Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: NGO

Showing posts with label NGO. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Oxfam covers for Miftah's doubletalk

So far, most of the NGOs that fund Miftah have been silent during the blood-libel controversy I discovered.

Oxfam, however, just responded to a couple of my readers' inquiries (and then to mine) with a canned response which illustrates a troubling downplaying of the issue:

Thank you for making us aware that a blog post published on the website of one of our partners, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), included reprehensible anti-Semitic statements.

MIFTAH has removed the offensive blog post and issued a public apology on its website. MIFTAH has assured Oxfam that the individual behind the post has been reprimanded. Oxfam Is clearly on record as opposing the use of language or acting in ways which promote hate or discrimination.

Oxfam has worked with MIFTAH since 2010. Currently, MIFTAH and three other partners are implementing Oxfam’s regional project Supporting Women’s Transformative Leadership in Changing Times. The project targets marginalized women and men to support women’s rights and gender justice with the goal of increased empowerment, self-confidence, and leadership roles for women in public and private spheres.

Oxfam is surely aware that the section of Miftah's site where the offensive article was published was not a "blog" but an essay section where they republish articles they think are interesting for their readers. They even index the section so their readers can read other articles from the same author, and Nawaf al-Zaru has been featured five times.

Oxfam should also be aware that the "apology" was not issued in Arabic, the language of the hateful essay, meaning that Arabic-language readers of Miftah have no idea what Miftah's opinion on the medieval blood libel is, and for all they know Miftah supports that heinous lie.

Moreover, Oxfam must also be aware that Miftah did not issue its English apology until it felt under pressure to do so.

Finally, this response did not even address one of the writer's points about Miftah, that they have praised suicide bombers. And not in their "essay" section, either, but under their own name. (NOTE: Since that essay was discovered and publicized, Miftah has also silently removed that essay - but you can still find it archived at the UN!)

Clearly, Oxfam wants to find excuses for Miftah instead of holding it to a standard that it would hold any Western NGO.

Email addresses of NGOs that support Miftah

Here is a list of email addresses of some of the organizations that financially support Miftah, which published a blatantly anti-semitic article on Wednesday. So far, they have not responded to numerous tweets, so here is a chance for you to do something that can make a difference.

Representative Office of Norway repram@mfa.no
The Anna Lindh Foundation info@euromedalex.org Facebook
Oxfam UK enquiries@oxfam.org.uk Facebook
National Endownment for Democracy info@ned.org Facebook
Secretariat for Consulate of Italy in Jerusalem segreteria.gerusalemme@esteri.it
Heinrich Böll Foundation info@boell.de Facebook Arab Middle East FB
Austrian Development Agency oeza.info@ada.gv.at
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ireland contact page List of Twitter contacts
Konrad Adenauer Foundation - Palestinian Territories Info.Ramallah@kas.de
International Republican Institute webpage contact
UNESCO - English media editor r.amelan@unesco.org

I have emailed all of the organizations listed here and am waiting to hear back.

If you receive any response, please let me know.

Today's joke from Egypt: MB is an "NGO"

From Al Ahram:

Egypt's largest Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been officially registered as a non-governmental organisation by the ministry of social security.

The move came after a 'comprehensive' request submitted by the group on Tuesday, Minister of Social Security Nagwa Khalil told state news agency MENA on Thursday.

The Islamist group met all the requirements of law 84/2002 regulating non-governmental organisations, Khalil said.

The ministry would oversee the group's funding now it is officially registered as an NGO, asserted the minister.

Some analysts argue that the abrupt registration is in breach of the law 84/2002 that forbids NGOs from taking part in political activities, raising doubts about the transparency of the process.

So the party that effectively controls the country is an NGO.

Must help them avoid taxes.

HRW can't wait to publish hit pieces on Israel

From The Volokh Conspiracy:

Human Rights Watch has just released a report on Israel’s recent “Pillar of Defense” operation to suppress rocket fire from Gaza. The report concludes that 18 airstrikes violated international law by not being properly targeted. I do not know if 18 is a little or a lot for an operation of this scale, as there an no good comparative data (though the report is released as Afghanistan says yet another NATO airstrike hit a house with innocent women and children inside.)

