Bending the truth

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Bending the truth

Human rights group B’Tselem’s statistics are far from being trustworthy

Tamar Sternthal Published: 09.24.08, 19:42 / Israel Opinion


On Jan. 17, 2002 Abdul Salaam Sadek Hassouneh of Nablus burst into a bat mitzvah celebration
at a Hadera reception hall, shooting dead six and injuring 35 before Israeli security forces ended
the bloodbath by killing him.

But Hassouneh has another, lesser known claim to notoriety. He was the first of several
Palestinian terrorists killed while attacking Israelis to appear that year in B'Tselem's list of
"Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli security forces." He was followed by numerous other so-called Palestinian "civilians" in 2002, including Omar Mahmoud Abu Rub and Yusef Muhammad Abu Rub, killed by border police gunfire after they murdered six Israeli civilians in Beit She'an. Both attacks were claimed by Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

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Most importantly, B'Tselem's research is as shoddy and unreliable as ever.
Take for instance, the case of 11-year-old Muhammad Ali Abu al-Wafa, killed Dec. 31, 2007 in
Khan Younis. B'Tselem lists him as one of those killed by Israeli security forces, although he
actually died in Hamas-Fatah clashes, a fact undisputed by Palestinian sources such as the
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and Ma'an News Agency.

Even more shocking, perhaps, is that B'Tselem continues to blame Israeli security forces for
the Sept. 30, 2000 death of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura, despite the fact that a number of
independent investigations have definitively ruled out that possibility.

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more here...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3601691,00.html

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1. B'tselem putting Palestinian kids in danger

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221489062257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Misguided 'Shooting Back' puts Palestinian kids in danger

The first fundamental rule when working with children is their safety. They are to be protected at all costs and especially in high-risk situations. They are not pawns in the socio-political spheres of adults.
Ask Marian Wright Edelman, legendary founder of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., if she would support cameras being placed in the hands of youths to photograph criminal activity in the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation's capital, and she would probably conclude that this would be far too dangerous for the young people and their families.

In January 2007, B'Tselem launched "Shooting Back," a video advocacy project focusing on the territories.
Its project provides Palestinians, including youths, living in high-conflict areas with video cameras. Its goal is to bring the reality of life under occupation to the attention of the Israeli and international public, exposing and seeking redress for violations of human rights.

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2. Palestinians provoking settlers to react to them and get "caught" on B'tselem cameras

http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000601.html

The Danger From Within: A view from the West Bank

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.

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