Thursday, September 10, 2009

When meticulous means exaggerated

Helena Cobban writes about the recent casualty figures from Israel's war against Hamas released by PCHR and B'Tselem.

I dare say that when we see the final report in English from PCHR, they too will be specific about the methodology they used. I have great respect for the careful work and documentary objectivity of the PCHR, which is Palestinian and operates under extremely difficult circumstances from its downtown Gaza headquarters. I would imagine that its researchers have the opportunity to do even more meticulous fieldwork than that done by B'tselem, which is based in Jerusalem and has faced many obstacles placed by the Israeli authorities in being able to get its research teams into Gaza.

"Meticulous" is an interesting way to describe PCHR's approach. As Elder of Ziyon observed:

We've already demonstrated conclusively that literally hundreds of people that the PCHR called "civilian" casualties of Operation Cast Lead were, in fact, terrorists. (And the incredible team of t34zakat, PTWatch and Suzanne are still finding more.)

The problem is not only that PCHR was unaware of these people's affiliations. PCHR's weekly reports during Cast Lead detail a number of specific incidents that show that the organization knew quite well that the dead were terrorists - and chose to categorize them as "civilian" anyway.

"Meticulous" then, apparently means exaggerating the level of destruction caused by Israel. It isn't surprising that Cobban believes this as there seems to be no libel about Israel that is too silly for her to ignore. Cobban doesn't even seem to be bothered that the blurring of the lines between terrorist and civilian was a deliberate tactic practiced by her heroes of Hamas.

Daled Amos wonders if the funders of these groups feel that they're getting their money's worth. They certainly got their money's worth from PCHR.

Crossposted on Yourish.

1 comment:

saus said...

It is not so shocking all this meticolous work & praise that seems to flow out of Mrs. Cobban. She's on the Middle East advisory committee of Human Rights Watch ..

We all know how that 'works' these days.