The report, by its description of its methods, appears to be a hit piece. Here is what the report said about the group’s investigative method (emphasis added):

Human Rights Watch sent detailed information about the cases to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on January 14, 2013, requesting further information. At a meeting on January 24 and in subsequent phone conversations, the military spokesperson’s office told Human Rights Watch that the military chief of staff had ordered a general (aluf) to conduct an “operational debriefing” (tahkir mivtza’i) concerning “dozens” of Israeli attacks during the conflict, including the cases Human Rights Watch investigated, which would be completed by late February.

Because previous Israeli “operational debriefings” involving attacks were not conducted by trained military police investigators or dedicated to investigating alleged laws-of-war violations, Human Rights Watch has decided to publish its findings rather than wait for their results.

In other words, HRW received high-level and consistent cooperation. A meeting between HRW and the IDF took place on Jan 24 (just 10 days after HRW asked for further information), and were told that the IDF would have a more detailed response by late February after its own investigations were over. One month is not a long time to wait, certainly not covering an incident that occurred months ago.

It is completely baffling why HRW would rush to publish their report a mere two weeks before they could hear in full Israel’s response to their allegations. Furthermore, HRW’s explanation why they chose not to wait lacks any coherence. What is so special about designated military police as opposed to other investigators? And even if the IDF investigations were not conducted by trained military police, it is unquestionable that the IDF investigators would have access to sources HRW does not. One would expect that an organization whose influence is completely based on their reputation for objectivity and thoroughness would wish to have all the facts before rushing to publish.

Well-meaning observers are often puzzled why Israel sometimes does not cooperate with the multitudinous foreign investigations into its military operations. The minimal lack of procedural fairness investigations such as HRW’s is surely one reason for their reluctance.

NGO Monitor went into more detail:

HRW possesses neither the military expertise nor the appropriate fact-finding methodology to make these assessments and conduct proper investigations. Such judgments require knowledge of the military intelligence possessed by Israeli commanders at the time of the strikes, and information on intent of the officers. In contrast, HRW’s “evidence” consists solely of its inability to identify “indication[s] of a legitimate military target at the site at the time of the attack” and Israel’s refusal to explain its operational decisions to the NGO.

HRW’s press release is its seventh document relating to the November 2012 fighting in Gaza and Southern Israel. The disproportionate obsession and political agenda are further seen by HRW’s decision to conduct “field investigations” on that particular conflict, at a time when the UN estimated that over 10,000 people were killed in the Syrian civil war in the month of January 2013 alone.

HRW’s statement also denounced Israeli investigations, claiming that they “were not conducted by trained military police investigators or dedicated to investigating alleged laws-of-war violations.” Therefore, HRW did not wait for a response from the IDF, dealing with HRW’s cases and other attacks, which is anticipated “by late February.”

In fact, Israeli investigations meet international standards, as noted by Judge Mary McGowan Davis (empanelled by the Human Rights Council to lead the follow-up committee to the Goldstone Report), Judge Richard Goldstone, and the Turkel Committee. The real reason HRW does not want to wait for the IDF report is because it will demonstrate that HRW’s claims are baseless, as happened with Israeli responses to the 2009 Gaza conflict and the 2006 Lebanon War.

I visited NGO Monitor in Jerusalem on Thursday, and asked them about the supposed expertise of the "field investigators" HRW sends into Gaza. They are not completely transparent on who writes and contributes to many of their reports, but apparently they rely on people who live in Gaza to fill out much of the information in these reports - and they, in turn, rely on biased sources like PCHR and the Gaza Health Ministry to get the "facts" about particular incidents to them.

One of their Gaza researchers, Fares Akram, also has written for the New York Times - even about HRW itself, without disclosing his affiliation in the article!

This incestuous relationship between native Gazan "investigators," news organization stringers and reporters, and biased "human rights" organizations and NGOs is sorely unreported.

