PHR-I and the BBC - Politics, Human Rights, and the NGO “Halo Effect”
On August 3, 2008, the BBC World Service led its news programs with a story based on allegations from an NGO known as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I). PHR-I alleged that Israeli security services recruited Palestinian medical patients who receive care in Israeli hospitals to become informants against terror groups. This was the BBC’s second item immediately after the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and thus apparantly far more worthy than the other burning events of the day.
Once again, unproven accusations against Israel, stripped of context, were made by obscure NGOs (the BBC, like other news groups, apparently did not know that PHR-I is an independent organization, and not part of the international PHR framework) and placed at the top of the news ladder. This is the power of the “halo effect”, which protects NGOs that claim lofty goals (particularly if they condemn Israel) from any independent verification by journalists, diplomats and often, and academic researchers.
There are numerous problems with this report that should have given the BBC and other journalists pause, beginning with the questions of credibility and context. Human rights claims are a central part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and have accompanied Palestinian terrorism and Israeli responses for many years. In 2000, the al Dura incident was widely reported as a deliberate Israeli attack against at a 12 year old, based on claims by a single Palestinian cameraman, and is now generally seen as having been staged. Similarly, after the infamous Durban conference adopted the NGO strategy of demonization, the false claims of a “massacre” at Jenin in 2002 were spread by prominent NGOs, and broadcast, without question, by the media, starting with the BBC.
Similarly, in this publication, the “evidence” is entirely based on unverifiable claims, primarily from 11 interviewees from Gaza who allegedly asked Israel for permission to cross from the territory controlled by Hamas for medical care. Some of these Palestinians may have genuine medical needs, but others may be inventing stories that sell well in an environment that is inherently hostile to Israel. PHR-I has issued press releases declaring a Palestinian to be dead after Israel refused to allow him to cross the border, but he turned out to be alive. And in NGO reports on Palestinian suffering, Gazans who claimed to have been denied permission to study at universities in the United States were exposed as imposters. Unless the evidence can be checked be independently verified, it should be treated with the same skepticism used by professional journalists regarding other self-serving stories.
In addition, neither the BBC nor most of the other media reports on this story stated that PHR-I is a radical political organization that uses medical and other human rights claims to promote this agenda. As detailed NGO Monitor analyses show, PHR-I, officials, who are funded by misguided European governments, frequently use the rhetoric of demonization, addressing conferences that refer to Israel as a “racist” and “apartheid” state. Rochama Marton, who founded and heads this NGO, participated in Israel Apartheid week on the SOAS campus in London on February 11, 2008. In 2002, during the height of the Palestinian mass-terror attacks, PHR-I distributed a highly offensive cartoon booklet, including images that were considered by many to be antisemitic. In response to these and other activities, the Israel Medical Association (IMA) accused PHR-I of politicization and Dr. Yoram Belsher protested that this NGO had politicized its activities at the expense of providing medical services. (NGO Monitors detailed analysis of PHR-Is activities can be found at http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/physicians_for_human_rights_israel_)
And then there is the missing context - for PHR-I, like most politicized NGOs that use human rights claims as a weapon, there is no Palestinian terrorism, no threat to Israeli lives, and no rocket attacks from Gaza. The state of the health care after what is blithely termed the “Hamas takeover in the Gaza Strip in June 2007″ - actually a violent coup in which some Palestinians threw others off buildings - is entirely the responsibility of the Hamas leadership. Israel is under no obligation to allow Palestinians, including those fleeing further Hamas attacks, to enter its territory.
At the same time, the Israeli government has the central duty to protect the most basic human rights of its citizens - the right to life - in a very violent environment characterized by suicide bombers and mass terror. If PHR-I were a real human rights organization, rather than a political group, and if its funders (see list below) which share responsibility for this exploitation of morality, they would also consider the rights of Israelis.
Gerald M. Steinberg
Executive Director, NGO Monitor
PHR-I’S funders consist of a number of anti-Israel European church groups and government “aid” agencies including: Christian Aid, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands, Evengelische Entwicklungsdienst (Germany), HEKS-EPER (Switzerland) the Ford Israel Fund (USA), Diakonia (Sweden), Medico International Germany,
Medico International Switzerland, and the Sabina Ross-Slater Peace Fund
FYI, a letter I sent yesterday when I could not contain my outrage. W.B.
My name is Dr. William Bilek. I am an American/Canadian physician. I am NOT
a citizen of Israel. I, and my children, are not on the front lines, and my
children will not have to go to the army to protect the lives of Israel’s
population, including the members of PHR.
I am shocked and dismayed at the one-sided approach taken by PHR-Israel in
favor of the Arab and Palestinian effort to eradicate the Jewish state, and
exterminate its population, (including the members of PHR-Israel). The
arguments put forward by your spokespeople, such as Naomi Mark, have no
basis in law, are factually and historically incorrect; and are, almost
verbatim, repetitive of the propaganda put out by such as Hizbullah, Hamas,
and Iran. There is nothing in international law, in the Hippocratic Oath, in
Ethics, or in Torah, that requires physicians to provide assistance to those
desirous of killing them. The patient who claims he is going blind may know
exactly where Schalit is being held for the last 2 years. Why should we not
“encourage” him to trade his knowledge of Schalit’s whereabouts for his
vision? Why not trade the information of the whereabouts of huge rocket
storage sites - rockets that will be aimed to kill civilians in Sderot,
Ashkelon, and Ashdod, for a pacemaker check? Do we, as physicians, owe life
and health to those who are actively and violently denying the same to us?
I feel that I have the right to speak out, because I believe that the future
of the entire Jewish people rests upon the survival of Israel. Israel is in
a battle for its existence - a battle not of its making or choosing; a
battle which it risks losing; a battle which it cannot, must not, lose. This
war forced on Israel by terrorists who target innocent women and children is
not being fought by armies, according to the Geneva Conventions, but by the
Judeophobic man in the street. And these terrorists are being supported by
the world’s autocracies, theocracies, and dictators. And now, facilitated by
organizations such as yours, democracies that have no affinity for Jews or
the Jewish state, feel safe in are coming on board as well, citing
anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism, as their objection to the mistake that was,
and is, Israel.
You may disagree with your government’s policies. You may, and should, work
to democratically elect a government which supports your views. However, in
a time of war, with survival hanging in the balance, I believe that your
actions fully satisfy the definition of the word “treason.”
-Synonyms 1. Treason, sedition mean disloyalty or treachery to one’s country
or its government. Treason is any attempt to overthrow the government or
impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance; the crime of
giving aid or comfort to the enemies of one’s government.
It is past time that your organization look again at the harm that it is
causing the country, its people, and world Jewry.
William Bilek, M.D.
Gentlemen:
what other country would even offer medical assistance to their enemy. :offer work supply water and electricity. . Rome when they were attacking Israel 1500 years ago surrounded the city and did not allow any food as to starve the citizens ..
The Germans took all the food and medical supplies for their troops and gave the prisoners soup made with rotten potatoes or cabbages or what scraps that was left over from another meal.
Read to stories of the survivors
Why are you not writing about the abuses that Hamas are doing to Fatah Members beating’s torture cutting hands and feet. beatings and killing of innocent.Why did about 200 run to Israel for protection . I didn’t see any thing in your reports that Israel took the wounded in to their hospitals and gave them medical attention . I didn’t hear the cry that they were chased by Hamas Why