Showing posts with label HRW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HRW. Show all posts

Thursday, November 23, 2023

  • Thursday, November 23, 2023
  • Elder of Ziyon
This is the text of the farewell letter written by Danielle Haas, senior editor at Human Rights Watch, It confirms everything we've been saying for years about its obsessive anti-Israel bias.

Dear Human Rights Watch,

Because we live in dangerous times and this is a human rights organization dedicated to free speech, open dialogue, and rights for all, I’m sending a final email before leaving HRW. I’m hopeful, but wary, that an organization with a mission to “Expose. Investigate. Change” can do just that when it comes to its own practices regarding its Israel work, with authenticity and without retaliation.

When I joined Human Rights Watch over 13 years ago as senior editor, I did so with years of experience in journalism covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and time in academia.

Human Rights Watch seemed to be a good blend of both; a leading human rights organization dedicated to rigorous research, focused on international law and human suffering, with a mandate to bring about change. I believed in, and stayed for, the broader mission.

But as the organization grew and its composition shifted, so too did the focus, tone, and framing of its Israel-Palestine work. Following the Hamas massacres in Israel on October 7, years of institutional creep culminated in organizational responses that shattered professionalism, abandoned principles of accuracy and fairness, and surrendered its duty to stand for the human rights of all.

HRW’s initial reactions to the Hamas attacks failed to condemn outright the murder, torture, and kidnapping of Israeli men, women, and children. They included the “context” of “apartheid” and “occupation” before blood was even dry on bedroom walls. These responses were not, as some have since characterized it internally, a messaging misstep in the tumult after the Hamas assault. It was not the failure of a few to follow robust internal mechanisms of editing and quality control, as others have claimed.

It did not happen in a vacuum.

Rather, HRW’s initial response was the fruition of years of politicization of its Israel-Palestine work that has frequently violated basic editorial standards related to rigor, balance, and collegiality when it comes to Israel.

It was the expression of years of select historical and political framing that could always contextualize and “explain” why Jewish Israeli lives were lost in Palestinian violence.

And it was the domination of HRW’s Israel-Palestine work by some voices that drown out others to the point where those who feel uncomfortable with HRW’s approach and processes – and they do exist – feel silenced.

To be clear: focus on, and criticism of, Israeli policies and actions is valid for a human rights organization.

But what I know from over 13 years at HRW is:

* Israel has featured in the World Report annual global review of human rights I oversaw for more than a decade almost as extensively as world powers including China, Russia, and the United States, and that the Israel-Palestine chapter has always been longer than those of rights-abusing goliaths such as Iran and North Korea.

* The 2021 “Apartheid” report, hailed internally in its goal to affect “narrative change,” sealed the slide. HRW knew its careful, legal argument would rarely be read in full. And there is little doubt it has not been by those – including Hamas supporters – who now bandy about the term with appalling ease. It’s a one-word gift to those who want to characterize Israel in as few words as possible with as little nuance as possible, a go-to “context” for any fate that befalls Israel and Jewish Israelis; 120 HRW researchers recently signed a petition calling for its inclusion in a press release about Israeli hostages.

* Internal fora nominally dedicated to both Israel and Palestine were, in practice, mostly dedicated to expressions of outrage over Israeli abuses and their consequences, both real and speculated. The focus on Israel dominated those spaces both before and after October 7, including the links shared; the space given to colleagues to articulate their lived realities and trauma; and ultimately advocacy.

* Some types of Israeli-Palestine expertise were valued more than others. There was no value placed on having a Jewish Israeli staff member who spoke Hebrew, had covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for international media, a rich academic background, and 17 years’ immersion in the country. The profile of those entrusted with HRW’s-related work is different. The only contact I had with Israel-Palestine content over the years, despite working on virtually every other area of the world, was as World Report editor. I received thinly veiled insinuations and pushback when I highlighted factual inaccuracies in the Israel-Palestine chapter that were later corrected.

* HRW has so little credibility for most Israelis they do not even trust it with their corpses. Zaka, the emergency responder group that collected body parts after the Hamas massacres, said it did not want to talk to HRW because its members did not have faith the organization would not misuse and distort their eyewitness accounts of the carnage they had seen.

* When I named the constellation of my experiences over years to a senior manager as feeling a lot like antisemitism, he replied: “You are probably right.” He did not ask or do anything further.

Three weeks after the October 7 massacres, Human Rights Watch told staff it was “proud” of its response to the crisis.

