Why were dubious claims made by human rights group taken at face value?
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFofra settlement 298 AJ(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Last week, the media both at home and abroad swallowed - hook, line and sinker - allegations propagated as fact by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) to the effect that on September 27, a young shepherd from Akrabeh, south of Nablus, had been shot and abducted by settlers from Gitit in the Jordan Valley.
The fact that Gitit, near Mechora, is hardly an extremist hotbed didn't serve to mitigate the instantaneous condemnation. But then both police forensic teams and the autopsy performed on 19-year-old Yihya Atta Bani-Minya revealed that not only were there no signs of the victim having been shot, death was in fact caused by his having handled an unexploded 40mm-shell.
The fact that the very dubious claims made by PCHR - which is hardly known for veracity and has glaring propagandistic ulterior motives - were so casually taken at face value even inside Israel is grave cause for concern.
For two days, leading politicians and journalists linked the shepherd's accidental death to the attack on Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell and even the Rabin assassination - without waiting for the investigators' conclusions. These unproven accusations, moreover, received considerable resonance, particularly in the electronic media, while the forensic findings weren't accorded commensurate attention.
ALACRITY to convict, regardless of the evidence, can never be justified. This is true even if it's argued that the settlers' record is far from sterling and that the PCHR version sounded believable to some. The fact that it was Gitit in the dock should have given pause, as well as the fact that cases of Jews mowing down Arabs without provocation are rare.
A more worrying aspect yet is that PCHR continues to feature the unamended story on its Web page, omitting all reference to the police probe.
PCHR, its "report" says, "utterly condemns this heinous crime and reiterates that the neglect of complaints submitted by Palestinian civilians against Israeli settlers, plus the protection provided by the Israeli Occupation Forces to the settlers, have encouraged the settlers to continue launching attacks against unarmed Palestinian civilians."
But that's not all. "According to eyewitnesses," continues the still-circulated PCHR account, "the body had been hit by about 20 bullets to the neck, chest and legs." PCHR continues to demand that "the perpetrators be brought to justice" and that "all Israeli settlers be disarmed."
Such rush to judgment, especially when garnished with falsehoods, isn't of negligible significance. It can be incendiary. Disseminating untruths can be like tossing lit matches into a tinderbox.
PERHAPS PCHR wishes to inflame passions among local Arabs and instigate vendettas for a crime-that-wasn't. The sad fact is that PCHR boasts extensive ties with Israeli academics and human rights organizations and has cosponsored the campaign to try Israeli ex-generals - including Shaul Mofaz, Moshe Ya'alon and Doron Almog - for war crimes.
More reckless yet is the role of Israelis who uncritically echo such spurious charges. We must all be wary of repeating the Halhoul calumny of 1995 in which then Meretz head Yossi Sarid contended from the Knesset podium that a "settler underground" had murdered a Halhoul Arab. Eventually it emerged that bogus "credit" for the homicide was assumed by Shin Bet agent provocateur Avishai Raviv, and that the real killers were neighboring Arabs.
When wholesale blame is attributed to entire settlements, the majority of which are comprised of law-abiding citizens, widespread alienation and growing isolation results. This alienation from their fellow Israelis breeds the very extremism which the settlers' political antagonists censure.
When whole groups are pilloried as outcasts, some among them are pushed into dark corners where pent-up steam seeks outlets, even illicit ones. It is therefore to the very real benefit of the undivided Israeli aggregate that extreme self-control be exercised and the temptation to cast complete collectives in the same offensive mold be strongly resisted.
The last thing this society needs is more polarization, more radicalization, spurred by whichever element, and for whatever reason. What we most need are cool heads and moderation, even at the price of passing up political gain.
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