One other fact that NGO Monitor noted to me that is terrifically important: HRW does not have a published methodology on how they conduct these "field investigations." Without a rigorous and known methodology, bias isn't only possible - it is inevitable. Facts that conform to the "researcher"'s preconceived notions will naturally get highlighted and anything that contradicts it will be silently ignored. This is natural, after all, the news media do this all the time. But an organization like HRW must adhere to the higher standard it demands from others. Its standards must be far greater than that of journalists. In this case, there was no "deadline" that forced HRW to release this report before waiting for the official investigation by Israel. They simply decided to ignore any response before the fact.

HRW claims that Israel's investigations do not reach some arbitrary level of professionalism and objectivity that they made up. Yet if HRW would investigate itself with the same standards, it would come out far, far worse. Its bias has been exposed over and over again, here as well as elsewhere. HRW never admits it was wrong, and when caught doing something unethical itself.

This is not the way an organization dedicated to the truth should act. But it is exactly how a biased organization with an agenda would act.

PCHR finds a poor person in Gaza, says it is Israel's fault to the UN

From PCHR:

On Monday, 4 February 2013, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) made a written submission, in the form of an Individual Complaint, to Ms. Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, which draws attention to the case of Ramadan Daoud Hussein Abdel Bari (51) from Gaza city, Gaza Strip (Palestine).

Ramadan Abdel Bari, who lives in Gaza together with his wife, their 8 children, and his sick mother, opened a clothing factory in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, in 1985. His business was forced to shut down in 2005 as a result of the Israeli-imposed movement restrictions inside the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. After that Ramadan was unable to find or generate new employment, as the Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip has caused the near total collapse of Gaza’s economy, leaving many unemployed and impoverished without a chance of finding a job and generating an income for themselves and their families.

The ruining of Ramadan’s business and the subsequent impossibility to find new employment causes him and his family to live in poverty.

PCHR will be submitting either Memorandums or Individual Complaints on a regular basis to UN Working Groups and Special Rapporteurs, to draw attention to human rights issues facing the Palestinian people.

Yes, PCHR plans to send an individual complaint to the UN for every single poor person it finds in Gaza, blaming Israel for every one.

The International Poverty Line applies to people who are living on less than $1.25 a day (PPP). By that standard, the West Bank and Gaza have a rate of only 0.04% of people living below that line - one of the better ones recorded, and far better than every Arab country listed (Egypt is 1.69%, Syria 1.74%, Yemen 17.53%) while many countries have a rate of well over 50%! The number of truly poor people in Gaza is minuscule by nearly every measure.

Gaza has some 38% of people living below the national poverty line, but that number is different for every nation. For comparison, in Israel, some 23.6% of the population live below the national poverty line; in the West Bank it is 18.3%, in the US it is about 15%. In contrast, in poor sub-Saharan countries and central American nations the rates are often above 50%.

Moreover, in Gaza much of the population gets free food, free medical services and free education - because the UNRWA considers them, against all normal definitions of the term, to be "refugees."

PCHR, obviously, doesn't care about poor people in Gaza. The entire exercise, indeed their entire existence, is centered on how to use the concept of "human rights" in order not to improve the situation but to delegitimize Israel. Their legal briefing accompanying the complaint makes this crystal clear.

They even twist the fact that the UN gives free food and aid to Gazans far out of proportion to their need compared to the truly poor of the world, by saying "over 75% of the people are food aid dependent, 80% of the people receive humanitarian aid." Only about 30% of Haitians are food-aid dependent - but they are far poorer than Gazans by any yardstick with 61% below the international poverty line, compared to 0.04% of Gazans.

This is only one tiny example of how relentlessly anti-Israel NGOs are working, night and day, to demonize Israel.

PCHR receives funding for its faux "humanitarian" work from Norway, Denmark, the European Commission, the Ford Foundation and several other international NGOs. And this is where the money goes.

"NGO staff advised to avoid area"

Life in Gaza, from the Gaza NGO Safety Office:

18 DEC, 0900hrs: Massive demos. will be organized at 1000hrs near UNSCO office, GC, in support of Pal. prisoners. NGO staff advised to avoid the area.