The self-affirmation failed to address output that included, but is not limited to:

HRW’s first matter-of-fact announcement following the October 7 massacres that barely addressed what had happened, contrasting starkly with its thousands of statements over the years condemning a range of human rights abuses:

“Palestinian armed groups carried out a deadly assault on October 7, 2023, that killed several hundred Israeli civilians and led to Israeli counterstrikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians,” Human Rights Watch said in releasing a questions and answers document about the international humanitarian law standards governing the current hostilities.”

An early press release that could easily be construed as blaming the victim:

“The unlawful attacks and systematic repression that have mired the region for decades will continue, so long as human rights and accountability are disregarded.”

A piece on Israeli attacks on Gaza being devastating for Palestinians with disabilities that failed to mention the devastating impact of Hamas’ attacks on Israelis with disabilities. They included those murdered on October 7, among them a 17-year-old girl with muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy killed at a music festival; those who are now disabled because of the attacks; and Israeli hostages with pre-existing health conditions ranging from heart problems to diabetes.

Lack of context when using controversial figures that came from a Hamas-run ministry:

“[Washington Post] Reporter Adam Taylor quoted Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch Omar Shakir, who said, “Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable. In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”

It is not logical, not possible, and not the case that everyone at HRW agrees with its pre- and post-October 7 Israel work or feels safe. Instead, it is a deeply worrying indication that staff are self-censoring because they fear isolation if they speak and that nothing will be done even if they do. It is a warning that they are cowed by the way in which critics of Human Rights Watch are talked about internally, and by the tone and content of banter before and during meetings, in listservs, and in message chats.

Maybe they’re also not reassured by responses like the one senior management sent me regarding a recent email I sent them, in which they said they “appreciate” my “feedback” and “learn” from it.

I hope so, but I doubt it.

The serious professional concerns I raised over the years with the Program Office, General Counsel, and MENA managers never went anywhere. They were always received – it appeared – through a filter of me being a Jew and/or Israeli, even though Muslim and Arab staff and those with overt political backgrounds are trusted as advocates and to oversee research.

Also, my comments are not “feedback.”

Rather, they amount to a charge and a challenge to Human Rights Watch: tackle the long-standing issues infecting your Israel work and the hostile internal climate that Hamas’ attacks brought into sharp relief but did not birth. Face down the conscious and unconscious biases that inform them. Address inaccuracies by omission.

Do so not because you are under pressure to be seen to be listening, but because you respect the professionalism and expertise of your many thoughtful, serious colleagues from diverse backgrounds who cannot do their work without fear of stigma and retaliation if they speak.

Do so because you care about the health of the organization, upholding your internal standards, and ensuring human rights advocacy is not a fig leaf for political beliefs, or worse.

Do so because you want not just to claim your mantle of moral authority, but to earn it.

Dani    
Here is a screenshot of Haas' former bio at HRW.







Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, October 02, 2023

It's been a few weeks since I last posted my latest graphics....

















Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, September 03, 2023



The Hamas website says:

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has hailed the position of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese condemning the flagrant Israeli violations against the Palestinian people, especially the collective punishment policy.

Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanoa called on the international community and UN and human rights organisations to put this condemnation into action and to take practical steps towards holding the Israeli occupation leaders accountable for their crimes and violations against the Palestinian people.
Now, there is a ringing endorsement!

Oh, and Hamas is also a fan of a Belgian minister who accused Israel of "wiping entire Palestinian villages off the map." And in the past it has loved Human Rights Watch and Amnesty reports. 

Terror groups have lots of allies in the West, none of whom ever seem to want to dissociate themselves from them.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

This morning, the Palestinian Authority clashed with terror groups in Tulkarm, leaving one person dead.

The specifics are disputed depending on whether one is reading  PA-affiliated or terror-affiliated media.


The Political Commissioner General and the official spokesperson for the security establishment, Major General Talal Dweikat, said today, Wednesday, that the security services removed dangerous materials and barriers from inside the Tulkarem camp.

Dweikat added, in a telephone conversation with WAFA, that the Palestinian security forces had received several complaints from institutions and individuals in Tulkarm governorate, about the presence of dangerous materials and barriers in front of children's schools and on the roads inside the Tulkarm camp. Accordingly, the security services moved and removed them, to prevent any risks that might arise. about its existence.

He pointed out that after the security force finished its mission, some armed youths opened fire in front of the governorate building, which necessitated the intervention of the security forces to take the necessary measures and measures to control the security situation and prevent any manifestations that threaten civil peace in Tulkarm governorate.

