We will no longer be fig leaf for occupation, says B'Tselem | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views
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For as long as Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented human rights violations by Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has also referred complaints to the Israeli military’s internal investigative unit. But this week, the nearly three-decade old human rights organization announced it will end its cooperation with Israel’s military law enforcement system. “As of today,” executive director Hagai El-Ad wrote in an emailed statement on 25 May, “we will no longer refer complaints to this system, and we will call on the Palestinian public not to do so either.” “We will no longer aid a system that whitewashes investigations and serves as a fig leaf for the occupation.” B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military’s investigations was not confined to filing complaints with the office of the Military Advocate General. The organization also assisted investigators to speak to Palestinians and Palestinian victims and obtain documents and medical records.
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The decision to cease such work was announced alongside the publication of “The Occupation’s Fig Leaf: Israel’s Military Law Enforcement System as a Whitewash Mechanism.” The report examines the paucity of the army’s investigative efforts, that by design only probe the conduct of low-ranking soldiers. Orders are never placed under investigation, B’Tselem explains, only alleged breaches of orders. “B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement systems has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” the report states. The decision has been percolating for some time. B’Tselem first broke with its usual practice in 2014, when it refused to provide information to the military unit investigating “irregular” incidents during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that summer. Since the second intifada, B’Tselem has demanded investigations into 739 cases in which Palestinians were killed, injured, used as human shields or subjected to other abuses.
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Only 25 led to charges against soldiers. Of the rest, in nearly 75 percent of cases, investigations were either never opened or closed without further action. The outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000 marked a change in how Israel viewed the legality of soldiers killing Palestinians. Whereas before Israel would investigate every case in which a soldier killed a Palestinian, until 2011 Israel “permitted the use of force – even lethal force – against those identified as being involved in the fighting or in terror activity in certain circumstances,” as former Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit wrote in 2010.
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I've read the report, which is devastating. Not mentioned in the article was that the NGO's decision was largely driven by the fact that witnesses repeatedly suffered retaliation, leading to the decision that the few successes were outweighed by the harm to witnesses. Make no mistake: the NGO's decision to boycott the Israel military's established procedures for reporting and investigating crimes committed by Israeli mlliitary personnel against Palestinians will pack a wallop internationally. B-Tselem had lent an air of legitimacy to the IDF's procedures for investigating crimes against Palestinians committed by IDF forces. That fig leaf has now been removed.