20 DEC, 1000hrs: A sit-in will be organized at 1100hrs in front of UNSCO office, GC. NGO staff advised to avoid the area.

26 DEC, 0900hrs: Palestinian prisoners Association will organize a demo. at 1100hrs in front of UNDP office in GC in support of Pal. prisoners. NGO staff advised to avoid the area.

30 DEC, 1100hrs: A demo. is to be organized in front of UNSCO office, GC, in solidarity with Pal. prisoners. NGO staff advised to avoid area.

31 DEC, 0845hrs: Islamic Jihad will organize a demo. on 1000hrs starting from Palestine Square through Omar Al Mokhtar Street toward ICRC office, GC, in support of Pal. prisoners. NGO staff advised to avoid the area.

31 DEC, 1100hrs: Fatah supporters are holding a demo. starting from Al Azhar University toward Al Saraya compound, GC. NGO staff advised to avoid the area.

If the protests are so peaceful, what are the NGO staff - people who are there to help Gazans - afraid of?

"Euro-Mid" NGO fabricates data, counts Hamas terrorists as "children" killed in Gaza

The Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, a Geneva-based NGO, has released a 72-page report (Arabic-only) detailing the names, photos and details of 41 children they claim were killed in Gaza by Israel.

Some of the "children" listed were, in fact, adults.

Some were Hamas terrorists.

And at least one was killed by a Hamas rocket.

Here are some details:

Muhammad Hani Ibrahim Hani Al-Kaseeh was - according to Euro-Mid! - born on July 29, 1994, making him 18 years old when he was killed on November 14, 2012. PCHR admits that he was a terrorist, as the motorcycle he was on together with Essam al-Meiza was targeted.

Ahmed Taqfiq al-Nassasra was identified as a member of Hamas by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terror Information Center. He was 17.

Muhammad Kamel Salame Abu Udwan was born in March of 1994, making him 18 years old. I could not find him in the known lists of people killed.

Abdallah Tal'at Ahmad Ibrahim was also born in March 1994, making him 18 years old as well. I could not find him either.

Ouda Arafat al-Shindi was 17 years old, according to Euro-Mid. PCHR notes that he was a terrorist, but does not mention his age.

And Mahmoud Sadallah, 4, was killed by a Hamas rocket, a fact admitted even by HRW.

These are only the ones I could identify. But it shows a pattern.

These are not simply mistakes. The inclusion of all these names in this glossy, professional report is meant to serve only one purpose - to demonize Israel as much as possible. Very few people would question a report that looks as slick as this one does, replete with photos of the dead, and even fewer would bother doing research to see if it is accurate. The prestigious-sounding name of the NGO, its Geneva address, and the trappings of professionalism, together with an audience that is already predisposed to believe the worst of Israel, together creates a culture where anti-Israel "researchers" can lie with impunity and with little worry about being exposed.

The NGO itself is more than sketchy. I could not find out the sources of funding for the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, and its webpage doesn't even list the names of its founders or leaders. A press release mentions Dr. Ramy Abdu as the chairman of its board of directors, and he is also the head of the Council for European Palestinian Relations, which exists purely to pressure Europe to pressure Israel. The Twitter account of Euro-Mid says explicitly that the purpose of this report is to kick off an international campaign against Israel.

In any sane world, finding out that an NGO is purposefully fabricating its data should be enough to get it disbanded, to get its donors to cut off all funding, and to force the leaders to answer for their lies. But we don't live in a sane world.. Anti-Israel NGOs will continue to proliferate and attract attention with lying reports that convince those who want to be convinced.