"Dangerous materials" appears to be a euphemism for explosives - IEDs that terrorists bury in the road, that are meant to slow down Israeli forces when they conduct arrests and raids. We already know that these IEDs are a danger to children - even the UN reluctantly admits this. (Update: Other media confirm explosives near schools.)

 It appears that the PA, perhaps for the first time and ahead of the beginning of the school year, decided that IEDs and iron barriers in front of schools is already a step too far when it puts children at risk. 

And the terrorists were not happy about their hard work of risking the lives of their neighbors to be able to possibly damage an Israeli vehicle being removed, so they naturally started shooting at the PA forces.

Hamas media says that the PA used bulldozers to remove the barricades. 

One person died - the accounts differ as of this writing but it appears that the gunmen killed an innocent bystander while shooting at the PA forces. Terror media says the PA killed the man. 

.This video shows some of the tear gas, and apparently one older man - a father of a "martyr" so he may have been one of the protesters - was injured.

Will "human rights groups" side with the terrorists in this case? The PA did what Israel does - employed bulldozers and shot tear gas to quell a violent demonstration, and possibly used live fire. NGOs usually adopt the narrative that the PA is almost as bloodthirsty as the IDF.

On the other hand it is hard for them to say that the PA should allow IEDs and barricades to be placed in the middle of public areas and near schools. Amnesty and HRW have never, to my knowledge, berated the local armed groups for putting their own people at risk, and they are loathe to start a new complicating narrative that might indirectly exonerate the IDF for its own similar raids. 

So chances are that they will remain silent, and the dead Palestinian bystander will not be mentioned at all. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, August 28, 2023

Human Rights Watch issued a new front-page press release today to attack its favorite target, Israel:

The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability.

Last year, 2022, was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels. Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank as of August 22. Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023.
We've seen this approach before. HRW describes scores of potential Israeli crimes, but chooses to "investigate" only a small number of them. 

By sheer coincidence, the ones they are "investigating" are the ones that seem the most likely to be innocent victims. 

In other words, HRW knows quite well that the vast majority of "children" killed by Israeli forces are legal combatants - teens who are acting as spotters, or hurling firebombs or IEDs, or even shooting weapons themselves. The majority are child soldiers. They are recruited by terror groups, violating accepted international law.

But HRW doesn't want to say anything bad about Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Their reports are meant to be anti-Israel, so they cherry-pick the specific incidents that seem to imply Israeli malfeasance.

Yet even in this constricted, biased choice of trying to stack the deck against Israel, they rely on lies and don't tell you the whole story.

Their "star" is Mahmoud al-Sadi, 17, who "according to witnesses" was hundreds of meters from any fighting when he was shot and he wasn't holding any weapons. 

To emphasize his alleged innocence, HRW gives a photo montage of al-Sadi being a teenage boy.


They missed this one:


Does it make sense that well-trained soldiers would shoot hundreds of meters away from the fighting for no reason? HRW seems to think so, but Palestinian witnesses are notoriously unreliable (even according to NGOs) and they will say what their leaders want them to say. Very few ever admit that the "innocent child" is not so innocent. 

Other cases that HRW think are a slam dunk are anything but. Even the NGO admits that they were all involved in active fighting.

In the other cases investigated, the security forces killed boys after they had joined other youths confronting Israeli forces with stones, Molotov cocktails, or fireworks. While these projectiles can seriously injure or kill, in these cases, Israeli forces fired repeatedly at chest-level, hitting multiple children, and killed children in situations where they do not appear to have been posing a threat of grievous injury or death, which is the standard for the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers under international norms. That would make these killings unlawful.
HRW admits that the "children" were actively engaged in fighting. 

HRW claims that Israel must adhere to the standards of "law enforcement" in these situations, when the "criminals" are heavily armed fighters whose aim is to destroy Israel. It is true that the line isn't clear between what is legally considered a law enforcement situation and what is governed by the laws of armed conflict (LOAC) but to breezily decide that these situations where armored vehicles and scores of soldiers are needed is "law enforcement" is, at the very least, an oversimplification.

The ICRC says "An armed conflict arises whenever there is fighting between States or protracted armed violence between government authorities and organized armed groups or just between organized armed groups."

Sure sounds more like an armed conflict than a law enforcement operation, especially since Islamic Jihad and Hamas have been bragging that they really control, organize and fund these seemingly local armed groups.

Of course, if the laws of armed conflict apply, then any fighter - no matter what age - is a legitimate target. So HRW doesn't want you to even consider that possibility.

