Finding Amnesty at Ha'aretz

Ha'aretz dedicates a tremendous amount of space today -- half a page including a prominent four column photo -- to a puff piece on Amnesty International researcher for Israel and the Palestinian areas, Donatella Rovera. The reporter asks no challenging questions and does not contradict her many misleading statements.

Rivero, for instance, insists that some Israelis

were surprised [to learn] because they though that the wall separated Israel from the territories and they did not know that 80 percent of its route was inside the territories and in fact separated Palestinians from Palestinians.

Here, Rovera is extremely deceptive. United Nations maps and numbers confirm that the barrier adheres to the "Green Line" along about 140 km (45 percent) of the line's route. Yet, eighty percent of the barrier is nevertheless on the eastern side, because, as the UN states, due to the barrier's "meandering path into the West Bank, the length is more than twice the length of the 'Green Line' – 315 km."

Moreover, Rovera admits there are international conflicts far more devastating than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, Ha'aretz fails to follow up with the obvious question: why, then, does AI devote more energy and words to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than other conflict? (See NGO-Monitor chart above.)

Overall, Rovera dismisses critics who charge Amnesty of being anti-Israel, claiming they "base their anti-Amnesty attitude on short reports in newspapers or on TV that describe in a sentence or two the content of report that are over 80-100 pages." And thus Ha'aretz writer Aryeh Dahan allows Rovera to duck serious criticism from NGO-Monitor, which carefully reviews all of Amnesty's work on the region.

Watch for more follow up from NGO Monitor.