(h/t Al Gharqad and CHA)

EU-funded NGO glorifies terrorism on TV

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Two teenage hosts on the Palestinian Authority TV program for youth Speak Up, which is co-produced with the Palestinian NGO PYALARA, chose to read aloud a poem that glorified plane hijackings and threatened Israel and the United States:

“People of Israel, don’t get caught up in arrogance,
the hands of the clock will surely come round...
Expect us always, expect us where least expected.
We’re in every airport, and in every ticket.
We emerge in Rome and in Zurich from under the rock…
Our men arrive without warning, with the fury of thunder and the pounding of rain.
They come in the Prophet’s robe and with Omar’s sword (Muslim conqueror).
Remember, always remember that America, important as it is, is not Allah the Almighty and Omnipotent, and that America with all its strength will not stop the birds from flying.
A small rifle in the hand of a small boy can kill the big one.”
The mention of Rome and Zurich in the poem is a reference to hijackings by PLO/PFLP terrorists. In July 1968, El Al Flight 426 from Rome was hijacked. In February 1969, terrorists attempted to hijack El Al Flight 432 before taking off from Zurich.

PYALARA, the co-producer of this program, is funded by NDC. NDC's international donors include: the European Union, the World Bank, the French government’s Agence Française de Développement, a donor consortium of Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, the Islamic Development Bank, the United Palestinian Appeal, and the Palestinian private organization the Welfare Association. [NDC website, accessed Dec. 20, 2012]
PYALARA is also funded by the Swedish Olof Palme International Center.

Earlier this year I exposed real anti-semitism in PYALARA's youth magazine.

"New Israel Fund" tries, and fails, to defend its grantees demonizing Israel

Im Tirtzu wrote an open letter to the new head of the New Israel Fund, which funds anti-Israel NGOs:

Dear Mr. Lurie:

We write to ask a simple question: Do you stand by the latest accusations NIF-funded groups are making against Israel?

After Operation Cast Lead in 2009, groups funded by the NIF led a campaign that sought to portray Israel as a war criminal and human rights violator. That campaign culminated in the Goldstone Report, a ruthlessly biased attack on Israel that cited NIF groups hundreds of times. Even Judge Goldstone himself has disowned it.

Now, in the weeks after the latest conflict in Gaza, NIF groups are once again making misleading and unfounded accusations against the IDF.

B’tselem, Adalah, Gisha, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel are claiming that the IDF targeted journalists and civilians, violated international law, and is perpetrating “collective punishment,” a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

In the weeks leading up to Israel’s response, as terrorist rockets forced thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters, none of these groups criticized the attacks or stood up for Israel’s right – its human right, and its right under international law – to defend itself.

Despite this troubling record, we hold out hope for your leadership as the new president of the New Israel Fund. We ask that you hold the groups you fund responsible for the veracity of their accusations, and that you demand just as much accountability from them as they do from the IDF.

And if you do not stand by their latest false accusations, Israelis deserve to know: What will you do to reform the New Israel Fund?

Sincerely,

Im Tirtzu

The Zionist Student Movement

The NIF response is astonishing (not yet online):

In today’s “open letter” to the New Israel Fund chair, the Im Tirtzu organization uses allegation, misrepresentation and outright falsehood to make their case.

* Many fewer civilian lives were lost during Operation Pillar of Defense than in Cast Lead four years ago. This is partially because the Israel Defense Forces, publicly and to its credit, used reports from human rights organizations to improve its operational procedures to better avoid civilian casualties.

The work of NIF-supported human rights organizations saved lives.

The percentage of civilians killed compared to militants in Pillar of Defense is roughly the same as for Cast Lead, about 1 to 1.

Anyone who has read the IDF responses to Goldstone would know that the processes meant to protect civilians pre-dates Cast Lead. Of course, the IDF is always looking to improve, and it looks at criticism from all corners, but the IDF goes to lengths that are literally unprecedented by any other army to minimize civilian casualties. For the NIF to take credit for this is not only obviously false, but more than a little self-serving. And its comparison of casualties in two completely different scales of conflict is knowingly deceptive.

NIF's response is false.

* For three years, Im Tirtzu has accused the Israeli human rights community of being the prime source for the Goldstone report. Repeating a lie loudly and frequently doesn’t make it so. An objective analysis proved that less than two percent of the Goldstone Report’s negative findings about the IDF during Operation Cast Lead were attributable to human rights organizations (link); the vast majority of information came from public sources in the Israeli government and military.

