reason. There is clearly no military advantage to killing kids so it must be that they target them because Israeli Jews are pure evil.

Israel-haters want to minimize the connections between the terrorist, antisemitic PFLP and the respected "human rights" NGOs that the PFLP helped create. But when you understand the undeniable links, you can clearly see that there is no difference between the classic blood libel and the modern ones.

DCI-P press releases are the 21st century equivalent of an auto-da-fé.

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"Human rights groups" bending over backwards to NOT blame Islamic Jihad for killing over a dozen children

The Fallujah cemetery in Jabalya, where 5 children were killed by an Islamic Jihad rocket.
Note the spray pattern of tiny holes from the shrapnel that PIJ uses to maximize death and damage.

The response of "human rights groups" to the fighting in Gaza last weekend proves, beyond any doubt, how they try to obscure the truth about Islamic Jihad's killing of over 20 civilians, including at least 12 children - even though they know the truth quite well.

No fewer than four human rights groups have investigated every death in Gaza last week. If you parse their statements carefully, every one of them know that Islamic Jihad rockets killed most of the kids.

And not one will say this explicitly, because that would water down their criticism of Israel.

Gaza's Health Ministry says that 48 were killed over the weekend (and from their wounds since) including 16 children. PCHR issued their summary in their weekly report yesterday, after they have had four days to investigate the deaths. They count 27 deaths in Gaza - and say "Meanwhile, PCHR is still investigating other incidents that inflicted casualties and damage to property." They list only 3 children.

They completely ignore the deaths of (by their count) 21 civilians, including 12 children (the last one may have died after their report was prepared.)

What kind of a human rights group ignores the violent death of 12 children, not even mentioning them beyond a laconic mention of "other incidents that inflicted casualties"?

A typical one, it seems. Because we see the same lack of interest in mentioning Islamic Jihad rockets at the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 47 Palestinians were killed during the offensive, including 16 children and four women, and 360 others were injured, including 151 children and 58 women. Eighteen residential units were destroyed, while dozens of others were partially damaged.

Al Mezan’s fieldwork team works to document and investigate every single act of hostilities that occurred in the Gaza Strip and has so far verified the killing of 27 Palestinians and the complete destruction of 12 homes by Israeli forces. Al Mezan continues to conduct its own independent field investigations and collect information on all incidents of killing and damaging or destruction of houses, property, and other civilian objects in Gaza.

They know at least 20 civilians were killed by Islamic Jihad - and they refuse to even mention the possibility. 12 kids dead and the two major Palestinian human rights groups ignore them.

But it is not only Palestinian human rights NGOs. The Palestinian division of Defense for Children International has done the exact same thing. As I have reported, their headline is meant to give people the impression that Israel killed 16 children: "16 Palestinian children in Gaza dead after Israeli military offensive." But they can only document 3 children, and say, "DCIP is still investigating the source of four explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another 13 Palestinian children. "

At least DCI-P mentions the possibility of the children being killed by rocket fire, unlike PCHR and Al Mezan. But even after listing the mysterious unknown explosions, they emphasize that they want to blame Israel alone, saying, "The Israeli military launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on August 5, killing at least 44 people and injuring at least 350, according to Al Jazeera." Their own investigations proves Al Jazeera is lying, but they want to blame Israel for the deaths of the children so they artfully write a report to give that impression.

And then there is the UN Human Rights Office of the Commissioner, which issued a press release that heavily implies that Israel is responsible for the deaths of all Gazans, but doesn't directly say it - because they know the truth as well.

UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet today expressed alarm at the high number of Palestinians, including children, killed and injured in the occupied Palestinian territory this year, including in intense hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza last weekend.

The civilian cost of the latest escalation in Gaza from 5-7 August was heavy. The UN Human Rights Office has verified that among the 48 Palestinians killed, there were at least 22 civilians, including 17 children and four women. The status of 22 fatalities remains undetermined.