But let's look at the innocent children HRW lists:

Here is video from a proud relative (starting at 0:12) showing Wadia Abu Ramuz shooting fireworks at Israeli troops. 


Mohammed al-Sleem, 17, was a member of the Al Aqsa Brigades and also shot incendiary devices at soldiers. 

We've previously discussed Adam Ayyad, 15. He went into battle intending to die and left a "will" in his pocket saying how happy he was to be about to be martyred.  He was a member of the PFLP and buried wearing a PFLP flag.


These aren't innocent children by any definition. But HRW is trying to hide the truth.

Moreover, the number of children who are admitted members of armed groups prove that there is a real human rights concern here - that of recruiting child soldiers - and HRW has, as far as I can tell, not once said a word against the PFLP, Hamas or Islamic Jihad for that reprehensible practice of using children as bait meant to be killed. 

HRW's dishonesty is clear to all, and they are playing their role to put a respectable face on modern antisemitism to the hilt. and even when they clearly know that dozens of the children killed were members of armed groups, they don't say a word of condemnation.

That's only for Israel. 

(h/t Adin Haykin)





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, August 15, 2023



Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened Israel on Monday evening in an address marking the 17th anniversary of the 2006 Lebanon war.

During the speech, he said that Hezbollah needed "a few precision missiles" to destroy a list of targets in Israel that included civilian airports, electricity generation and distribution stations, water distribution, main communication centers, infrastructure, oil and gasoline refineries, ammonia depots and the Dimona nuclear reactor.

His mention of the ammonia plants echo a 2016 threat he made where he said that a rocket strike on Haifa's ammonia storage tanks would cause tens of thousands of deaths. “This would be exactly as a nuclear bomb, and we can say that Lebanon today has a nuclear bomb, seeing as any rocket that might hit these tanks is capable of creating a nuclear bomb effect,” Nasrallah said then.

Think about this for a moment. A person who has some 150,000 missiles,  including thousands of precision missiles, and who answers to Iran, is directly threatening to attack Israeli civilians and civilian infrastructure and murdering tens of thousands. His threats check all the boxes of what terrorism is. 

Yet (as of  this writing)  there has not been a word of condemnation from human rights groups over a direct, credible threat to millions of Israeli civilians. And when Nasrallah threatened Haifa with tens of thousands of casualties in 2016, neither Human Rights Watch nor Amnesty International even mentioned it in their press releases. 

Their interest in human rights always ends when the humans are Jewish. 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, August 14, 2023



On Friday, UNRWA issued a situation report on the Lebanese Ein el-Hilweh camp where there had been fierce fighting at the start of the month. 

While the media has largely lost interest as the cease fire took hold, the camp is still largely controlled by terror groups:

 Reports indicate that armed fighters are allegedly still deployed in some areas and continue to be intermittently present in UNRWA schools in the northern schools compound, along with the nearby UNRWA camp services office – a serious violation of the neutrality of UNRWA installations. The reported presence of fighters in areas around the school compound has prevented UNRWA staff from accessing these installations. Reports indicate that the ongoing presence of armed fighters in some areas is also preventing the return of some residents to their homes.  
At a Thursday press conference,  Director of UNRWA affairs in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus added more information, saying that between 200-400 houses were completely destroyed. A UNRWA school complex for over 3,000 children had been “violated"  and other schools and a health center were also damaged.

She noted that “it is s not safe for any UN personnel to access (some) areas currently, we’re also not having clearance from the Lebanese military to go inside those areas on the Lebanese military being in control of access to the Ein El-Hilweh camp.”

Far more houses were destroyed by the fighters in Ein el Hilweh than were destroyed by Israel in Gaza in May - but unlike for Gaza, there are no news articles about these destroyed homes with interviews of distraught homeless Palestinians. 


If they cared so much about the welfare of Palestinians, then why haven't they condemned the fighting and ongoing militant control of large swaths of the camp?

This is again more proof that human rights is not what drives obsessive NGO and media coverage of Israeli actions, but old fashioned antisemitism.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 




Here's an interesting coincidence.


An estimate made by Abu Lughod indicated that the average number of indigenous Palestinians was about 420,000 in the West Bank and about 80,000 in the Gaza Strip by the end of 1948.   
Schools and virtually every shop were closed in this city {Gaza City], where 420,000 people live. 

Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 2007:

Estimates of IDPs in Israel vary widely. There is no government or United Nations estimate. Sources for estimates are accademics, Palestinian NGOs and Israeli papers. The lowest estimate is 150,000 and the highest is 420,000, which includes the children and grandchildren of Arab villagers displaced in 1948, as well as Bedouin communities displaced later on.    