Im Tirtzu does not make that claim in this open letter. It says that the anti-Israel campaign from NGOs culminated in the Goldstone Report and that NIF grantees were cited extensively. Im Tirtzu's language here is mostly accurate (maybe not "hundreds of times" but well over a hundred.) NIF's response is false.

* Not one of the human rights organizations Im Tirtzu attacks accused Israel of war crimes in the recent Gaza action. One organization signed a letter asking for investigation of possible breaches of the Geneva convention by both sides in the conflict.

In Im Tirtzu's fact sheet, they document the accusations with citations:

A B’Tselem statement the day after Operation Pillar of Defense began accused Israel of targeting civilians: “As was the case four years ago [in Operation Cast Lead], Israeli officials are now using the conduct of Palestinian organizations to justify harm to Palestinian civilians….The fact that one side violates the law does not give the other side the right to violate it as well.” (HERE) Days later, B’Tselem accused Israel of targeting journalists (HERE) despite the fact that the “journalists” were well-known senior terrorists in Hamas and Islamic Jihad. (HERE) Adalah, another flagship NIF grantee – it seeks as an official position the end of Israel as a Jewish State – accused Israel of “a serious violation of the laws of war.” (HERE) Sari Bashi, the executive director of Gisha, accused Israel of “collective punishment” during the conflict. (HERE) Collective punishment is a war crime under Article 33 of the 4^th Geneva Convention. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel signed a statement claiming, without offering any specifics, “concrete evidence indicating the commission of war crimes” by Israel. The statement also blamed Israel entirely for Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and called for another Goldstone-style “investigation” of Israel at the United Nations. (HERE)

NIF's response is false.

The NIF response letter continues:

* The right to dissent is often a casualty of war. After Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s human rights community were threatened and vilified and it is now happening again. As in any conflict anywhere, it is the responsibility of human rights groups to monitor and report, and it is their right and everyone’s to offer opinions regarding the conduct of the conflict. While NIF does not necessarily agree with the positions of the many organizations we support, we staunchly defend their right to do their jobs, dissent from the majority based on their own analyses, and point out controversial issues of concern.

Here, the NIF is acknowledging that they cannot defend everything that the organizations they fund do - but they are willing to continue to fund them nonetheless! Is there any oversight? Are there any checks and balances? Are there any reviews of issues that the NIF might find problematic? Or is an organization's criticism of Israel enough to give it the benefit of the doubt?

Moreover, it is a bit hypocritical to complain about NGO's being "vilified" when that is exactly what they do to Israel, every day. The simple fact is that the NGOs must adhere to the standards they demand from the Israeli government and the IDF. Demanding that their biases, their sources of funding, their methodologies and the identity and affiliations of their researchers be exposed is simply asking them to be transparent - something that any legitimate watchdog organization should welcome. They draw conclusions about Israeli motivations using far, far less credible evidence than their detractors use to criticize them. It is when they stonewall on this vital information that we can start to wonder if they are as pure and objective as they claim to be.

Any unbiased observer must conclude that they are not - far from it. And this letter from NIF proves it.

This doesn't mean that what they do is worthless - all democracies must have checks and balances, and Israel is no exception. But when they cross the line from truth into lies, as the NIF response does, it is reasonable to question everything else about them.

It is not a small matter. While the NGOs claim that they are working to save people's lives, their work can also endanger people's lives. The debate as to where the line must be drawn between valuing some lives and endangering other lives during wartime is a valuable one, and one that the IDF does every day with or without the NIF.

Criticism is fine - but lies are not. This response shows that, apparently, the funder of these anti-Israel NGOs does not know the difference.

(h/t N.)

Scandal: Anti-Israel NGOs hide the truth for their own profit

An eye-opening article from "This Week in Palestine:"

Ala’adin from Al-Bireh used to greet new foreign arrivals to Palestine with a cheerful, “So you’re here to save my country too?” He was fond of mocking good intentions.

