A new report by NGO Monitor, levels some pretty damaging accusations at the human rights organization, that has repeatedly accused and condemned Israeli military operations in Lebanon, solely on the “evidence” given by Lebanese eyewitnesses. Which according to NGO Monitor, “their (eyewitnesses) credibility and links to Hezbollah were not investigated.”
What is also damaging, is the other evidence that NGO Monitor provides:
“Extensive documentation and photographic evidence of “Hezbollah’s consistent pattern of intentionally placing its fighters and weapons among civilians,” showing that Hezbollah was “well aware of the civilian casualties that would ensue” from this activity. This contrasts with claims made by Human Rights Watch that it found “no cases” in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as human shields.”
The NGO Monitor report also takes to task the badly misinformed Amnesty International findings that for example, claimed “The victims of the Israeli bombardment were predominantly civilians”. While it’s true civilians did make up part of the casualties, NGOM found that, “650 of 1084 killed in Lebanon were Hezbollah operatives“.
Also damaging to the HRW’s credibility, is the latest report issued by the same organization concerning the supposed AIF air strike on two Lebanese ambulances during the recent war between Lebanon and Israel. For a “fact finding” mission and subsequent report, it (the HRW report) ends up creating more questions than it answers. Just who were these “experts” HRW sent to Lebanon anyway, and how did they conduct their investigations? Was any response to their questions able to pass the credibility test?
Actually, the HRW report is an effort (as well as counter effort)to stop the hemorrhaging of its credibility, thanks to the very good work done by the blogger at Zombietime.com. Also worth checking out is the extensive two part report available at Al-Hamatzav. After reading both reports, the reader (at least this reader) is left with the thought that Human Rights Watch’s reputation is now more badly damaged than this badly rusted out ambulance. *L* KGS
Update: The Finnish branch of AI promotes the canard on its website that Israel intentionally targeted the civilian infrastructure, and therefore constitutes “war crimes”. They are as much adrift as their parent organization.