...In violation of international humanitarian law, Palestinian armed groups also launched hundreds of rockets and mortars in indiscriminate attacks, causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects in Israel as well as in Gaza.

You really have to parse the press release carefully to realize that they are barely hinting that some 20 civilians were killed by Islamic Jihad - and they don't mention that the majority of those "undetermined" ones are children.

All four of these human rights NGOs clearly know the truth, and all of them bend over backwards to obfuscate it and direct their audience's anger at Israel only - even though their own investigations indicate that over 80% of the children were killed by Islamic Jihad.

By blaming Israel exclusively for the deaths of the children, they are engaging in a blood libel, saying that Jews either purposefully target children or show a wanton disregard for their lives. In fact, every single child that was killed by Israeli airstrikes had been either a human shield or an unfortunate casualty during an attack on a legitimate military target, and there is no evidence of the slightest bit of Israeli negligence or violation of international law.

But beyond that, they have not issued a single word of condemnation for Islamic Jihad, not even mentioning its name. By ignoring or downplaying the rocket attacks and only blaming Israel, they are exonerating Islamic Jihad's war crimes.

Even worse, these reports from four major human rights NGOs show that the lives of the children really do not matter to them unless they can blame Israel. Their careful language is meant to hide the facts. Unless dead kids can be blamed on Israel, they don't want to talk about them. They try not to technically lie but they sure as hell don't want to tell the truth.

Which means that these are not human rights organizations. They are anti-Israel organizations who use human rights as a weapon against the Jewish state.

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Even anti-Israel DCI-P NGO tacitly admits that 13 of 16 children who died in Gaza were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets

Defence for Children-Palestine is a rabidly anti-Israel NGO that uses the deaths of children as a means to attack Israel.

To give an idea of how little context they give their stories, they are counting 16-year old terrorist Hussein Taha, being mourned as a jihadi fighter, as a "child" killed by Israel.

In an article about the children killed over the weekend in Gaza, their headline is written to imply Israel was responsible for 16 children being killed:

But when you read the article, you see that they really only know about three - and the other 13 are still being "investigated."

Israeli forces killed three Palestinian children in three separate airstrikes between August 5–7, according to information collected by DCIP, while DCIP field researchers continue to investigate four other incidents where 13 Palestinian children were killed.

Which means they know very well that the 13 were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets in four separate incidents:

DCIP is still investigating the source of four explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another 13 Palestinian children. Each explosion coincided with Israeli drones flying over the areas as well as the launches of rockets from Palestinian armed groups.

Four children killed (plus three adults) from a rocket in front of a supermarket in Jabalya.

Five children killed from a rocket at the Fallujah Cemetery in Jabalya.

Three child siblings and their father killed in a rocket that hit their home in te Bureij camp.

One child killed and her sister injured from a rocket in Beit Hanoun. There is video of this out of control rocket corkscrewing to the ground and its massive explosion:

What about the other three (now four) children? They were either human shields or they were unfortunately killed when Israel targeted major terrorists.

One killed during the strike on Taysir al Jabari.

One killed when Israel killed southern PIJ leader Khaled Mansour in Rafah.

One killed when Israel apparently targeted a car in Jabalia (I'm still not sure if this was Israel or a PIJ rocket.)

One killed when Israel targeted two PIJ terrorists in Khan Younis.

This is not irresponsible. This is how wars are fought - do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties but civilians cannot shield legitimate military targets of great value.

Defence for Children Palestine, despite trying to spin these deaths as being from Israeli airstrikes, knows quite well they were killed by Islamic Jihad. And they are not defending those children.

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Yes, the PFLP links to "children's NGO" DCI-P are real and relevant

From TOI last week:

Israel is angry at Belgium for what Jerusalem says is a systematic campaign to demonize the Jewish state at the United Nations, including by hosting a “radical” pro-Palestinian activist next week at the Security Council.

