April 1, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Several major aid and human-rights groups are under fire for a report they published on the dire conditions of Palestinians.
In the report, The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Care International, and other charities said that Israel’s blockade has ruined the area’s economy and health-care system. They gave as an example the plight of Munir, a Gaza resident with thyroid cancer.
“Munir has not been able to access chemotherapy for months, as he cannot get a permit to cross into Israel or Jordan,” the report says.
But at the time the report was published on March 6, Munir had been able to travel to get medical assistance.
The groups gave an update on their Web sites to explain the discrepancy with Munir’s condition.
“The good news is that thanks to high-level Jordanian intervention he did reach Jordan for the treatment he desperately needs. This came to light after the report had been finalized and circulated, and a matter of hours before its publishing time,” the groups write.
“Yet the fact remains that Munir’s crucial cancer treatment was delayed for six months, during which time his cancer spread from his thyroid to other parts of his body, and his mental and physical health deteriorated. We remain convinced that Munir’s story is a good example of how lack of access to vital medical treatment is affecting ordinary people’s lives,” they write.
Despite this, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, a professor of political science who raised questions about Munir’s situation, writes the report shows aid organizations’ occasional anti-Israeli views. “It is important to take the main NGOs to task when — as they frequently do — they issue biased and incorrect findings,” he writes in the Jewish Chronicle, a newspaper in London.
In his opinion article, Mr. Pinto-Duschinsky, who heads the research committee on political finance for the International Political Science Association, in Montreal, adds that these charities often do play an important role pointing out how Israel damages Palestinian society and that some critics of them are biased towards Israel.
For example, he writes that NGO Monitor, a watchdog group set up to examine the viewpoints of nonprofit organizations that work on the Arab-Israeli conflict, is associated with conservative politicians in Israel.
“Though some of its criticisms of Oxfam, Amnesty, etc., are valid, NGO Monitor is as guilty as its target organizations in presenting unsubstantiated conclusions and promoting a political agenda under guise of discussing humanitarian issues,” he writes.
On its blog, NGO Monitor’s executive director, Gerald M. Steinberg, writes that the professor is wrong and has made “false and foolish assertions.”
What do you think? Does the Gaza report show a pro-Palestinian bias in the humanitarian aid groups? Similarly, does NGO Monitor offer a pro-Israeli bias? Click on the “comment” link below to share your thoughts.
