Amnesty: Siege on Gaza gravest humanitarian crisis yet

While Israel marks lowest number of casualties caused by terror attacks in 2007 since beginning of second intifada, Amnesty International reports 370 Palestinians killed in territories, deems siege imposed by Israel on Gaza 'unprecedented'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3548730,00.html

<snip>

"Amnesty International has released its 60th annual report, and the picture it paints is not a cheerful one, especially where Israel is concerned. The organization has called the situation in Gaza "the gravest humanitarian crisis to date", though it condemned the rocket fire from the Strip.

The report states that over 370 Palestinians were killed by IDF fire, of which half were civilians and 50 were children. Thousands were injured during the attacks, which were launched in retaliation to Qassam rocket fire and the shooting at Israeli settlements and IDF checkpoints near Gaza by Palestinian gunmen.

Aside from the killing of civilians and the destruction of over 100 Palestinian homes, the report states that "in June, the Israeli government imposed an unprecedented blockade on the Gaza Strip, virtually imprisoning its entire 1.5 million people population, subjecting them to collective punishment and causing the gravest humanitarian crisis to date."

The report further stated that "more than 550 Israeli military checkpoints and blockades restricted or prevented the movement of Palestinians between towns and villages in the West Bank," and that "40 Palestinians died after being refused passage out of Gaza for urgent medical treatment not available in local hospitals."

Illegal construction in the settlements was also cited, as well as the construction of the separation fence, which detached many Palestinians from their lands and families.

It went on to say that "thousands of Palestinians were arrested, most of whom were released without charge. Those charged with security-related offences often received unfair trials before military courts." Those convicted were often held in Israeli prisons contrary to humanitarian laws, and were often subjected to abuse and torture."

The report makes not mention, as far as I can find, of Israel either "eploiting foreigners" or "subverting the general right to freedom of employment" (what does that even mean, anyway?).

"The gravest humanitarian to date"?

What a joke.

Amnesty should look around the globe to see that there are humanitarian disasters of far, far greater proportion.

Just last week, in Myanmar, for example.

Or Darfur, or the greater Sudan.

I could go on and on.

It isn't a picnic in Gaza, but blame Hamas for caring more about killing Israelis than taking care of its people.

This article is a crock of shit.

not that the crisis in Gaza is the worst humanitarian crisis ANYWHERE to date, but that it's the worst that it's yet been IN GAZA.

One could argue even about this (what about when Israel actually bombed Gaza, or when Hamas and Fatah were killing each other on a large scale?); but it's different from it being the worst anywhere ever.

Let's note that they have observed abuses on all sides; e.g.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17497

read numerous studies on how Amnesty International has an anti Israel bias.

There's no singling out of Israel. Perhaps you should question the sources of those 'studies'.

I'm a member of AI and I support them because their only bias is one I share and that's a bias against human rights violations no matter what country is carrying them out. I've seen these 'numerous studies' pop up in this forum in the past and they're nothing but the rantings of extremely biased morons who have a problem with AI because it is critical of Israel, but ignore that AI is critical of the Palestinian leadership, militant groups, and beyond the conflict, critical of any country that commits human rights violations. Their issue with AI is that while they have no problem with AI being critical of any other country, to be critical of Israel is to be *biased* and *anti-Israel*. The annual report got some headlines here today because it was critical of the previous govt's introduction of legislation that circumvented anti-racial laws in order to intervene in indigenous communities, and has been critical of mandatory detention of asylum seekers for many years. Guess that makes AI anti-Australian, hey?

Why on earth would anyone take those 'studies' seriously?

snip
However, the Jerusalem-based organization NGO Monitor said the context of the Palestinian campaign of terror against Israel was absent in the report.

"The report states that 'suicide bombings and shooting attacks almost ceased,' implying a fall in the occurrence of these human rights violations. This absurdly ignores the frequent attacks thwarted by Israeli forces, using checkpoints - which are condemned by Amnesty - and other means," the group said in a statement.

NGO Monitor analyzed Amnesty's Middle East coverage in 2007 and said that the report presented a "gross distortion of the conflict, selectively report events to remove the context of terrorism and ignore human rights issues not related to its political agenda, while repeating un-sourced and anecdotal claims."

In 2007, Amnesty singled out Israel for more condemnation than Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Lebanon and Algeria, and more items were published on Israel than on Hamas, Hizbullah and the PA combined, NGO Monitor said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211872832611&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Given yr views on bias, why is it that you take what a bunch like that say seriously?

state that is untrue?

Bias works both ways you know.

Like many extremely biased groups they operate using omissions and half-truths. Not only have they thrown the same crap at AI year after year, but their major target is Human Rights Watch. I'll post an entire article I found coz the guy who wrote it said it so much better than I could...

Monitoring The Monitor

One of the more active sideshows of our time is the tangle of new organizations devoted to uncovering and broadcasting what they see as “the truth.” Now that the Internet has radically simplified the work and lowered the cost of getting such messages out, it seems a wonder that there’s room in cyberspace for all the information that each day brings.

But there’s the rub: It’s not the quantity that’s the problem, it’s the nature of what passes for “information.” How are we to distinguish between information and noise? How can we tell when an organization’s ideological agenda colors its presentation?