In February, Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the council and is using this privilege to invite speakers who, according to fuming Jerusalem officials, hold an extreme anti-Israel bias. They were especially outraged about Brussels inviting Brad Parker, a senior official for a nonprofit called Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), to speak at the council’s session.
“Belgium has positioned itself as one of the Security Council member states most hostile toward Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told The Times of Israel on Thursday. “Inviting a one-sided radical activist such as Mr. Parker to brief the Security Council is yet another negative record.”

Israel’s Ambassador to Belgium Emmanuel Nahshon on Thursday took to Twitter to express regret at Brussels inviting “terror supporters” to the Security Council. “This is extremely disappointing and we will express our outrage in the strongest possible terms.”

Unfortunately, @BelgiumMFA @BelgiumUN has chosen to invite terror supporters to a Security Council debate . This is extremely disappointing and we will express our outrage in the strongest possible terms.
— Emmanuel Nahshon (@EmmanuelNahshon) February 6, 2020

I posted a tweet pointing to an NGO-Monitor report detailing some of the links between DCI-Palestine and the PFLP.

Here is @NGOmonitor's detailed report on ties between @DCIPalestine and the PFLP terror group.@EmmanuelNahshon is 100% correct.@PeterBeinart, @jvplive and other terror apologists like to pretend that this information isn't true.https://t.co/XGXkYL6Hii
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) February 7, 2020

A group I never heard of responded:

And here is our report on @NGOmonitor, which spreads guilt-by-association allegations to advance its partisan agenda:
SHRINKING SPACE: Defaming human rights organizations that criticize the Israeli occupationhttps://t.co/lOwbYKatr3
— Policy Working Group-Israel (@IsraelPolicy) February 9, 2020

So I looked at their report. The relevant part says:

The second tactic that NGO Monitor employs to defame Palestinian NGOs is associating them with armed groups, in particular by claiming they have alleged ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is listed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.
NGO Monitor says it has exposed ties between Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP. However, it has not presented any evidence that the accused organizations ever participated in terrorist activities or violence. It also has not explained how the organizations’ work – field research, documentation, legal work, international advocacy – is in any way related to terrorism.
The accusations are largely based on references to outdated information, on a small number of cases in the 1970s and 1980s, on selective internet inquiries and on guilt-by-association. Employees of those organizations are often accused of being “affiliated”, “linked”, or of having “alleged ties”, sometimes via family relations, with terrorist organizations or their leaders. Apart from very few exceptions, no trials or formal indictments have been initiated by Israeli authorities against employees or board members of Palestinian organizations relevant to NGO Monitor’s accusations and relating to the period of their involvement in the organization.

DCI-P lies in its reports. I've proven that many times over. Here are two of the "innocent children" they claim Israel killed for no reason:

Moreover, when it claims that 75% of children arrested by Israel are tortured, their methodology is laughable - they look for kids that will say what they want, and if they find inconsistencies in their stories, they go back and prompt the kids to change the stories.

The funny part is that this group accuses NGO-Monitor of bias, but its members seem to all be associated with the NGOs (like B'Tselem) that NGO-Monitor goes after. Moreover, this group, which seems to only have one report issued, accuses NGO-Monitor of no transparency in its sources of funding (which isn't true) - but they told me that they are all volunteers and not funded by anyone. Yet this report says it was funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, associated with Germany's democratic socialist Left party.

In other words, Leftists are defending the leftist/terrorist NGOs whose entire purpose is to bash Israel.

Reporting the ties between the PFLP and various NGOs, including DCI-P, is not meant to show a direct link between the NGOs and specific terror acts. It shows that the groups themselves have an agenda that aligns with that of the PFLP, which as a Marxist/socialist terror group is well versed in using Soviet-style propaganda against Israel - and there is no more effective propaganda nowadays then to accuse Israel of human rights abuses.

