Let me ask you something, Dm. Why would international organizations be biased against Israel?? I mean really, that's your contention. If there is a critical story about Israeli military conduct, your immediate reacton is to cry foul, claiming bias, and that the media or that members of the international community are tainting the true picture.
Now before you throw another blogger up there - that I'm not going to read because it's a blogger - I want to hear from you.
Well. I am not familiar with this organisation specifically, so I can't say really. Though, during the operation the Red Cross said different things.
Amnesty has a long documented bias against Israel. So does HRW (which includes hiring people who prior were anti-israeli activists and a lot of contestable statements). A lot of time they make statements that they really have no expertise to make (like during this conflict they accused Israel of illegally using white phosphorus based on observation outside Gaza from undisclosed location). B'tselem which is basically the most quoted organisation in the West with regards to casualties numbers had been repeatedly caught on mistakes in this regard (and this didn't even happen by somebody with a intelligence clearence, but by bloggers who simply did research work by cross referencing different sources etc).
I think the problems stem from three factors. 1. A lot of these groups emply people who inherently either anti-israeli activists (many ties they are far left-wing socialists, communists etc, who harbor general anti-western sentiments, post-colonialism etc.) 2. The basic assumption for these groups many time is that war is inherently evil, and hence anybody who practuces war, even if it for justifiable reasons, is wrong and the real culprit. 3. Israel and the west are the only side that really cares what they have to
say. The other side doesn't give a damn about the human rights, rules of war etc. They only use the terminology to attack the West, but they don't believe in it and don't practice it. So, just as I gleaned from indiriverflow, they simply have no way of confronting these organisations, so, instead they focus on Israel in the hopes to return it "back on track". The problem with this approach is that they inadvertently strenghten these very poisonous organisation. They strip away the ability of a country to defend itself and they hypocritically set impossible (absolute) moral standards for conduct that no country had ever been able to follow, and that indeed would result in more deaths if they were to be followed.
P.S. I am sometimes lazy and put up blogposts because they tell exatly (or very closely what I want to say), and I don't feel like typing a lot 9especially, given the fact that I post more than a bit from my work instead of, you know, working). So, I suggest you do take the time to read what I post, even if it is a blogpost. At least, if you want to understand my position.
And one final thing, we are probably different in this -- at this point I don't see much difference between bloggers and news organisations (at least in the op-ed pages, and for
some bloggers). As I said, I'll take Lozowick's analysis over anything written in the papers any day. He both has the expertise, the skills and the knowledge (since he lives here). And he posts only about things he actually knows, unlike many newspapers that do "drive bys".
EDIT: By the way, PHR (palestinian human rights) is hardly an impartial international org. Though, it seems to enjot the "halo effect" from you
