Why you can't trust Human Rights Watch...

NGO Monitor looks at the statements of Human Rights Watch...

* In the buildup before the renewal of the conflict, HRW focused disproportionately on Gaza. 18 out of 27 HRW statements in 2008 dealing with Israel addressed Gaza, accusing Israel of “collective punishment,” "continued occupation" and contributing to a “humanitarian crisis.”

* Between December 27 and January 11, HRW released eleven statements, primarily critical of Israel, including many using the rhetoric of international law for political objectives. Since December 30, HRW’s internet site has featured emotive images of Palestinian victimization, and Sarah Leah Whitson carried HRW’s campaign to the UN (see quotes below). This mirrors HRW’s campaigning during the 2006 Lebanon War, when the NGO issued hundreds of pages of biased condemnations of Israel, many of which relied on unverifiable “eyewitnesses”, are factually inaccurate, or based on distortion of international legal terminology.

* HRW statements on Gaza repeat the slogans of previous publications, continuing to ignore the massive Hamas’ use of human shields, and claim a level of military expertise and targeting information that HRW does not possess. (See HRW on the 2006 Gaza beach incident and 2004 report “Razing Rafah.”)

* HRW's January 10 statements condemning Israel's use of white phosphorus (WP) are not supported by credible evidence and are reminders of false statements made during the 2006 Lebanon war. Media reports cite HRW's Marc Garlasco, who makes claims about "the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting WP projectiles at relatively low levels, seemingly to maximise its incendiary effect" while admitting that HRW "had no evidence that Israel was using incendiaries as weapons." [Garlasco's credibility is low following his "investigation" into the Gaza beach incident, authorship of HRW's 2004 report "Razing Rafah, and 2008 report "Flooding South Lebanon"].

* HRW statements on this issue include a short mention that the IDF has denied using WP, yet repeat the claim that "photographs by the media" depicted WP munitions, without acknowledging the IDF response that "[the M825A1 shell that was photographed] is what we call a quiet shell - it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it." In contrast, HRW relies on unnamed "researchers," a fluid definition that elsewhere in HRW's Gaza coverage includes Fares Akram (also "The Independent's reporter in Gaza"); and "media reports," which quote Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor with a radical ideology and, as shown by NGO Monitor, little credibility.

* HRW issued demands for numerous investigations of Israeli actions, and calls for prosecution for “laws-of-war violations in Gaza”, knowing that such procedures are always framed to indict Israel and erase the context of terror. HRW issued no demand to investigate the use of human shields by Hamas, or the sources of its weapons and training -- Syria and Iran.