January 1st, 2009 by NGO Monitor Staff | Category: EU, Human Rights, NGO Monitor, NGOs

Following the pattern in previous conflicts, a number of NGOs immediately issued condemnations of Israel following the IDF response to increasing deadly rocket attacks from Gaza. Many of these statements reflect bias and double standards, which ignore or give little attention to Israeli human rights and casualties, and do not mention Hamas’ use of human shields.

[For NGO Monitor's comprehensive report on NGO responses to the Gaza conflict, click here. This page will be updated daily to monitor developments and NGO influence on the course of the conflict.]

Some initial examples:

• Oxfam charges that “Israeli leaders . . . commit massive and disproportionate violence against Gazan civilians in violation of international law”, and repeat the standard claim of “humanitarian catastrophe if Gaza is attacked“.
• Gisha and others exploit legal terminology, including terms such as “war crimes”, collective punishment”, “indiscriminate attacks”, and parrot the PLO “legal” opinion of 2005 , which claims that Israel still “occupies” Gaza, and is responsible for the welfare of the residents there.
• Many NGOs use the fighting in Gaza to repeat calls for boycotts and sanctions as part of the Durban strategy. Miftah and Ittijah make claims of an Israeli “massacre”, invoking the successful strategy used in 2002 in Jenin.
• Many NGOs including Amnesty, PHR-I and PCHR, make unsupported factual claims, particularly on Palestinian casualty numbers.
• Amnesty (and others’) claim that “civilians in Gaza are in increasingly dire need of food” is not supported by IDF reports that “the World Food Program …will not be resuming shipment of food commodities in to Gaza due to the fact that their warehouses are at full capacity.”

See also Gerald M. Steinberg, “Can Israel win the ’soft power’ war in Gaza?”

Gerald Steinberg,

Jerusalem Post, December 28, 2008

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Extract from the report:

Following Israel’s military response to Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza, a number of human rights and humanitarian NGOs (some which receive EU and NIF funding) issued statements that completely distort the operation in order to condemn Israel. Many denounce the air strikes as “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” — claims which warp the basics of international law and ignore Hamas’ report that over 180 of the approximately 200 people killed in the first wave on 27 December were not civilians. This demonization is characteristic of statements from Oxfam, Al Haq, Ittijah, PHR-I, PCHR, Miftah (an EU-funded NGO that invoked the Jenin strategy by charging Israel with committing a “massacre”) ICAHD, and the Alternative Information Center (AIC).

Other NGOs, including Amnesty and B’tselem, and to lesser degree, Oxfam, reflect at least a semblance of balance, by equating Palestinian attacks with Israel’s response, and calling for a cessation of “all violence”.  But this comparison erases Hamas’ deliberate targeting of civilians and Israel’s careful use of intelligence and weapons to avoid civilian casualties. As in past examples, NGO statements are generally based on unreliable, unverifiable “research”, and distorted claims from international law.

These reports are similar to NGO campaigns in the 2006 Lebanon war, which involved daily condemnations of “indiscriminate attacks” and “war crimes” and influenced the course of the war.  The latest statements build on previous reports that amplified Hamas’ propaganda claims, including rhetoric of “collective punishment,” “humanitarian disaster” and Israel preventing Fulbright students from leaving

Gaza.  Human Rights Watch, which was very active in condemning Israel in 2006 and previous violence, did not issue a statement in the first three days of the

Gaza operation.

Many of these NGOs are funded by European governments, the European Commission or the New Israel Fund. 

Common themes in the NGO statements include:

1. False or unsupported factual claims, particularly on Palestinian casualty numbers. In the past, NGOs have been key conduits of disinformation by Israel’s enemies.  For example, they promoted the false allegations of a “massacre” in Jenin in 2002; in the 2006 Lebanon war, HRW played a central role in spreading the false claims of a Qana “massacre”; and in the Al Dura case.
2. Military claims for which they have no expertise, and which go beyond their mandates, such as claims that Israeli targets were purely civilian (PHR-I and MAP) or did not have military value (Amnesty).
3. Bias and double standards, which ignore or give little attention to Israeli human rights and casualties, and do not mention Hamas’ use of human shields,
4. Exploitation of legal claims, including terms such as “war crimes,” “collective punishment,” “indiscriminate attacks.” NGOs also continue to assert the PLO “legal” opinion circulated shortly prior to Israel’s disengagement, that Israel still occupies Gaza, and is responsible for the welfare of the residents there.
5. Calls for boycotts and sanctions as part of the Durban strategy.