Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Comparing the Stories between AFP and Arutzsheva

In order for people to really see the whole picture, you have to hear both sides. So I figured that I would post the same story. One by extreme left AFP and another by extreme right Arutzsheva. AFP first:

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli military has failed to investigate its forces for killing dozens of Palestinian civilians in recent years, spawning a climate of impunity, a human rights group said on Tuesday.
"Soldiers who kill Palestinians in the occupied territories are almost never held accountable, even if the circumstances raise a grave suspicion that they acted criminally," the Israeli group B'Tselem said.
"This policy permits soldiers and officers to act in violation of the law, encourages a trigger-happy attitude and shows a flagrant disregard for human life," it added.
B'Tselem said that from 2006 to 2009 the military had opened investigations into just 23 of 148 cases submitted by the group. The cases concern the killing of 288 civilians.
Another 41 of the cases were dismissed, while the military has yet to issue any decision on the remaining 84. No criminal charges have been brought in any of the cases, B'Tselem said.
During the period in question Israeli troops killed 1,510 Palestinians, including 617 civilians, the group said.
The figures do not include the December 2008 to January 2009 war in Gaza, in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed.
 (Read the whole thing here.)
Now Arutzsheva:
B'tselem, a group that specializes in accusing the IDF of abusing Arabs, published a report Tuesday that rehashes accusations it has made in the past, just in time for the start of 'peace' talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The B'tselem report accuses the IDF of failing to investigate most of the alleged cases of abuse that B'tselem has filed complaints about.

In a reaction to the report, the IDF pointed out that most of the cases it details were already enumerated in a High Court motion filed earlier in the year by B'tselem, a motion which the IDF has responded to and is awaiting a judicial decision.
B'tselem is funded by the New Israel Fund, which is a strategic partner of the Ford Foundation.
The report was widely quoted in the Israeli and Arab press, and by news outlets in Iran, the US, Britain and the rest of the world. It adorned news pages alongside reports about the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, presumably playing into the hands of the PA, which demands Israel cease the “occupation” of Judea and Samaria.
"Most of the subjects and the claims raised in the B'tselem report are currently pending in the High Court, in a motion the group has filed on this subject,” the IDF Spokesman said. “The state has filed a comprehensive response to these claims as part of its reply to the motion and it seems the organization would do well to await a High Court decision.”
Arutz Sheva went over the list of individual cases enumerated by B'tselem and found that in some of them, the investigation is ongoing and B'tselem was made aware of this, and in others the IDF has indeed looked into B'tselem's accusations and found them to be unsubstantiated.

(Read the entire article here.)

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