BERLIN – A joint statement on Gilad Schalit from 12 human rights NGOs, which
appeared on the website of the New York-based Human Rights Watch last week, has
sparked criticism from US and Israeli groups for omitting a demand for the
soldier’s release from Hamas captivity.
Schalit was abducted by the
terrorist organization in 2006.
RELATED:Editorial: Expose NGOs - democratically Panel to vote on limiting foreign funding of NGOs The groups, including Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, issued a statement on the fifth
anniversary of Schalit’s captivity headlined “Hamas: Human Beings are not
Bargaining Chips,” in which they called on the Islamist group to “immediately
end the cruel and inhuman treatment of Gilad Schalit. Until he is released, they
must enable him to communicate with his family and should grant him access to
the International Committee of the Red Cross.” He has not had such access since
his capture outside the Gaza Strip.
The other signatories to the
statement were Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights; Gisha – Legal Center for
Freedom of Movement; International Federation for Human Rights; Palestinian
Center for Human Rights Gaza; Physicians for Human Rights – Israel; Public
Committee Against Torture in Israel; Rabbis for Human Rights; The Association
for Civil Rights in Israel: and Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human
Rights.
“We have not called for his release,” Minky Worden, a spokeswoman
for Human Rights Watch, confirmed to
The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
“We
have repeatedly deplored the treatment of Sgt. Schalit as being in violation of
IHL [International humanitarian law] and have called on Hamas authorities in
Gaza to immediately end his cruel and inhuman treatment.”
Susanna Flood,
spokeswoman for the London-based Amnesty International organization, wrote to
the
Post, “We have not been able to call directly for Gilad Schalit’s release
because he was a soldier on active duty when he was captured by Palestinian
armed groups in June 2006. Amnesty International bases its position on
international humanitarian law, and thus our position is that we do not call for
the release of captured combatants, but rather for them to be treated humanely
and accorded their rights as prisoners of war under the Third Geneva
Convention.”
She continued, “Although neither the Hamas de facto
administration nor the armed groups holding Gilad Schalit are parties to this
convention, Amnesty International has been campaigning publicly and privately
for them to ensure that Gilad Schalit is accorded these rights and treated as a
POW (rather than a hostage). This means he should be allowed to communicate with
his family, held in humane and dignified conditions, and given immediate access
to the ICRC, as we reiterated last week.”
Noah Pollak, executive director
of the Washington-based Emergency Committee for Israel, wrote to the
Post saying
“a dozen self-described human rights groups released a joint statement
legitimizing Hamas’s imprisonment of Gilad Schalit.
“Astonishingly, PCHR
[the Palestinian Center for Human Rights] claims that Schalit was captured
inside Gaza, and therefore is a prisoner of war. This is a lie meant to
justify his imprisonment.
“So let’s not mince words: B’Tselem, HRW and
Amnesty, in signing the joint statement, give credence to that lie, and they
demonstrate their willingness to ignore international law when it suits their
political goals. This is shameful – and it shows once again that the human
rights community may be more accurately called an anti-Israel community,”
Pollak said.
Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of the Jerusalem-based
human rights watchdog organization NGO Monitor, told the
Post on Tuesday that
Schalit’s imprisonment “is a human rights tragedy that should galvanize the
hundreds of NGOs that claim to protect those rights for all people, regardless
of religion, ethnicity, race or gender. Instead, these political advocacy
NGOs devote resources to promote the Goldstone Report and other elements of the
delegitimization campaign against Israel. Their intense lobbying efforts in this
area vastly overshadow any efforts made on behalf of Schalit.”
Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman from B’Tselem, told the
Post that
”the organization's consistent position for the past five years has
been that Gilad Schalit must be immediately and unconditionally
released.”
She noted that on B'Tselem's website, “The organizations take a variety
of positions on the issue. Some call for the immediate release of
Schalit, while others support a prisoner swap. Some of the organizations
have not made any statements until today. It is therefore particularly
significant that the organizations have united around a joint message.“
Yet on the website of HRW, the statement about diverse positions concerning Schalit's release does not appear.
Michaeli added, “This is not the first time that self-appointed Israeli
government apologists have attempted to smear B’Tselem through cynically
manipulating the unbearable suffering of Gilad Schalit and his family
and it will probably not be the last. Nonetheless, B’Tselem is steadfast
in its position and has communicated it to the Schalit family.”