Israel’s differential treatment in law, regulations, and administrative practice directly affect the roughly 490,000 Jewish settlers and 420,000 Palestinians in areas under its exclusive control in the West Bank (including in Area C and East Jerusalem). 

The 420,000 Palestinians who currently reside in East Jerusalem possess permanent residency ID cards and are treated as foreign immigrants by the Israeli government.     (The article predicted that Israel would take away the residency permits of all those Palestinians, a prediction that, like all of them, never came close to being true.)
What’s Behind The ‘Disappearance’ Of 420,000 Palestinians In Lebanon? 

WASH Cluster, State of Palestine, 2020:

 WEST BANK: 482,509 of people suffering limited access to water; 420,000 persons consume less than 50 l/c/d.

OpenDemocracy, April 2020:

 Palestinians in East Jerusalem: living under a deadly virus and a violent occupation: "There is inescapable and particular on-going acute anxiety about the future of these 420,000 Palestinians."  

World Food Programme, August 2020:

In support of the MoSD’s response plan, which estimated that 70,000 families (420,000 people) have been affected by the spike in COVID-19 in Gaza...

UNRWA, 2021:

UNRWA is a lifeline to nearly 420,000 of the most vulnerable Palestine refugees in Syria.   

Jeff Halper in Arena, June 2021:

 Of the 150,000 Palestinians who remained in the country, the war displaced 30,000 to 40,000. Not allowed to return to their homes (which were either demolished or turned over to Jewish Israelis) and wanting to remain sumud (steadfast) near their lands, this population of internally displaced Palestinians has today grown to 420,000.   

Middle East Monitor, July 2022:

 The Nakba resulted in 750,000 Palestinians being driven from their homes; the 1967 Naksa saw another 420,000 forced to leave.

Since the attack, Israeli forces have imposed a continuing blockade on the area around Nablus, restricting the movement of about 420,000 Palestinians, including patients, elderly people and children, who must wait for hours before being able to cross.  
“This year, actually over, since the beginning of my mandate [May 1, 2022], I have borne witness to a series of deeply distressing events. 420,000 Palestinians, including 91 children, and 56 Israelis, including five children, have been killed. ”
(She later walked this back, saying the number was 426.)

That's 14 separate times, in different contexts, that "expert" quoted a figure of 420,000 Palestinians. 

I am not saying this is a conspiracy or anything like that. It is just a very strange coincidence for that number to pop up in such disparate ways.

420,000 seems like a more realistic, solid estimate than "400,000" or "450,000." 

(h/t Irene)




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, July 12, 2023




PCHR reported on July 3 that Israeli forces shot Ali Hani Al-Ghoul in the chest, killing him. It admitted that he was a member of an armed group and said he was 20 years old.

Later, the Israel/Palestine Timeline site said that al-Ghoul was shot in the head, and that he was 17 years old.


His mother brought back some of her memories with her little Ali, which she will never forget; She says, "About two years ago, Ali used to come home at night, with his clothes dusty and his eyes red, and he was suffering from severe pain, which was caused by the explosive materials he was using."

"Ali was one of the resistance fighters who made explosive devices in the Jenin camp from primitive materials, but their impact was great and effective by damaging many Israeli military vehicles," according to his mother, who expressed her pride in what her son did and what his friends say about his actions that are beyond his age.
That means that Ali al-Ghoul had been building bombs since he was 15 years old.

Now, the Jenin Brigades division of Islamic Jihad have issued a video celebrating Al-Ghoul's "martyrdom" - showing him building IEDs together with other children. 



It doesn't show anyone else's faces, but you can see that the hands that are stuffing explosive powder into IEDs are not those of full grown adults. 

Jenin's bomb-makers are children.

Ali's mother continues: “Before Ali left the house, he carried a sack full of explosive devices on his shoulder, and later he planted them in the streets and alleys of Jenin camp with the help of his friends, who confirmed that Ali participated with them in a confrontation with the occupation from zero distance."

Palestinian terror groups recruit children to build bombs.

They encourage kids to turn their homes into bomb depots.

They instruct children to plant these bombs in the roads of Jenin where they can kill not only the children but anyone who happens to come by.

And they freely and proudly admit this.

This is not just child abuse: this is systemic and widespread child abuse that is a source of pride to Palestinians.

Now listen to the silence from UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Council, Defense for Children-International, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.  






Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Call the police!



Last week,  the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned the Jenin operation, saying that some of the methods and weapons used “are more generally associated with the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict, rather than law enforcement."

“The use of airstrikes is inconsistent with rules applicable to the conduct of law enforcement operations. In a context of occupation, the deaths resulting from such airstrikes may also amount to willful killings,” he said.

What Turk is saying, and what many "human rights" NGOs believe, is that an belligerent occupier must adhere strictly to human rights law which means that any activity done must be police-type law enforcement operations. 

Nations at war, on the other hand, must adhere to international humanitarian law (IHL), which govern wars. The Geneva Conventions are the source for much of IHL.

Turk is wrong. When Israel faces an armed militant group, it not only can but should apply the laws of war. It is absurd to pretend that police actions are adequate to maintain the peace when an armed group has taken over a town. When there are civilians protesting, that calls for law enforcement; when there are heavily armed militants with machine guns and IEDs, that calls for the army and the laws of armed conflict.

The line between the two is not so clear. This was recognized in a 45-page article published in the International Review of the Red Cross in 2012, "Use of force during occupation: law enforcement and conduct of hostilities."

Once it becomes evident that the threat is emanating from a member of an organized armed group or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities, such as by means of a vehicle-borne IED, then the conduct of hostilities framework would apply at law. In that situation, the use of force is not limited by law enforcement, although such norms would continue to govern the use of force against civilians who are not direct participants in hostilities. ... [T]he force permitted, at law, to counter an IED or suicide bomb by members of organized armed groups or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities is governed by conduct of hostilities norms. For example, the soldier may be aware from information provided by aerial surveillance, human intelligence, other observation posts and checkpoints, or perhaps even the observation of certain tactics and procedures, that an attack is about to take place. That soldier does not have to wait until the attack is imminent, or the attacker is physically in close proximity and ready to set off explosives, before taking action to remove the threat. In addressing that threat, the soldier can use force governed by conduct of hostilities norms.
In reality, the situation in Jenin is even more tilted towards actual warfare because there is a law enforcement vacuum there. The PA police aren't going into Jenin. If Israel is the legal occupier, then it would be obligated to have forces in Jenin 24/7 - because law enforcement is the responsibility of the occupier!

Obviously, none of the people who insist that Israel is occupying Jenin want to see Israeli police or soldiers opening up police stations there and maintaining order for the civilian citizens. But if Israel is the occupier, that is exactly what Israel is obligated to do!

Which proves that Jenin, and Area A altogether, is not occupied under international law. It is a town with a law enforcement vacuum. By the time Israeli forces must enter, it has turned into a full blown military conflict with armed militias "defending" no one but themselves. 

Even with this, Israel attempts to apply law enforcement paradigms as much as possible when going into towns are trying to arrest militants. This puts Israeli troops and police at extra risk. 

I wrote a satirical thread, somewhat exaggerating the position of "human rights" groups that try to apply a strict law enforcement paradigm to Israel in the territories:

Here is how Amnesty and HRW insist that Israel go after terrorists:

1. Best to not do anything. They are probably innocent and it should be handled by the PA.

2. If absolutely necessary to stop an imminent act of resistance that will definitely kill Israeli civilians,  do not enter the town with force. This scares some children and could damage roads or houses. Just send one policeman to arrest the suspect.

3. Give the suspect, and the entire town, advanced notice that Israel plans to arrest them. That way there are no surprises.

4. In the unlikely event that the suspect or other people decide to shoot or blow up the policeman, only then is he or she allowed to respond with gunfire.

5. When the suspect gives himself up voluntarily, do not frisk or handcuff him. These are painful procedures, and if the suspect is trans, it could be embarrassing, and it is a terrible thing to shame a Palestinian.

6. In the unlikely event that an entire battalion of heavily armed militants respond to the arrest by killing the Israeli policeman and dismembering him or her, send in another and try again.  Use more polite words when requesting his surrender.

7. After several rounds of this with many Israeli policemen dead, then the IDF may enter with a single unarmed Jeep. Soldiers may wear helmets. Try again until successful.

8. Under no circumstances may a bulldozer be used. Under no circumstances may drones be used. Under no circumstances may anything beyond a pistol be used. These are all prohibited as potentially hurting innocent civilians.

9. Under no circumstances may the suspect be injured or killed. He is by definition a civilian since he is not wearing a uniform. Being aggressive is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a bunch of other international laws that Amnesty has not read.

