Amnesty International Gets Amnesty on Critical Reporting

By Published On: May 24, 2007

amnesty international israel.jpe

Amnesty International’s 2007 report is in, and its findings about Israel and the Palestinians are being dutifully reported by the mainstream media. The Los Angeles Times, for example, reports today:

Israeli troops killed more than 650 Palestinians last year — half of them unarmed civilians, including about 120 children — a threefold increase from 2005, the human rights group Amnesty International said in its annual report.

The number of Israelis killed by Palestinian armed groups diminished by half last year, to 27, including 20 civilian adults and one child, the report says.

An Associated Press count differed somewhat, showing with 580 people killed on the Palestinian side and 34 on the Israeli side in 2006.

A longer, more detailed version of this article by AP’s Amy Teibel likewise ignored the serious questions about the report’s credibility as noted by NGO-Monitor. For example:

· Amnesty cite numerous figures without any sources to verify its claims.

· Amnesty falsely claims only 3 Israeli servicemen were killed in the Hezbollah cross-border raid that triggered the conflict. The true statistic is in fact eight.
· Amnesty claims Israel killed 650 Palestinians, yet makes no distinction between combatants and civilians. Nor do they provide a source for these figures. Similarly, no sources are given for the claim that 1200 people were killed in Lebanon during the war, and no differentiation is made between Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese civilians.
· Amnesty criticizes Israel’s use of cluster bombs, but fails to even mention Hezbollah’s use of Chinese made cluster bombs fired at Israel.

Why give Amnesty a pass? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile for AP to investigate, for instance, the discrepancy of 70 Palestinian casualties between AI’s figures and those of the wire service?

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