As olive harvest begins, settlers flood Palestinian trees with sewage

I mean, how hard is it to just look them up and read about them? B'Tselem is a prominent organization, there's no shortage of information and opinions out there on them from both sides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27Tselem

Historian Mordechai Bar-On writes that B'Tselem's reports "frequently included ugly accounts of the behavior of Israeli security officials" and that Israelis "were often disturbed by these reports." At the same time, the Israeli media viewed the organization as "a reliable source of information" and their reports were in most cases proven to be accurate. Israeli military authorities also frequently turned to B'tselem to confirm the IDF's own information.[54] Critics of B'tselem, including the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and Caroline B. Glick, have challenged the accuracy of its reports, arguing that B'tselem has at times classified Arab combatants and terrorists as civilian casualties.[55][56][57][58] B'tselem has issued rebuttals to its critics.[59][60][61]

In 2011, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for a parliamentary investigation of B'Tselem and other human rights organizations. These groups, he said, "are clearly not concerned with human rights. They spread lies, they slander and incite against the state of Israel and against Israeli soldiers... Clearly these organizations are abetting terrorism and their only objective is to undermine Israel," he said in a speech to fellow members of his right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel our home") party.[7]

In 2015, the Israeli NGO Regavim disagreed with B'tselem on a question of fact. B'tselem had said that 14 families were left homeless after the IDF demolished a number shacks in the West Bank near the settlement of Maale Adumim. Ragavim contended that nobody lived the structures in question.[62]

A response from the IDF from 1992 to a particular B'Tselem report on the activities of military undercover units remarked that "a large portion of the incidents cited are attributed to vague, anonymous sources - often rumors or stories gleaned from the press." The IDF letter added that B'Tselem's report "ignores the prevailing situation in the area, in which armed, hard-core terrorists, who do not adhere to any code of law, have engaged in terror attacks." At the same time, the IDF letter also acknowledged wrongdoing by military forces. In an incident that B'Tselem reported on at Idna, the IDF commented that a police investigation "found that an officer and several soldiers were apparently negligent in performing their duties and acted in an illegal manner." The IDF said it could not comment on some of the other cases from the B'Tselem report due to ongoing legal proceedings.[63]

Some opponents of the organization have grudgingly expressed admiration for B'Tselem's research. Gerald Steinberg said that "B'Tselem really does have a credible research capability, and even among serious critics like me who disagree with B’Tselem’s political agenda, their research ability is acknowledged."[64]

The IDF has also expressed gratitude to the organization for publishing information about the military's wrongdoing, including information that led, in July 2010, to indictments of a number of soldiers. The IDF's top lawyer at the time General Avichai Mendelblit "voiced his gratitude to the human rights organization B’Tselem, thanking the organization for testimonies its activists passed on to the IDF and for assisting in coordinating the questioning of Palestinian eyewitnesses at the Erez crossing."[64]

In response to a speech given by El-Ad to the United Nations Security Council urging the international community to take action against Israeli settlements,[65] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he will work to ban national service volunteers from working in B'Tselem.[66] The United States government said it was "troubled" by attacks by government officials on B'Tselem with State Department spokesman John Kirby saying that the U.S. "believe(s) that a free and unfettered civil society is a critical component of democracy... it is important that governments protect the freedoms of expression, and create an atmosphere where all voices can be heard."

/r/worldnews Thread Parent Link - mondoweiss.net