Still it’s fair to say that most international visitors to Palestine, particularly those in relief or activism campaigns, do so at least partly out of conscience. In Britain, and I daresay most of Europe, Palestinian liberation is widely seen as a “good” cause. While many Palestinians feel abandoned by the international community, surely Egypt has taught us not to confuse a nation’s rulers with its population.

In London, where I grew up, this conflict was a “red-line” topic. If you took the wrong position on Palestine-Israel, it was as bad as supporting the death penalty, or liking Margaret Thatcher, and you would be considered the devil incarnate. As I overheard at a Kensington dinner party: “You cannot be a good person if you think the Occupation is okay.”

...While the vast majority of ex-pats living here genuinely believe in the cause of liberation, it is far from the only reason for our mass invasion. Since the International Solidarity Movement was established in 2001, over 200 NGOs have sprung up in the West Bank and Gaza. Their presence is proof of how favourable Palestinian conditions have become.

“Palestine is the best-kept secret in the aid industry,” I am told by Emily Williams, an American project manager at a medical NGO. “People need field experience and Palestine sounds cool and dangerous because it can be described as a war zone, but in reality it’s quite safe and has all the comforts that internationals want. Quality of life here is so much higher than somewhere like Afghanistan, but we don’t tell anyone so that we are not replaced or reassigned.”

That quality of life is becoming rapidly more apparent in the “A” areas. In cities like Ramallah and Nablus, expensive restaurants and high-powered financial institutions are common now. Nightlife and entertainment is expanding to cater for international tastes.

At times these tastes sit uneasily with local values. More than once I’ve heard the fear voiced that our influence will damage the traditions of Palestinian society. Most internationals at least attempt to be culturally sensitive, but our differences can be striking. I can only imagine how West Bankers feel to see us breezing over to Jerusalem or even Tel Aviv, but these trips have an allure to visitors from the West, who can be somewhere more like home just half an hour away. In my experience, these guilty pleasures are also popular among young Palestinians with the necessary ID.

It is no coincidence that a rise in the number of international visitors here coincides with economic downturn in the West and a shrinking jobs market. With the proliferation of NGOs, the degrees that were just paper back home entitle us to prominent positions in growth industries.

For media professionals, there is a wealth of material to be uncovered here, along with the experience of working on such a major issue. Palestine has been a reliable source of news stories since the conflict began, and it receives forensic, albeit often misguided, analysis across the world. For Western students, Arabic language skills are becoming increasingly desirable and many English universities now arrange placements in exchange for volunteer work. Throw in a warmer climate, Palestine’s natural wonders and holy sites, lower crime rates, and a preposterously welcoming host population, and it’s little wonder that Bi’lin resembles a model United Nations on a Friday morning.

Here we see the truth. Being "pro-Palestinian" (which means, of course, anti-Israel) is trendy and cool. Going there establishes one as a daredevil, willing to risk one's life. Thousands of young, faux-humanitarians go there to find a use for their useless degrees, and get paid by hundreds of NGOs that pop up to accommodate them, who can always be counted upon to raise all the money needed to keep the Palestinian Arab NGO industry going. But these same Israel haters will happily travel to Tel Aviv to enjoy the comforts of home.

And the NGOs, flush with cash from Westerners who feel that this is the holiest cause on Earth, dutifully churn out reports about how horrible the conditions are, as they live it up in this "war zone." Those reports, filled with lies and exaggerations, are used to raise more money so that these fake adventurers can continue to live it up.

Money that could be used to actually help people in need is instead diverted to help young people live it up and write anti-Israel reports.

This article raises the curtain, only a little, on an entire industry dedicated to demonizing Israel.

It is an entire financial and social ecosystem where everyone knows they are part of a game but they do not want to let the world in on the truth, because it would risk them losing their comfort, stature and prestige - not to mention their salaries. They raise money by claiming life in the territories is terrible and dangerous while they happily flock to live there because it is so safe and comfortable.

It is a scandal - but the only people who can expose it are the ones who are profiting from it, so it remains a dirty little secret.

(h/t Anne)