In Interrogating Ourselves , Joseph Lelyveld (New York Times magazine, June 12, page 36) relied on the Israeli organization, B’Tselem, for information about prisoner interrogation methods used by Israel:

The combination of all these methods over prolonged periods produced a regime sometimes known as shabeh. The respected Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem contended that the combination was nothing less than torture. In 1998, in a relatively quiet period, more than two years before the start of the second intifada, B’Tselem estimated that at least 850 Palestinians and possibly more than 1,200 were being tortured annually. According to its figures, this was about 85 percent of all Palestinians in interrogation.

Later in the article, Lelyveld seemed to admit that the Israelis weren’t quite so bad:

Bassem Eid of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, which focuses on abuses in the territories under the Palestinian Authority, agreed. He said in an interview in Jericho that no one in his right mind would prefer a Palestinian jail to an Israeli one. During the first intifada, he noted, 20 Palestinians died in Israeli prisons; during the second, none did. Over the whole period, there were more deaths in detention in the jails of the Palestinian Authority than in Israeli jails.

The Times might be well advised to be wary of an organization, B’Tselem, that is so unreliable that it routinely classifies terrorists as civilians. To cite just one example – classified as a “Palestinian civilian killed by Israeli security forces” is Abd a-Salam Sadeq Hasouna from Nablus in the West Bank (see B’Tselem’s Web site). This so-called “civilian” was killed as he tried to flee Israeli forces after he used an assault rifle to murder six Israelis and wound thirty attending a wedding in Hadera, Israel (Jan. 17, 2002).

CAMERA has frequently challenged the reliability of B’Tselem’s information. Two articles are of particular interest – B’Tselem, Los Angeles Times Redefine “Civilian” (July 7, 2003) and UPDATED: “Terrorism” as Defined by the New York Times (Sept. 15, 2003).

Boston University’s NPR station, WBUR, aired a 15-minute conversation about suicide bombing – on the Here&Now broadcast of June 8 – between host Robin Young and author Robert Pape (“Dying To Win: The Strategic logic of Suicide terrorism”).

Professor Pape (Univ. of Chicago) explained that the reason for suicide bombings is mainly “the desire to drive out foreign occupiers.” The main examples cited were the U.S./Iraq and Israel/West-Bank/Gaza.

No mention was made of the reasons for the presence of Israeli troops in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Likewise, no coherent context was provided for U.S. policy in the Middle East. Moreover, there was no dissenting voice on hand.

An LA Times article (“Suicide Attacks Rising Rapidly,” Carol J. Williams, June 2, 2005)about a rising number of suicide bombings by Iraqis subsequently ran in the Boston Globe (Insurgents’ Weapon of Choice; Suicide Bombing,” June 3, 2005). The Globe, however, made a rather curious edit—creating a lengthier more awkward sentence in the process.

The original LA Times version:

…The frequency of suicide bombings here is unprecedented, exceeding that of Palestinian attacks against Israel and of other militant insurgencies, such as the Chechen rebellion in Russia…

The Boston Globe version:

The frequency of suicide bombings here is unprecedented, exceeding the practice through years of the Palestinian uprising against Israel and other militant insurgencies such as the Chechen rebellion in Russia.

It leaves one wondering why the Globe is so resistant to calling Palestinian attacks just that. Why whitewash Palestinian violence as a “practice” carried out in an “uprising”?