NGO-Monitor isn't the only group to show ties between the PFLP and DCI-P. Israel itself has issued a report that shows that (at least until May 2018 when there seems to have been a major re-organization) many senior DCI-P members were also PFLP members.

The anti-Israel Left is purposefully ignoring the facts that NGOs like DCI-P lie, liberally, and they try to cloud the critiques with half-baked information. I've proven the lies - go after my proof if you want to defend a terror-supporting group.

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US representative Betty McCollum introduces bill to give millions of dollars to NGO aligned with PFLP terrorists

From Robert Mackey in The Intercept:

NEW LEGISLATION PROPOSED by Rep. Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, would ban Israel from using any of the billions of dollars in military assistance it receives from the United States every year to pay for the detention, interrogation, or torture of Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.

McCollum’s bill, HR 2407, would amend the Foreign Assistance Act to prohibit funding for the military detention of children in any country, including Israel. The proposed law would also provide $19 million a year to American, Israeli, and Palestinian nongovernmental organizations to monitor the treatment of children detained by Israel’s army and offer physical and psychological treatment.

This bill is heavily influenced by "Defense of Children International - Palestine," which is promoting the bill on its website. It appears that McCollum worked with DCI-P to craft the language of the bill. Indeed, the bill quotes from a DCI-P report to "prove" how Israel mistreats children:

The nongovernmental organization Defense for Children International Palestine collected affidavits from 739 West Bank children who were detained between 2013 and 2018, and concluded that 73 percent of the children endured physical violence following arrest...

We've looked at DCI-P before. It's methodology is to interview these children with leading questions and to prompt them to answer what they want. They almost admitted this in previous reports, saying that first they seek out people to write affidavits, and then "Lawyers and human rights documentation professionals reviewed testimonies and other documentation for accuracy and assessed any gaps that required further research." - meaning if there were problems with the "testimony" they would try to fit the evidence to their preconceived notions.

We know that DCI-P does not adhere to the "UN standards" they claim to use for interviewing people. During the 2014 war, it ludicrously claimed that the IDF kept a 16-year old son of a Hamas terrorist for five days to go, alone, into Gaza houses to look for Hamas tunnels and to dig for them with his bare hands. These were all obvious lies compounded by his father saying that the family disposed of the too-large clothes that the IDF supposedly gave him and "forgot" to take photos of his many injuries at the hands of the Israelis. (The New York Times reported this as fact, too.) These are laughable lies. UN standards for interviewing include being skeptical of what people say and how to corroborate the stories. DCI-P prompts or believes anything that makes Israel look bad.

In addition, DCI-P has listed children known to have been killed while involved in terror attacks as being innocent, and to count those killed by Hamas rockets as being killed by Israel. They know that some of the children they count as innocent victims are terrorists themselves - they've admitted it on Palestinian TV - but their official reports never mention that.

In other words, DCI-P reports have nothing to do with reality.

It would be bad enough if DCI-P was merely another NGO with dubious methodology whose entire purpose is to smear Israel. There are lots of those. But DCI-P is far worse.

DCI-P is associated with the PFLP terror group.

NGO-Monitor has documented many workers for DCI-P who were also officials of the PFLP. For example, here is DCI-P General Director Rifat Odeh Kassis addressing PFLP and DCI-P member Hashem Abu Maria’s memorial service in front of the PFLP flag and pictures of the group’s founder, George Habash:

HR 2407 doesn't just rely on bogus research by a NGO with known terror ties. It wants the US to give millions of dollars to that NGO!

FUNDING.—There is authorized to be appropriated not less than $19,000,000 each fiscal year to the Secretary of State to be made available to nongovernmental organizations from the United States, Israel, or the Occupied Palestinian Territory for the following purposes:
(1) MONITORING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES ASSOCIATED WITH ISRAEL’S MILITARY DETENTION OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—Nongovernment organizations with human rights experience are eligible to receive funding under this subsection.
Such funding shall be used to monitor, assess, and document incidents of Palestinian children subjected to Israeli military detention, including interviews with victims, family members of victims, relevant community members, health care providers, legal advocates, civil society monitors, and Israeli military officials.