What brings this to mind just now is an unfolding assault on Human Rights Watch, which is widely regarded and respected, along with Amnesty International USA, as the premier human rights agency in the United States. Its reports are carefully researched and, often to the embarrassment of governments, widely reported.

So, for example, its recent 53-page report on the “rendition” of some 60 alleged Islamist terrorists, sent to Egypt where (contrary to our president’s bland assessment) even our State Department indicates they are virtually certain to be tortured. Other Human Rights Watch reports in recent weeks have focused on Darfur; on America’s treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and on the state of human rights in Peru, in Nepal, in Iraq and in Vietnam.

These reports, frequently of conditions that would otherwise pass unnoticed, are produced by a staff of nearly 200 people in 15 offices around the world with an annual budget just short of $22 million.

It comes as no surprise that Human Rights Watch also speaks out on Israel, often (though not always) critically. Enter NGO Monitor, an organization that believes that the best way to defend Israel is to condemn anyone who criticizes it.

NGO Monitor operates out of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Institute for Contemporary Affairs. Its editor is Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and its stated purpose is “to end the practice used by certain self-declared ‘humanitarian NGOs’ of exploiting the label ‘universal human rights values’ to promote politically and ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas.”

It is in that context that it has paid special attention to Human Rights Watch, offering on its Web site more reports on Human Rights Watch than on any other of the 75 NGOs it seeks to “out.” It holds that Human Rights Watch exploits “the rhetoric of universal human rights to promote narrow political and ideological preferences,” thereby falling squarely within the explicit scope of NGO Monitor’s interest.

I cannot here review all of what NGO Monitor claims as evidence for its harsh view that Human Rights Watch acts “in concert with international demonization of Israel.” But here are two items that provide an indication of the “narrow political and ideological preferences” of NGO Monitor itself:

On April 18, NGO Monitor issued a “draft report on Human Rights Watch” which claims that an “objective quantitative analysis” shows that Human Rights Watch places an “extreme emphasis on critical assessments of Israel.” I have reviewed the draft document and checked its central claim against the actual documents Human Rights Watch has produced regarding Israel since the year 2000. The discrepancy between NGO Monitor’s claims and Human Rights Watch’s record is massive.

Human Rights Watch has in fact devoted more attention to each of five other nations in the region — Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey and Iran — than to Israel. I called this to Steinberg’s attention on May 3, and he responded that NGO Monitor would “examine and respond” to the discrepancies. Since then, I have received 27 emails from Steinberg; not one has in any way responded to this matter. Yet the draft report remains online, unamended.

On June 30, Israel’s Supreme Court issued a much-publicized ruling on the “separation fence.” The heart of the ruling was that “the route which the military commander established for the security fence… injures the local inhabitants in a severe and acute way, while violating their rights under humanitarian international law” and that the fence must therefore be relocated.

But if you were to read the NGO Monitor’s summary of the ruling, you would never know this. You would, instead, read all the court’s reasons for declaring that Israel has the right to build a fence to protect its citizens — and none of the language that explains the court’s view that the location of the fence is an unacceptable “infringement on the local inhabitants’ rights and interests.”

Now NGO Monitor is on a public campaign to establish a mechanism, as Steinberg puts it, “to watch the watchers” — that is, to provide external controls over the actions of NGOs in general and of Human Rights Watch in particular. It also urges that NGO hiring and other practices be “transparent.”

Here, again, my repeated requests for an explanation of just how hiring practices might be rendered transparent, and why board oversight and donor response are inadequate as safeguards, have gone unanswered.

Human Rights Watch is not beyond criticism; no NGO is. And all NGOs — NGO Monitor not less than Human Rights Watch — have an agenda. It is entirely appropriate for outsiders to enquire, to judge whether an NGO’s claimed agenda is honestly stated and honestly pursued.

NGO Monitor is not exempt from the kind of scrutiny it proposes for Human Rights Watch and others; its claim that Human Rights Watch “promotes narrow political and ideological preferences” while its own hands are clean and its motives pure is vacuous.

Let it, as it wishes, “watch the watcher” — but let it, in turn, be watched.

http://www.forward.com/articles/monitoring-the-monitor/

everybody, every group and every organizaton touts it's own agenda these days, makes it difficult to discern the facts.

As I've said before 'the truth is out there, somewhere'.

Thanks for the input.

they do have a point in this case - while "successful" (i.e., inflicted casualties) attacks have gone down, their are still a lot of attempted attacks, rather than attacks "almost ceasing" as the report states.

sad because most Jews are liberals and democrats.

It might suck to see what happens at this election as a result of what is going on.

Did you mean to respond to another comment?

What does Amnesty's observations of worldwide human rights abuses have to do with what happens in the next election?

That one we see is the one that sits between the 'Hamas are morons and Palestinians are whiny cry-babys!!!!' shortcut and the 'Amnesty International is soooo anti-Israel!!! shortcut. While most of the shortcuts are interchangable and make no sense wherever they appear, in this case it appears to have been a case of the wrong pre-written shortcut button being hit...