Guest post by Paul Leslie
Even in countries where fundamental freedoms are protected by constitutions (which, ideally, should be as well entrenched as the US bill of rights), situations can arise, especially in times of socio-economic crisis, or of war or the threat of war, where there need to be strong defenders of these freedoms. In such a context strong and well-respected civil rights organisations can play a useful role in resisting forces which might seriously undermine the foundations of a free society.
In order for such respect to be deserved such organisations should strive to be honest and accurate in their reports and in the checking of any facts which are intended to be the basis of their public interventions– whether it concerns proposed legislation which may be dangerously illiberal or in the cases of supposed or actual abuses committed by people in authority– no less than journalists who want to be regarded as serious and reputable. Since in free and liberal democracies it is essential that individuals accused of serious crimes– not only civilians but also members of the police and armed forces– should only be deprived of their liberty when there is solid and conclusive evidence, the principle of the presumption of innocence is vitally important. Unfortunately when it comes to unfounded accusations leveled against members of the Israeli police or soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces it is not only the apparently proliferating Israel-based anti-Zionist NGOs which masquerade as human rights organisations which are following Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’s lead in showing contempt for the principle of the presumption of innocence, but also a number of established civil liberties groups with a high media profile.
In this connection see, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed on the 10th December 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations:
Article 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.)
Significant hostility towards not only the openly anti-Zionist NGOs but also formerly more worthy of respect organisations like ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel) has been generated among ordinary Israelis because of the participation by many established Israeli NGOs in the Goldstone Commission’s compilation and presentation of unverified accusations of war crimes against Israeli soldiers involved in the military campaigns of Operation Cast Lead.
These accusations have in the vast majority of cases been proved unfounded by the wealth of exculpatory evidence, systematically ignored and suppressed by the Goldstone Commission, which exists in the form of video footage, the recording of the names of “martyred” combatants on Hamas official websites, statements by Hamas officials and oral testimony including that of honest journalists like Lorenzo Cremonesi, correspondent of Corriera della Sera – without any public apology by the supposed human rights advocates whose contempt for the principle of the presumption of innocence in the case of their fellow citizens could be seen by some as putting in doubt their claim to be representing genuine human rights organisations. Instead of this, for example, B’Tselem complains about the IDF’s lack of accountability, despite the numerous examples proving the contrary. (Cases where excessive leniency seems to have been shown, for example in the punishment meted out to those who forced a child in Gaza at gunpoint to check a bag for bombs have, of course given rise to legitimate criticism, as indeed cases of excessive severity– for example, the IDF troops reprimanded for using the wrong kind of weapons in a defensive operation, when they were under fire.)
No investigation of decision-makers for Operation Cast Lead:
B’Tselem has raised serious concerns over Israel’s policy and actions in Operation Cast Lead, in which at least 759 Palestinians not taking part in hostilities were killed. Two years later, Israel has indicted soldiers in only three incidents regarding harm to the civilian population (one for killing a person, another for using a child as a human shield, and the third for stealing a credit card). The political echelon and senior military commanders have not been held accountable for their responsibility in setting the policy that led to extensive loss of life and limb and property damage during the operation. Israel reported that more than 40 investigations have been opened. Some of them were opened a year and a half after the operation ended, and the Judge Advocate General’s Office has not revealed how many have been closed.
In the same press release it is also falsely claimed that Israel’s imposition– in the face of constant attempts to smuggle into Gaza by land and sea, missiles with increasingly heavy payloads and longer ranges– of a naval blockade and the closure of its border with Gaza to try to prevent this constitutes the kind of “collective punishment” forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. Needless to say, there is no general international legal obligation for national governments to have a policy of open borders– whether their countries are enjoying peace or are in a state of war. As dishonest as B’Tselem’s methodology has become – whether in its tendency to take for granted the guilt of Israeli inhabitants of the West Bank accused of criminal actions against Palestinians because a minority of these have behaved and sometimes continue to behave with disgraceful thuggery (see the recent article by Caroline Glick) or to assume that soldiers of the IDF are routinely reckless about the lives of Palestinian civilians (see, for example the CAMERA report of the 3rd January 2007), it has from time to time acknowledged in its communiqués that Israeli citizens have also had their rights abused in terrorist attacks.
Israeli-run organizations like Gisha– an “Israeli not-for-profit organization founded in 2005– whose purported goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents,” do not even pretend to give consideration to the rights and security needs of their fellow Israelis. Insufficiently publicized is the fact that its president, Ms. Sari Bashi, was an active participant in one of the pre-Durban 2 conferences, held in the European Parliament on the 30th and 31st August 2007, where speaker after speaker– including Britain’s own secular saint Clare Short– called for punitive sanctions against Israel and supported all kinds of boycotts. The Israeli-Arab NGO Adalah, which styles itself “The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel” should also be mentioned– for a long time financially supported by the New Israel Fund, it is very much involved in the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement and was very active at 2001 World Conference against Racism (WCAR), also known as Durban I, which degenerated into an orgy of Jew-baiting and antisemitic intimidation.