This is exactly how DCI-P describes itself! The rest of the description of the role of these "NGOs" - annual reports showing affidavits from children - shows that DCI-Palestine is the only organization in the world that adheres to the requirements of the bill.

A US member of the House of representative, Betty McCollum, is introducing a bill to give millions of dollars annually to a fake NGO, associated with a US-designated terror organization, that knowingly and consistently lies in its reports.

This is scandalous and sickening.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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"Defending" Palestinian children by turning them into martyrdom-seekers

Palestinian Media Watch reported last week:

For almost a decade, the Palestinian NGO Defence for Children International - Palestine (DCI-P) has unjustifiably been accusing Israel of breaching the rights of Palestinian minors who are arrested on suspicion of committing terror attacks. Most recently, DCI-P launched a campaign in the US and in Canada under the title "No Way to Treat a Child", whose goal is "to challenge and end Israel's prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system."

Among other baseless claims, DCI-P argues that the Palestinian minors are arrested, interrogated in breach of all of their rights, prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms.

A recent interview with DCI-P's Accountability Program Director Ayed Abu Qteish on official PA TV, shows that the claims made by his own organization are false. Abu Qteish explained that Palestinian minors do in fact commit terror attacks, and they do it, not necessarily because they want to attack Israelis, but in order to enhance or maintain their status in Palestinian society.

Ayed Abu Qteish: "There are children who, when they were in prison, told the lawyer: 'I want to be imprisoned.' The first time [the child] was imprisoned, he didn't confess, and they released him because there was no evidence to convict him in the Israeli military court. The second time, there was no evidence either. The third time, he wanted to be imprisoned so that his image won't be hurt in the eyes of his friends, even though he is actually innocent... In several cases [Palestinian children] carried out stabbing operations because of the way the public looks at them. They realized 'the best way to clear myself of this image [of helping Israel] is to participate in resistance operations.'"

[Official PA TV, Personal Encounter, Oct. 11, 2017]

PMW correctly points out that this interview shows that, contrary to DCI-P's claims, Israel does not unjustly convict kids.

But I think the most important part of this is the sheer hypocrisy of DCI-P. They claim to "defend" Palestinian children's rights, but they have nothing to say about a society where the kids are brought up to hate. To lionize stabbers and suicide bombers. To aspire to martyrdom. To gain social status by becoming terrorists and criminals.

One would think that the defense of children would include a mention of these actual things that can incarcerate, injure or kill children. But DCI-P is not an organization that cares about helping children, it is only meant to attack Israel under the pretext of helping children.

It is a shame that most people cannot tell the difference.

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.

An NGO that deserves no donations - but gets plenty anyway

We have discussed "Defense for Children International-Palestine" before. They have consistently called terrorists "innocent children," counting children killed by Hamas rockets as victims of Israel, and coaxing children to make up the most lurid anti-Israel stories they can for their reports which often then get picked up by mainstream media.

DCI-P is a pure propaganda organization that calls itself a human rights NGO.

The latest example comes from a new report where DCI-P pretends to document the deaths of 41 children since October 1. (The article and report are not yet on their English site as of this writing.)

Not once does the news release mention that any of these teens were involved in terror attacks at the time they were killed.

To issue reports that say that Israel is killing innocent children in cold blood without even deigning to mention a single word about what they were doing at the time is a travesty and a slander.

The report lists Fuad and Nihad Waked, killed while attacking people and killing Tuvia Weissman at a supermarket, as victims.

At the exact same time that Palestinians are lauding them as heroes.

