Love of the Land: Ken Roth vs. Israel: Another Embarrassment

Ken Roth vs. Israel: Another Embarrassment

NGO Monitor Staff
12 January '10

For Ken Roth and Human Rights Watch (HRW), the new year has begun much as the previous one ended – with exposure of another false accusation against Israel. In a vitriolic op-ed published on December 30 in the IPS’s online publication Foreign Policy in Focus, and reproduced widely, Roth accused Israel of “a campaign to undermine …. essential rules for protecting civilians caught in war.”

The article is based on falsehoods and distortions, including the allegation that MK Tzipi Livni, the former Foreign Minister and current leader of the opposition, urged Israeli forces to avoid distinguishing between combatants and civilians in the Gaza war. Roth highlighted Livni’s statement in the Knesset, “They don’t make a distinction, and neither should we” – a quote that would be quite damning, if it were accurate. But like most of Roth’s HRW’s claims regarding Israel, this one is more fiction than fact.

Had Roth and HRW’s “researchers” checked the transcript instead of again repeating distortions manufactured by the Palestinian NGO known as Al Haq (see NGO Monitor’s analysis), they might have avoided this mistake. The transcript shows that Livni was criticizing MK Ahmed Tibi’s Knesset statement for heightening tensions between Israeli Jews and Arabs. When read in context, Livni clearly was not referring to the citizens of Gaza; rather, she was encouraging Israelis to embrace a common identity in the face of indiscriminate attacks from Gaza.

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Love of the Land: Ken Roth vs. Israel: Another Embarrassment