10. The assumption that a suspect is a civilian also applies to anyone who allegedly attacks Israelis in Israel itself.  They must be peacefully arrested.

I hope this clears up the NGO ruling on how Israelis may defend themselves. In short - they may not.
Luckily, real international law is not as restrictive as the fairy tale versions pushed by Amnesty, HRW and the UN. 

(Made a correction thanks to Irene)


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Thursday, July 06, 2023



More indication of how absurd the "apartheid" libel is. From Globes:

According to the Labor Market Report for 2022 released today by the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services, over a decade, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of Arab women acquiring higher education, which has translated into greater participation in the labor market.

In 2020, the report states, a quarter of Arab women aged 30-34 held academic degrees, double the proportion in 2010, when just 13% of Arab women in this age group held degrees. In the 29-31 age group, the proportion of those with degrees reached 27% in 2020.

The figures are in line with those of the Council for Higher Education in Israel, which also show a substantial rise in the number of female Arab students. The proportion of women among Arabs studying for a first degree has remained steady in recent years at about 69%, but the proportion of Arabs in the undergraduate student body as a whole has risen from 16% in 2014 to 20% today, almost the same as their proportion in Israel’s population.

There is a correlation between higher education, participation in the workforce, and level of pay for those in work. People with academic degrees are found to earn more than those without, even after control for variables such as occupation, industry, gender, ethnic group, and location. ...

The general level of participation in the workforce by Arab women, which historically has been very low in comparison with women in other sections of the population, has also risen significantly. According to the Labor Market Report, in 2014, the rate of participation in the workforce by Arab women was just 33%....By 2022, the rate of participation among Arab women jumped to 42%.
This is a direct result from increased investment by the government into the Arab sector, a story that hardly gets any coverage in world media. 

Needless to say, this is the diametric opposite of what one would expect to see in an apartheid regime. So you will never read about this in Amnesty or HRW reports, because when their lies are contradicted by facts, they try to bury the facts.

(h/t Yoel)



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Wednesday, June 07, 2023

Human Rights Watch issued a dispatch by an associate in its arms division, Susan Aboeid, "Palestinian Forum Highlights Threats of Autonomous Weapons:"

In late May, I addressed a panel on the militarization of digital spaces – specifically on how Israeli authorities use surveillance technologies to deepen systemic discrimination against Palestinians. I warned that the use of autonomy in weapons systems was a dangerous part of this trend and highlighted the urgent need for an international legal response. ...  

...Israeli authorities are also developing autonomous weapons systems. These trends, globally reflect a slide towards digital dehumanization, and in the case of Israel this means of Palestinians. ... A senior Israeli defense official said recently that authorities are looking at “the ability of platforms to strike in swarms, or of combat systems to operate independently, of data fusion and of assistance in fast decision-making, on a scale greater than we have ever seen.”

Incorporating artificial intelligence and emerging technologies into weapons systems raises a host of ethical, humanitarian, and legal concerns for all people, including Palestinians. Campaigners have called for the adoption of a treaty containing prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapons systems, which many countries, including Palestine, have joined.

Autonomous weapons systems could help automate Israel’s uses of force. These uses of force are frequently unlawful and help entrench Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians. Without new international law to subvert the dangers this technology poses, the autonomous weapon systems Israel is developing today could contribute to their proliferation worldwide and harm the most vulnerable.
That last paragraph assumes that Israel is inherently immoral and therefore any AI-assisted weapons it develops must also likely be immoral by design. 

This is the opposite of the truth.

There is no doubt that there are many potential dangers of AI. Any decision that an AI makes independently could easily be a wrong decision, and malicious actors could use AI deliberately to violate the laws of war. 

In the end, though, AI is just another tool that could be used for good or bad. HRW's assumption that Israel's use of AI would only be for violating international law shows how biased the organization is. 

Israel has been exploring AI in warfare for years. Its position mirrors that of the US, UK, Australia and others that AI could actually save lives in combat. 