But DCI-P claims to support human rights for children. From looking at its website it appears that 90% of what it does is document often imaginary Israeli crimes and the other 10% is some vague activities on "teaching children about their rights." Apparently that claim is enough to prompt it to be funded by:

1. Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO and KerkinActie) Netherlands
2. Bread for the World – Germany
3. Save the Children International
4. Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederlands (SKN) – Netherlands
5. ARCI Cultura e Sviluppo – Italy
6. Mundubat - Spain
7. Broederlijk Delen - Belgium
8. United Nation Development Programme -UNDP
9. Swiss Interchurches Aid- HEKS
10. World Vision
11. The United Methodist Church
12. The United Church of Canada
13. Temporary International Presence in Hebron – TIPH.
14. UNICEF
15. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
16. Solidarity Fund
17. French Consulate
18. Open Society
19. MANARA
20. Geneva Kantoon
21. Human Rights and International humanitarian law Secretariat

Either these donors just like to throw money at any organization that claims to be supporting children, or they share a special hate for Israel. If they read any of DCI-P's reports with the slightest bit of skepticism, they know the truth.

We know that DCI-P has nothing to do with truth or accuracy. They are a bunch of liars who have learned that people will believe anything as long as it is "documented" with bogus evidence and half-truths, sprinkled with lies that they coach children to say.

DCI-P is not pro-children. It's main purpose is to create bogus reports to encourage more terrorism by children.

But what about the funders? Are they dupes - or is their hate for Israel so strong that they believe that the stream of lies out of DCI-P is worth more than other actual charities that really do help children?

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.

DCI-Palestine called terrorists "innocent children"

Yesterday, I showed that Defense for Children International - Palestine had just released a study that included at least one bogus report, about a Gaza boy who claimed that the IDF used him as a human shield to find terror tunnels.

The central theme of DCIP's report says:

Evidence and documentation collected by DCIP found that, on numerous occasions, Israeli forces unlawfully targeted individual civilians and civilian structures resulting in the killing of children.

Carrying out an attack that is not directed at a specific military objective constitutes an indiscriminate attack and amounts to a war crime.

The circumstances of each attack briefly discussed below strongly suggest unlawful conduct by Israeli forces that amount to war crimes.

EoZ researcher Bob Knot spent some time documenting the military objectives of the specific examples DCIP gives.

For example:

Around 1:30 p.m. on July 20, an Israeli warplane fired a missile without warning at the Skafi family home on Nazaz Street. Anas, 17, and his twin brother Saad died in the attack. Another five children sustained injuries in the same attack.

Here are photos of these poor dead children:

And here other "civilians" killed in the airstrike that DCI-Palestine characterizes as a war crime because there was "no specific military objective:"

Abdel Skafi:

Ahmed Skafi, in front of the Hamas flag:

Mujahid al Skafi, in his martyrdom video:

Ali Skafi:

DCI-P only admits that "According to sources interviewed by DCIP, one member of the Skafi was affiliated with the Palestinian armed group Saraya al-Quds, and present in the building at the time of the attack." No - there were six terrorists we know of.

And so does DCIP. Their nine months of "research" were clearly not meant to uncover any truths.

Bob Knot found other examples of flat-out lies and deception in the report.

DCIP claims that the Joudeh family were innocent civilians. But their father Issam, who they quote, is acknowledged by Fatah to be a "fighter" for their brigades.

DCIP considers him a reliable witness to say that there was no military target at his house knowing full well that he was the target himself.

DCIP lists other family homes that were used as bases of operations of known terrorists.

On the right is a photo of the target of the Hayyeh house airstrike, Osama Khalil Hayyeh, son of Hamas leader Khalil Hayyeh:

From this and other previous examples we have given, we know that "Defense for Children International - Palestine" willingly lies to slander israel.

And they get plenty of money from other NGOs - and the EU.

Defense for Children-International is funded by these organizations as of 2012:

Every single one of these organizations and governments is guilty of funding a group whose sole purpose is to use children as an emotional ploy to slander Israel. Every single one of these funding organizations must be held to account for why they are giving money to an anti-Israel propaganda outfit that pretends to be an objective NGO.

