Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Are the Foxes Monitoring the Hen-Houses? NGO's with Political & Ideological Agendas

It is often assumed that Human Rights NGOs represent the gold standard of impartiality and neutrality, that there only interest is in furthering the rights of the downtrodden and oppressed throughout the world. International NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have small on-the-ground teams operating in local areas like the West Bank and Gaza, but the unspoken truth is that most of their information is actually gathered from local NGOs who very often only emphasize and advocate for one side of a conflict.
"Using their enormous power and influence, NGOs are able to impose narrow perceptions and ideologies on the international diplomatic and journalistic communities, particular with respect to their interpretations of international law. Instead of the conflict resolution process that humanitarian relief NGOs claim to be supplying, they often become parties to the disputes, and actually exacerbate tensions and violence."
See the monitor of the "monitors," NGO Monitor's report to the United Nations, detailing the problems associated with reliance on highly politicized NGOs which claim to promote universal human rights, but instead all too often advance biased political agendas based on very distorted narratives. Their report to the UN Committee CERD at link below.
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http://tinyurl.com/3x6zdx
On February 22 and 23, 2007, the UN Committee (CERD) charged with monitoring the International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination held its periodic review session on Israel.
Many politicized NGOs operating in the Arab-Israeli conflict submitted statements to CERD, including Adalah, ICAHD, BADIL, Ittijah, Al Mezan, Al Haq, and Amnesty International. For the first time, however, NGO Monitor also submitted a statement to theCommittee, which was accepted as evidence ( www.ngo-monitor.org ). NGO Monitor's report details the problems associated with reliance on politicized NGOs which claim to promote universal human rights, but instead, advance biased political agendas based on a highly distorted narrative.
The submission also analyzes many of the NGO statements to the UN, highlighting their lack of credibility. Instead of promoting racial equality and non-discrimination, these statements merely heighten the conflict by utilizing inflammatory rhetoric which demonizes Israel; stripping away the context of mass terror; and promoting false historical claims.
see also
State Department Report Parrots Biased NGOs - Yaakov Lappin (Ynet News) A recent report released by the U.S. State Department which contains criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinian security prisoners merely parrots allegations made by biased non-governmental organizations (NGOs), an Israeli monitoring organization said. "NGOs such as Adallah, Moussawa, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and B'tselem (all of which receive funding from European governments) provide the bulk of the 'evidence' for the discussions on Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement in this report," said Professor Gerald Steinberg. "However, as NGO Monitor analyses have shown, these groups distort the facts and systematically erase the context of terror in order to promote their political goals."

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