Israel's position a decade ago shows that it has given far more thought about the moral implications of this issue than HRW ever did when it launched its own shallow campaign against "killer robots." At a conference on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) in 2013, the Israeli delegate made it crystal clear that Israel is only planning to use AI as a tool where a human is the one who makes all of the important decisions:

In order to ensure the legal use of a lethal autonomous weapon system, the characteristics and capabilities of each system must be adapted to the complexity of its intended environment of use. Where deemed necessary, the warfare environment could be simplified for the system by, for example, limiting the system's operation to a specific territory, during a limited timeframe, against specific types of targets, to conduct specific kinds of tasks, or other such limitations which are all set by a human, or, for example, if. _ necessary, it could. be programmed to refrain from action, or require and wait for input from human decision-makers when the legality of a specific action is unclear. Indeed, appropriate human judgment is injected throughout the various phases of development, testing, review, approval, and decision to employ a weapon system. The end goal would be for the system's capabilities to be adapted to the operational complexities that it is expected to encounter, in a manner ensuring compliance with the Laws of Armed Conflict. In this regard, LAWS are not different from many other weapon systems which do exist today, including weapons whose legal use is already regulated under the CCW.
The HRW quote above of an Israeli official mirrors this: the systems are meant to assist in decision making, not to make decisions itself.

Utterly absent in HRW's one-sided, biased screed is the potential that AI can save people's lives and enhance compliance with the laws of armed conflict:

In our view, there is even a good reason to believe that LAWS might ensure better compliance with the Laws of Armed Conflict in comparison to human soldiers. In many ways, LAWS could be more predictable than humans on the battlefield. They are not influenced by feelings of pressure, fear or vengeance, and may be capable of processing information more quickly and precisely than a person. Experience shows that whenever sophisticated and precise weapons have been employed on the battlefield, they have led to increased protection of both civilians and military. forces. Thus, Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems may serve to uphold in an improved manner, the ideals of both military necessity and humanitarian concern - the two pillars upon which the Laws of Armed Conflict rest.

Israel's history in incorporating human rights laws and protecting civilians in its development of weapons is unparalleled, with the possible exception of the US - and therefore not something that HRW wants anyone to know about.  

Self-driving cars, while not perfect, have been shown to be much less likely to be involved in fatal accidents than humans. There is no reason to assume that weapons systems would be any different. It is clear that Israel's position is to develop such systems that will minimize the dangers to innocent people, all with appropriate oversight by human experts. There are still some areas that need to be worked out, like who is responsible for mistakes made by such systems, but these issues all mirror similar issues in complex wartime environments today. 

Israel intends to use AI to minimize collateral damage, save lives and adhere to the laws of armed conflict better than humans can alone. These are positions that real human rights advocates should fully support. But because it is Israel, they instead assume that whatever the Jews invent must be to oppress Palestinian victims and they reflexively oppose it.

Which means that Human Rights Watch cares less about Palestinian lives than Israel does.

UPDATE: I coincidentally just came across an article by Marc Andreesen, legendary computer expert most responsible for creating the first popular web browsers Mosaic and Netscape, on his optimistic predictions for AI. He writes:

I even think AI is going to improve warfare, when it has to happen, by reducing wartime death rates dramatically. Every war is characterized by terrible decisions made under intense pressure and with sharply limited information by very limited human leaders. Now, military commanders and political leaders will have AI advisors that will help them make much better strategic and tactical decisions, minimizing risk, error, and unnecessary bloodshed.     
No surprise that Israel and the experts are on the same page, while HRW tries to scare everyone by referring to any smart weapons system as "killer robots."



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Mahmoud Abbas congratulated Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Tuesday, on the election of Algeria as a member of the UN Security Council.

Let's take a quick look at what life is like in Algeria today.

- A law was passed in 1962 that ensured that anyone without a Muslim grandparent couldn't be a citizen. Some 140,000 Jews had to leave, and the laws, while changed, ensure that they cannot become citizens today.


- There are credible reports of torture in prisons.

- The judiciary is not independent and effectively controlled by the president.

- There are laws that restrict women's rights.

- Men who beat women can be pardoned if the woman is pressured to marry him. 

- There are laws that criminalize many forms of speech, both in mainstream and social media. Some journalists were harassed and intimidated.

- Laws restrict activities of any religion besides Sunni Islam.

- Gays can be imprisoned under the law for homosexual acts.

- Movies and books must be approved before being allowed into the country.

- Protests in Algiers are essentially illegal.

- Black Algerians, Black migrants and non-Muslims are widely discriminated against.

So Algeria is a racist, homophobic, misogynist, apartheid dictatorship whose citizens have no freedom and limited rights. 

One reason you don't hear much about countries like Algeria in the news is because if the media and human rights groups would judge all countries with the same standards and campaign against all abuses with the same energy, criticism of Israel would be invisible in the tsunami of actual serious human rights abuses worldwide.  And they don't want to live in a world like that. 

A set at the Security Council is a very high honor. Outside of groups like UN Watch, who is protesting giving this honor to a country as contemptuous of human rights as Algeria is?

No one cares. 




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