If you want to help Israel, today, you will write to every single one of these organizations and demand answers.

In a sane world, organizations like DCI-P should be shamed and defunded. You can help do that.

I invite any journalists who still have the slightest bit of integrity to investigate everything I am saying independently and to publish their findings, no matter what they are.

DCI-Palestine puts out their latest bogus report, claim Israel targeted children

"Defense for Children International - Palestine" has released their latest report. This one claims that Israel directly targeted children during last summer's Gaza war.

As we have shown in the past, DCI-Palestine has zero credibility. They elicit "testimonies" from children and then go back and iron out any glaring inconsistencies.

Their mandate is explicitly biased - to "develop its programs and act according to Palestinian children's needs and Palestinian priorities." Yet they claim that their researchers, under a biased mandate, can be objective. Here is the methodology they published for this report:

This report is based on investigations conducted by DCIP’s fieldworkers in the Gaza Strip between July 8, 2014 and January 30, 2015. DCIP fieldworkers visited sites where children had been killed or maimed in attacks to collect sworn affidavits from victims, family members, neighbors, and eyewitnesses in accordance with established UN standards. Lawyers and human rights documentation professionals reviewed testimonies and other documentation for accuracy and assessed any gaps that required further research. Fieldworkers frequently returned to the site of an incident to verify details and collect further evidence.

To ensure reliable testimonies, DCIP’s fieldworkers ask a series of non-leading questions, exercise judgment about the credibility of witnesses, and examine possible influences that may shape a response. Fieldworkers have sought medical evidence to verify details such as the victim’s injuries and cause of death, and collected photographs documenting evidence of international law violations at particular sites. DCIP has also sought expert opinions on certain incidents from military and forensic
specialists.

Their claims of objectivity and non-leading questions are obviously not true. The reason we know this is because this report includes the story of Ahmad Abu Raida, the 16-year old who told DCIP, along with +972 Magazine and the New York Times, that IDF soldiers held him for five days and forced him to search for tunnels and to dig for them, beating him and threatening him sexually. They expect people to believe that IDF soldiers, in the middle of a war zone, would trust a 16 year old son of a Hamas member to enter houses alone and tell them whether he found tunnels or not. They would sit around and use a 16-year old to dig with his hands under the "afternoon sun" to find tunnels.

The story is so obviously fake that only people who hate Israel to begin with can believe it.

The most obvious lie was published, unchallenged, by the NYT:

Ahmed’s father, Jamal Abu Raida, who held a senior position in Gaza’s Tourism Ministry under the Hamas-controlled government, said the family forgot to take photographs documenting any abuse in its happiness over the youth’s return, and disposed of the clothing he was given upon his release.

Bruises last for weeks. DCIP interviewed Abu Raida within weeks of his supposed beatings. If they took photos of his bruises, as they claim they routinely do to corroborate stories, where are these photographs? Why wouldn't a Hamas employee do everything possible to support his accusations to incriminate Israel to NGOs and the media?

Because he knows that the media will believe the lies without any evidence!

Abu Raida's bogus story is featured from pages 55-57 of this new report. It proves that DCIP has no regard for accuracy or truth, as we've shown before when they claimed that children who were actively involved in attacks on IDF soldiers were innocent civilians or when they claimed that hundreds of people, including children, were killed in Jenin in 2002.

NGOs like DCIP manage to keep getting lots of money from European governments and NGOs, with obviously no oversight or accountability.

And so it goes.

NYT parrots absurd, unverified accusations against the IDF

Look how traumatized he is

Yesterday I wrote that +972 Magazine had swallowed, without skepticism, an absurd story of a Gaza teenager, Ahmed Abu Raida, who accused the IDF of forcing him to search for and dig (!) tunnels for five days with hardly any food and without clothing.

Besides the obvious holes in the story, the more lurid details were clearly coaxed out of Abu Raida by the thoroughly discredited DCI-Palestine, a group that says outright that it will work overtime to smooth over any inconsistencies in the "testimonies" it prompts from Palestinian children. The same group has significantly inflated numbers of children killed according to other Palestinian human rights groups, and it ignores cler evidence of children acting as militants that are noted by these other groups. Moreover, it creates statistics based on the coaxed testimony it elicits, claiming that an impossible 75% of children detained by the IDF are tortured.

Today, Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram in The New York Times published the story with the same lack of skepticism as the Zionism-hating +972mag.

Not only that, but the NYT didn't even discount the additional details that further prove that this story is fantasy for any real reporter:

His assertions, of actions that would violate both international law and a 2005 Israeli Supreme Court ruling, could not be independently corroborated; Ahmed’s father, Jamal Abu Raida, who held a senior position in Gaza’s Tourism Ministry under the Hamas-controlled government, said the family forgot to take photographs documenting any abuse in its happiness over the youth’s return, and disposed of the clothing he was given upon his release.

Seriously? His father is a Hamas official and "forgot" to photograph the alleged bruises or to keep the alleged ill-fitting IDF clothes as evidence - a goldmine of anti-Israel material?

The NYT notes that the story first surfaced in a report from the equally one-sided Euro-Mid Observer, an organization that works closely with DCI in fabricating facts and statistics.

But there are significant differences between the initial report from Euro-Mid and the later, more lurid report from DCI-P:

On July 23, 17-year-old Ahmad Jamal Abu Reeda, says he was restrained by Israeli troops who threatened to kill him. After harshly interrogating and beating him, the troops ordered Abu Reeda to walk ahead of them at gun point, accompanied by police dogs, as they searched houses and other buildings. Several times, they demanded that he dig in places they suspected tunnels to exist. Abu Reeda was forced to remain with the Israeli forces for five days.

In this report, Abu Raida claims that he accompanied IDF troops while they searched for tunnels, a week later he is claiming that they sent him inside by himself to search for tunnels - because, of course, the IDF would trust a 16-year old son of a Hamas official to accurately pinpoint and report back on hidden tunnels in houses in the middle of a war zone.

The New York TImes didn't note the inconsistencies. The New York Times didn't research the record of lies and subterfuuge from DCI-P and Euro-Mid Observer. Instead of researching the history of those two groups, The New York TImes pretended that only the IDF finds DCI-P to be unreliable, making it a case of "he said, she said" instead of verifying easily found facts as real journalists would. The New York Times didn't think that the complete absence of corroborating evidence from the family was enough to cast doubt on the story, writing it as if the coaxed testimony had credibility.

To be sure, the NYT pretended to be even-handed, asking the IDF to respond and not getting an answer. But given the known biases and history of flat-out lies from DCI-P and Euro-Mid Observer, Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram went the lazy route.

Let's be clear: quoting anti-Israel propaganda organizations that masquerade as "human rights" organizations is not reporting. It is recycling propaganda. And they rely on an interview with a teenager whose own testimony is not only ridiculous on the face of it, but self-contradictory (besides the "searching for tunnels" accusation, DCI-P claimed that he was threatened sexually, one of their favorite accusations, but Abu Raida did not say that to the interviewer in two lengthy interviews.)

Real journalists would be more than skeptical with over-the-top claims that have no independent corroboration whatsoever. Certainly a real journalist wouldn't headline a story based on such meager evidence. And real journalists would know that even Amnesty International admits that Palestinian Arab testimony is often suspect.

But lazy journalists, and journalists with an agenda, are a whole different breed. Instead of ignoring or abandoning a story that has little credibility, they decide to go ahead and use little caveats to cover their behinds, caveats that the average reader will discount because the story is written in a way to give credence to the incredible.

(h/t YMedad, PreOccupied Territory, EBoZ)